Professional Writer ♦ Amateur Swashbuckler

Lights Out | The Cancelled Conference 2

Standing at the desk, Beth Simpson was filling out a sudoku puzzle. Somehow, she’d managed to get herself snowed in with the less than dozen people who were here for the now cancelled Organic conference. Normally, she’d have finished her overnight shift and been relieved the next morning. Instead, she was greeted by an email […]

The Cancelled Conference

This is the first in a series of installments in a mystery series I’m writing. Please sit back and enjoy The Cancelled Conference. Weather was the literal definition of “unreasonable.” It didn’t matter who you were, or what was planned, it would go about it’s course without a thought. No one has ever changed the […]

Dating The Muse

“I believe that inspiration will always try its best to work with you—but if you are not ready or available, it may indeed choose to leave you and to search for a different human collaborator.” – Elizabeth Gilbert My Muse has terrible timing. She likes to talk whenever I’m busy doing other things, when I’m […]

Use the Hurt

“We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt use it—don’t cheat with it.” – Ernest Hemingway While we’d all like to think differently, Hemingway in this quote defines a truth of the creative process. I’m sure […]

Practice in Public

“This is what happens when we practice in public: we not only hone our abilities but attract an audience interested in what we’re sharing.” Jeff Goines There’s a temptation for every creative to keep their work hidden until perfect, until there’s a large volume of work with sharing with the world in some strike of […]

The Power of Premise

The premise is your story stated in one sentence. It is the simplest combination of character and plot and typically consists of some event that starts the action, some sense of the main character, and some sense of the outcome of the story. – John Truby  Tell me about it? When asked this question about your […]

Make Good Art

“Life is sometimes hard. Things go wrong, in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all other ways that life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do. Make good art.” – Neil Gaiman In a commencement speech, Neil Gaiman summarized […]