small town

“X” Marks the Spot

Where are you? By Elizabeth Cutright © 2012 The Daily Creative Writer Whenever my friends and I lose each other in a crowd or a super store, on of us will yell out “Marco” and wait for the answering “Polo!”  It’s goofy, but it never fail to make me smile.  It’s also reassuring – we’re […]

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Let your character tell the story.

Contrasts and Comparisons By Elizabeth Cutright (Excerpted from East Junction, a novel in progress) It was the sort of exhaustion that takes over your entire body – wrapping you up in a gossamer web of steely threads.  Gillian felt paralyzed, and she knew it had more to do with emotional exertions than anything overtly physical.  […]

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The Quote as a Trigger

Felicidad’s Flight By Elizabeth Cutright (Excerpted from East Junction, a novel in progress) The chill snuck in through the sleeves of the hand-me-down raincoat that had been the sum total birthday gift to commemorate lucky 13. Faded red, with big yellow daisies, it was hip in the sixties, but woefully out of fashion by the […]

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Character Introductions

The Fuse is Lit By Elizabeth Cutright (Excerpted from East Junction, a novel in progress) He never could get used to the relative quiet of the newsroom.  Although he’d never actually worked at any of the “big time” newspapers, his first memories as a journalist always included the roar of the presses, not the hum of […]

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Narrative Dialogue

It (Doesn’t) Go Without Saying By Elizabeth Cutright (Excerpted from East Junction, a novel in progress) Richard Pale squinted out from under his Bruins baseball hat at the solitary figure of his only son, Danny Pale, intermittently pitching golf balls into the wasteland of the desert. Wasteful and rebellious as always, this strange son who belonged […]

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Expository Prose

Murder in the Desert By Elizabeth Cutright (Excerpted from “East Junction” – a novel in progress) Sheriff?” Bernice Pale’s voice crackled over the car radio, the static initially masking the tone of her voice.  At first, Sheriff Lance Waddell thought she was just a little early for the hourly radio check in. Sixty years old […]

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Creative Nonfiction

  Wine Tasting in Paso Robles By Elizabeth Cutright It was a last minute decision based on a coastline socked in with fog and the availability of a spacious minivan able to hold up to eight wine loving ladies. We’d all travelled to Cambria – a woodsy artist community on California’s central coast located about […]

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