April is National Poetry Month, so in honor of that, I’m going to share one way that dabbling in poetry can help your fiction. Specifically, have you ever considered using poetry as a way to find distinct voices for your characters? Years ago, I attended a short workshop by Lance Larsen, poet laureate for Utah…
At last, Spring is here. Now I’ll have time to work on my own stuff. My first order of business is to complete some of my spec fiction stories, many of which have languished unfinished for years. After scrolling through my short stories folder, I decided it was high time I finish a story about…
I don’t know how long I’ve been writing a monthly blog for RMFW. But I save my drafts in a Word file and right now there’s over 90,000 words in the file, which means I’ve written a whole book’s worth of posts. At this point I worry I have run out new things to say…
One If you told me thirty years ago that Rick Rubin would one day be my spirit guide, well, I would have laughed pretty hard. Yeah, the guy who has produced albums for Public Enemy, Beastie Boys, Slayer, The Cult, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Joan Jett, Johnny Cash, Nine Inch Nails and many others. But…
Earlier this month, I attended the Association of Writers and Writing Programs annual conference in Seattle. The sheer volume and diversity of program offerings at AWP can be overwhelming and after my newbie experience last year, trying to attend back-to-back panels from 9-5 three days in a row, I opted for a more targeted approach…