by mike | Feb 27, 2017 | Books, Editing, Life, Read & Critique, Uncategorized, Writers' Conferences, Writers' Retreat, Writing |
What does former National Basketball Association great Bill Russell have to do with leading classes and workshops about writing novels? I’ll tell you…shortly. But, first things first. MY STUDENTS NEVER KNEW I began facilitating novel-writing workshops in the early...
by mike | Feb 9, 2017 | Books, Editing, Publishing, Uncategorized, Writers' Conferences, Writing |
This is the first of three posts from 2013 on how writers can engage—or “hook”—their readers from the first page of their novels. A novel is made up of quite a few elements, among them characterization, dialogue, point of view, setting, and so on. But in my mind, the...
by mike | Nov 7, 2016 | Books, Editing, Publishing, Sword & Sorcery, Uncategorized, Writers' Conferences, Writing |
It’s novel-writing month or some such thing again, so I’m going to revisit my post on the matter, as I will likely do for a long time to come. My opinion has not changed. Okay, this week I’m going to be a curmudgeon—something that I do quite well, actually. There are...
by mike | Nov 3, 2016 | Horror, Horror Movies, Movies, Science Fiction, Uncategorized, Writers' Conferences |
This odd coincidence took place at a writer’s conference. I first wrote about it back in 2012. I spent part of last weekend giving workshops at the La Jolla Writer’s Conference in San Diego. One of my presentations addressed the art of scaring the crap out of people...
by mike | Nov 9, 2015 | Books, Editing, Publishing, Uncategorized, Writers' Conferences, Writing |
It’s novel-writing month or some such thing again, so I’m going to revisit last year’s post on the matter. My opinion has not changed. Okay, this week I’m going to be a curmudgeon—something that I do quite well, actually. There are organizations, conferences,...
by mike | Jan 5, 2015 | Books, Editing, Publishing, Read & Critique, Thrillers, Uncategorized, Writers' Conferences, Writing |
Back in my salad days, when I took on just about any writer who had a pulse, I worked with a woman from the Midwest—let’s call her Helen—who had written, according to her, about three-quarters of a thriller. I first evaluated what she’d completed, and quite frankly,...
