Author Archives: slforrester

This evening, my 8yo and I began a collaboration. He came up with most of the story and characters with some light input from me (and I got to come up with the Mom character), while I wrote his ideas onto post-it notes and arranged them on my Outline templates I just made a fewContinue reading “A Mother-Son Collaboration”

Welcome to Part Two of my analysis of the characters in Neil Gaiman’s novel, Stardust. In Part One, I introduced the four chief characters of the first two chapters. For Part Two, I will be hopping through the book more, as I take a closer look at three brothers: The sons of the Lord ofContinue reading “Neil Gaiman’s Stardust, Character Analysis, Part Two”

I read the novel, Stardust, recently, and thought it would be a good novel to practice analyzing and critiquing characters. This will be a long one, so I am breaking it up into multiple posts. I will be going through the text from the beginning and offering an in-depth look at the chief characters theContinue reading “Neil Gaiman’s Stardust, a Character Analysis, Part One”

Warning: this book review will contain spoilers. I will not try to hide them. The book has been out since 2000, so I don’t think I’ll get too much flack for it… I am not writing the review because anyone is sitting on the edge of their seat waiting to read a review of thisContinue reading “Book Review: Stargirl, by Jerry Spinelli”

As I shift myself from the mental aspect of “writing as a hobby” to “writing as a profession,” one of the things I have been striving for is to strike the balance between writing and my personal/family life. I think writers– and other artists– have a bit of a unique challenge here, because art isContinue reading “Balance”

I wrote my first complete novel draft last November, in conjunction with the (in)famous(?) NaNoWriMo event. Okay, I know NaNoWriMo gets some flack in some hoity-toity circles, but it got me to finish– finish!– my first-ever novel draft from beginning to end, so for others who might need that push to just write, I highlyContinue reading “The First Novel”

Like many others, I have had a lot of “false starts” throughout my life when it comes to creative projects and other pursuits. I started many novels as a youth and never made it past the first couple of chapters. I took only two years of college– never quite settling on a chosen degree– beforeContinue reading “False Starts”

Storytime: Once upon a time, a shy girl loved music and she had a beautiful singing voice. But she was too shy to sing loud enough for anyone else to hear her. She memorized scores of lyrics and performed concerts in her head, and envied her younger brother who turned out several roles in communityContinue reading “No Regrets”

A short story set in The Six Kingdoms. Adult Fantasy. Yes, Adult. Ye have been warned 😉 Entered into Writers of the Future Short Story Contest, June 2020. Copyright June 2020    Along the Dergal coast, right before the place where the Cliffs of Mer rise to fight the tide of the western sea, the familyContinue reading “Heart of the Mermaid”