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The Craft of Writing on the Strange and Sinister
In addition to writing about true crime here, I’ve also shared my story of honing the craft over at WOW! Women on Writing. Here are a just a few of the posts I’ve written on the topic, and it’s fun to see my progression go from just a spark to a fully-developed project or idea. How to Write Compelling True Crime. In this post I share how I came up with the idea to start up Missing in the Carolinas, and how it evolved from being just a missing persons podcast to one that mixes in solved cases and reviews of other true crime shows and books. I also used this content to…
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Review of Save the Cat! Cracking the Beat Sheet Online Class
When WOW! Women on Writing asked me if I’d like to review the Save the Cat! “Cracking the Beat Sheet” online course I jumped at the chance. I have several novels in need of revision and thought a more structured program might give me the help I’ve been needing, plus I have a copy of Save the Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody and it’s one of my most treasured writing tools. See below for more information on the course and my review. First, what is Save the Cat!®? Save the Cat! provides writers the resources they need to develop their screenplays and novels based on a series of best-selling books, primarily…
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What Happened to Bruce Ruffin of Charlotte, N.C.?
The murder of Bruce Ruffin remains an open cold case for Mecklenburg County in North Carolina. Although he went missing on April 19, 1986, investigators assumed pretty early on that the 50-year-old had met with foul play. Ruffin was a resident of Midland, North Carolina, a suburb of Charlotte. At the time of his disappearance he was a married father of four who owned Dart Enterprise, a real estate firm located in uptown Charlotte. Ruffin had moved to Charlotte from Greensboro in the mid 1960s. He was a graduate of North Carolina A&T State University and had started out his career running a construction company with his brothers. While he was in college,…
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Living in a College Town
This letter originally appeared in the March 2021 issue of Lake Norman CURRENTS. The other day I was sitting at my desk when a realization hit me like a ton of bricks. My oldest child is registering for classes for her senior year of high school. My time with her is limited. I started to panic. How can she almost be 18 years old? Where did those years go? Did I spend too much time stressing over working and how to pay the bills each month and not enough time helping her prepare for life after high school? As a parent, it’s hard to know the right answers to these questions. I can…