WLT’s 2013 Summer Writing Retreat

Picture of Michael at a NaNoWriMo event

[Originally posted on my former blog, Michael Runs the Gamut] At last summer’s WLT Agents & Editors Conference, in Austin, Texas (June 21-23, 2013), I was finally ready to seriously pitch my thriller, The Jagged Man. I thought the book was ready, too. I had been working on it for several years, but I felt …

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A Writing Space of My Own

Picture of Michael at a NaNoWriMo event

After Minay and I got married in August 1982 — yes, it’s been nearly thirty-two years, and she hasn’t killed me yet — I made sure I had an area to write in. Sometimes it was makeshift, like the corner in the second bedroom of our first apartment (which also served as our exercise room …

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Writing Retreats

Picture of Michael at a NaNoWriMo event

I’ve been to two writing retreats in the last six months, and they were both wonderful (and an extremely rare experience for me). I don’t know what your writing situation is like, but let me tell you a little bit about mine. I retired in 2009, after nearly forty years in the workforce (thirty of …

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Why I Waited So Long

Picture of Michael at a NaNoWriMo event

[Originally posted on my former blog, Michael Runs the Gamut] I’ve been writing all my life — plays, poetry, short stories, work-related writing, even a few stabs at novels — often with the thought of being published or produced, but I didn’t fully commit to it until five or six years ago. My excuse was …

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Contests

Picture of Michael at a NaNoWriMo event

[Originally posted on my former blog, Michael Runs the Gamut] As a former actor, I understand the trials of marketing oneself (and accept them, begrudgingly). Many of the things we do in life are contests of a sort. Job interviews are a competition against others to see who will win the prize of being hired. …

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