the writing process
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My brother, Warren, raised me on the stories that founded the fantasy genre. From Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings to Adams’ Watership Down to Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, we read it all. Not only was he an avid reader of the genre, but he was a pretty damn good artist, too, bringing dragons to life…
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I’m spending my day in another county with my Speech and Debate team, as they take on a number of other schools in our local league. There are a few things that demand my full attention as their coach during the day, especially in the morning and between rounds, but for the most part, I…
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On January 1, I set out to develop and publish an 11-episode podcast called, “When Fire Reigns.” It’s about the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904 and the mayor who died just three months later, reportedly by his own doing. Today, I published the first episode, just one day before the 115-year anniversary of the great…
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Now that Fossil Five is in the hands of my editors, I have decided to devote the month of January to building a podcast series on the Baltimore Fire of 1904. It was my thesis project in grad school, and after listening to a bunch of podcasts this past week, I think it is the…
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It’s 4:56 a.m., and I have just dropped off my daughter at work. I pour a fresh cup of coffee, sit down in front of my laptop, and open my working revision of my latest novel, Fossil Five. Seven days to go, I think. Seven days until I release my story to 15 readers around…
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I’m not much on labels, but in 1981, Betsy Flowers published an article in Language Arts that talked about the four different kinds of writers. Without going into too much detail, here they are: Madman: Unleashed, uninhibited writing that’s a free-flow from brain and heart to parchment. Architect: Planned structures of the story, plotting out…
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I’ve been writing a long time, and when I go back and read my earliest works written in the 1980s, I see a lot of experimentation and non-conformity while still sticking to the basics of story structure: a defined beginning, middle, and end falling neatly within the boundaries of the standard plot sequence. Although I…
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I spend a lot of time in my head, thinking and thinking and thinking about what to write about. Even though I keep a little Piccadilly notebook with me at all times, capturing little snippets of life that I find interesting, I don’t do enough with them. In those moments, I am happy that I…
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Many years ago, Sharon Miller, National Writing Project Teacher-Consultant and nationally recognized author and educator in the teaching of writing, asked me to offer my thoughts on the power of revision in the genre of creative nonfiction and how, when we write with intent in the revision process and understand who our audience is, we…
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On June 16, when I cut ties with social media to focus entirely on finishing my book, Fossil Five, I made a big deal about descending into darkness (you can read about it HERE). After all, I selected a 105-day period that ran from a new moon to a total lunar eclipse. You can’t get…
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