Willingly Retreating…

Newsletter 020 – August 12th, 2022 Hi, About the image above: I attended a writing retreat in the summer of 2015, held by the Writers’ League of Texas (WLT) on Sul Ross University’s campus in Alpine, Texas. My home in Spring (a northern suburb of Houston), is almost 600 miles away from Alpine. About 200 …

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Being a Self-Publishing Virgin is Scary

Picture of Michael at a NaNoWriMo event

[Originally posted on my former blog, Michael Runs the Gamut] For the past several years I’ve submitted queries (although not nearly often enough), and pitched my novels at conferences, with no success. Okay, I lied at least a couple of times in that first sentence. In 2002, I participated in NaNoWriMo for the first time, …

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Deciding Who to Pitch To at a Writing Conference

Picture of Michael at a NaNoWriMo event

[Originally posted on my former blog, Michael Runs the Gamut] It’s almost time for the annual Writers’ League of Texas Agents & Editors Conference in Austin (June 27 through the 29th this year). I’ve signed up have a 10-minute consultation with three of the agents who will be attending. All Spring, as new editors and …

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My Review of Larry McMurtry’s Latest Novel

Picture of Michael at a NaNoWriMo event

[Originally posted on my former blog, Michael Runs the Gamut] I was privileged to be able to do an advance review of Larry McMurtry’s latest novel, The Last Kind Words Saloon, for the Writers’ League of Texas’ blog, Scribe. It’s a fictional account of the events leading up to Wyatt Earp’s and Doc Holliday’s gunfight …

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My Interview on WLT’s Blog

Picture of Michael at a NaNoWriMo event

[Originally posted on my former blog, Michael Runs the Gamut] I was honored to be interviewed recently by the nice folks at Scribe, the Writers’ League of Texas’ blog, for their Meet the Members segment. It posted today. Here’s a copy of the interview. MEET THE MEMBERS Posted by Writers’ League Staff, March 17, 2014 …

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What I’m Working On, 03-04-2014

Picture of Michael at a NaNoWriMo event

[Originally posted on my former blog, Michael Runs the Gamut] A couple of weeks ago, a question was asked at the [now defunct] Fiction Writers and Editors Group at LinkedIn. It was simply, “What are you working on?” After I had responded, along with a hundred or so other writers, it occurred to me that …

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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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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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