I have a walkie-talkie by the gearshift in my VW Passat. I hear the command: “Roll sound.” And the reply: “Rolling sound.” More whispering—all the directions are being given inside the café a half-block away, where the scene is being filmed. “Roll Camera” in a quiet whisper. Wait, wait … An assistant director stands outside…
The Colorado Writers Collaborative, the virtual Writers Conference that took the place of Colorado Gold, the Pikes Peak Writers Conference, and the Northern Colorado Writers Conference, is over. From all reports, it was an unqualified success. I know I enjoyed watching many of the online workshops, and hearing from lots of new and different presenters…
Fires, politics, spikes in the COVID-19 outbreaks, gloomy news. What’s an author to do to escape the emotional storm clouds and enter the comforting cocoon of creativity? Nature’s good for the soul and the psyche, but with the onset of winter weather, opportunities to hike, leaf-peep, walk, or bicycle will soon vanish. Travel? Not for…
The two most powerful words in the writer’s toolbox have got to be “What If…?” What if the world we live in is simply a computer simulation- (The Matrix) What if people can travel through time but can’t control it- (The Time Traveler’s Wife) What if robots developed into sentient beings- (Ex-Machina) What if Romeo…
As fiction writers know, readers prefer reading material that evokes a feeling. But it may escape our attention that this also applies to the nonfiction promotional materials we write like book covers, introductions, flyers, author websites and bios. This promo material doesn’t need to be dry or boring. Like we do with fiction, we can…