Real Writers Top Six

1. What are you doing Saturday, Feb. 10? Check out this free online mini-conference being put on my Rocky Mountain Mystery Writers of America! Details here. (You MUST register, but again it is f-r-e-e.) With Carter Wilson, Terrie Wolf, Debra Bokur and J. Kelly Byram. Four hours of learning with a one-hour break for lunch.
2. Dig this article in Janice Hardy’s Fiction University on writing descriptions. “If all your description does is show what something looks like, you’re missing an opportunity to strengthen your novel.”
3. This “Writers Who Read” podcast looks like a winner—and it’s a Colorado thing. In fact,  literary agent and RMFW board member Mira Landry is one of the three co-hosts along with Gary McBride (who has taught at Colorado Gold) and Whitney Pinion. The group has been gathering monthly since 2018 but is now extending itself into podcast land. Each episode will include a discussion of one novel (all published in the last 18-24 months) and then analyzed from the perspective of writers. “We read like writers,” says their website, “turning our favorite authors into our writing teachers. We do this through Literary Forensics, a set of tools that allow us to look beyond the surface of plot points, down into the tapestry of themes, contexts, and symbols that hold the very intentions of the author.” The first episode analyzed Nell Zink’s Avalon. Check it out.
4. Do you follow Authors Publish? Always a great resource if you need ideas for where to submit your work.
5. A Janet Fox blog on adding a “Luke Skywalker” moment to your novel. (A bitter choice, that is.) What impossible choice can you force on your main character?
6. You have to be a tiny bit of jealous of the writing team of Linda Joffe Hull and Keir Graff. I mean, they make it look so easy. Known as Linda Keir, they just published their fourth collaborative novel, The Royal Game. (Listen to their chat on the Rocky Mountain Writer podcast here.) Doesn’t the idea of writing partner sound, well, productive? Wouldn’t it be great to have a partner waiting for your pages? Wouldn’t it be great to have someone to help develop plot ideas, shape characters, and immediately review your prose? Hmmm. One thing I think would happen pretty quickly is you’d have to subvert your ego and give everything over to the pursuit of the story itself. And that might be a very good thing. By the way, Graff also collaborates with one James Patterson (Minerva Keen’s Detective Club). Would you ever consider writing with a partner? Why? Or why not?

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