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The Time I Saw Stephen King
Stephen King spoke at Chautauqua on Wednesday and I was lucky enough to be there. He was a fantastic speaker: hilarious, low-key, and authentic. Listening to Stephen King speak, I didn’t feel like one of thousands, I felt like I was part of a conversation. Mr. King started by making us paranoid. He told us […]
Fruitcake, The Unexpected Way I Found My Voice
It all started shortly after the New Year in 2010 when I was struggling to write, well, anything. I’d fiddled with First Novel a bit, but ultimately couldn’t make a habit of writing, couldn’t find my stride. Then at work, I stumbled on leftover fruitcake someone had left in the break room. It was cellophane-wrapped, store-bought fruitcake […]
RMFW Highlights
The RMFW Conference was this past weekend, and Oh My Gosh was it amazing. There were great sessions, new writing friends, and plenty of geeking out. I feel inspired by all the wonderful people I met and writerly things I learned. Here were my favorite sessions and key takeaways: Author’s Guide to Social Media: An etiquette […]
Writer Con Checklist
I love attending writing conferences. The positive energy, camaraderie with fellow writers, and opportunities to talk with industry professionals (i.e., literary agents, editors, and published authors). Not to mention awesome workshops, sessions like ‘Become a Clue-Master: How To Plant Clues’, ‘Heroes, Henchmen, and Sidekicks: The Characters-First Approach to Plot’, and ‘Getting inTouch with Your Tone’. […]
Word Clouds
I’ve been thinking about word clouds lately, as one does, and how they can be applied to writing. I input the first chapter of New Project using a free online tool (http://www.wordle.net/) and this is what it showed me: These words stick out to me in a bad way: know, think, and eyes. Know and think are weak verbs […]