Sci-fi’s best ideas are in the past. Wait! Before you barrage me with indignant objections, I’m going to claim this idea is way less impertinent—or defeatist—than it sounds. Where do sci-fi plot concepts come from? From everywhere, you say, my sources of inspiration are varied and without bound! Okay, sure, the kernels have many sources,…
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First Day of Spring (well, it was)
I’m writing this on the first day of spring, although you won’t see it until the season is a week old. My weekend was the perfect start to a seasonal change. Saturday hiking in the sun, a cool breeze, lots of green showing in grasses and trees, and even a few blooms here and there….
My Good Luck Charm
I love the dream I pursue. I love how deeply I care about my words as they appear on the pages I write. Yet there have been times in my past when I ignored my dream, when I let days, weeks, even months slip by without writing. Once that drought passed, I wrote the third…
How Contests Can Take Your Writing to the Next Level
RMFW’s annual Colorado Gold contest is fast approaching—submissions open April 1st! Have you considered entering? As someone who’s entered several contests, won a couple, lost a lot more, and judged some as well, I highly recommend the experience. Here’s why. You’re forced to perfect your opening. For most of us, the opening is the hardest part of…
A Writer’s Guide to Infinite Ideas
Where do I find them? Ideas, that is. Each time I hear an author asked “Where do you get your ideas?” I cringe. As Stephen King says on his website: “I get my ideas from everywhere. But what all of my ideas boil down to is seeing maybe one thing, but in a lot of…