by mike | Dec 21, 2017 | Books, Editing, Life, Read & Critique, Uncategorized, Writing |
I thought that a long-ago read & critique workshop I led would be the death of me—literally. This post first ran in 2014. From the early ’90s to the mid-’00s I facilitated numerous read & critique workshops in my home. At its height I led three of them every...
by mike | Dec 7, 2017 | Books, Publishing, Sword & Planet, Uncategorized, Writing |
Authors get their careers started in different ways. Here is one of my earliest experiences. I first presented this post in 2014. This story is about the best day ever for a first-time published author: me. Naturally it took place a long, long time ago: 1978, to be...
by mike | Dec 4, 2017 | Books, Films About Writers, Horror, Horror Movies, Movies, Psychological Thrillers, Uncategorized, Writing |
The 1993 horror film, The Dark Half, is an adaptation of Stephen King’s 1989 novel of the same name. His main character, Thad Beaumont, is a bestselling novelist—what else? Writers love to write about other writers, and King leads the league in that category. I should...
by mike | Nov 16, 2017 | Books, Editing, Humor, Publishing, Uncategorized, Writing |
Many folks—especially writers—love reading these deliberately bad opening lines. I first presented this post in 2013. I suppose I’m fascinated, if not obsessed, with the bad opening lines that have been submitted to the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest over the past...
by mike | Nov 9, 2017 | Books, Editing, Holocaust, Psychological Thrillers, Publishing, Thrillers, Uncategorized, Writing |
Transitioning from one scene to the next in a novel is important enough to warrant a second post. I first presented this in 2013. In my last post I promised to share some more transitions from my novel, FREEDOM’S HAND, to show how this necessary device can strengthen...
by mike | Nov 6, 2017 | Books, Editing, Publishing, Sword & Sorcery, Uncategorized, Writers' Conferences, Writing |
It’s novel-writing month or some such thing again, so I’m going to post my annual rebuttal on the matter, as I will likely do for a long time to come. Okay, this week I’m going to be a curmudgeon—something that I do quite well, actually. There are...
