By Mark Stevens I’m turning this month’s blog over to Murph, The Asphalt Warrior. Denver cab-driver and wanna-be-a-famous-writer Brendan Murphy, a.k.a. “Murph,” has collected some of his favorite commentary on being an unpublished novelist. (What is below is just the tip of the iceberg of insights.) I thought you could—relate. And maybe grab a laugh. These…
Tag: Mark Stevens
RMFW Joins The Wide World of Podcasting
By Mark Stevens We interrupt this blog’s regular programming, writing advice, inspirations and musings to bring you this commercial announcement: Drum roll…. RMFW has a new podcast. As this post goes up, ‘The Rocky Mountain Writer’ should be finding its way to your favorite podcast provider, including iTunes. It’s also posted from the home page…
Whack the Cliché
By Mark Stevens Is it possible to write a 100,000-word novel that is devoid of clichés? Completely scrubbed free of all tired descriptions, predictable scenes, over-used descriptions, seen-them-all-before characters? A panel* on clichés at Left Coast Crime last month in Portland sparked my thinking. First, check this out: The word cliché is drawn from the…
Take A Little Trip
By Mark Stevens Two random tidbits last week got me fired up. The first was from a story in The New Yorker about new research into the positive effects of psychedelic drugs—psilocybin in particular. The second was a line uttered by Alexandra Fuller during a podcast of her Tattered Cover presentation for her new memoir,…
Tales from Long Shots in Book Marketing
By Mark Stevens I hopped in the car and flipped on the radio. Scott Simon (rock star reporter and host on National Public Radio) was wrapping up a Weekend Edition interview with a guy reviewing books. I only caught the tail end of the chat, but Simon said something like: “…and that was our London…