Working Title

How do you title your works? I have a tendency to start with highly descriptive, matter-of-fact file names and titles and stick with those for most of the duration of the work. For the work involving my main Western character, the working title usually starts as “Bluebird Walther” and ends in whatever one or two words sum up the important secondary characteristics of the story. Usually, this is…

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ADHD is a Fickle Mistress

Often, I compare my brain to a bored husky. Given adequate stimulation and exercise, I am great! Without stimulation and novelty, sometimes I go a little off the wall. I lose interest quickly and when it wanes, it wanes hard. When I am curious about something, it turns on like a searchlight and I am obsessed. My fantasy novel, Gate and Barrow, has been at a complete and total standstill since…

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Every Author Has A Blog

Every Author Has A Blog

It seems like every author has a blog, and when you try to research the craft of writing, you get a billion “coaches” who want to sell you their secret to the perfect novel. If it is a bunch of authors I’ve never heard of, I don’t feel like they have perfected the novel. I won’t name the author who was giving this advice, but I came across the concept of “obligatory scenes” and genre conventions…

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On Finding an Agent:

On Finding an Agent:

The panel I attended at LITCLE‘s Inkubator 2022 conference was run by agent Erin Hosier and I can’t give enough praise for how straight-forward and informational it was. One of the takeaways I had was that agents usually have a “type” of work they focus on, whether that is genre fiction, non-fiction, or cookbooks. Her advice was to find your niche in the writing world and then look at…

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New Community and New Content

New Community and New Content

I started a FB group for Western writers who are looking outside the cliche of toxic masculinity, whiteness, and heteronormativity that is so expected in the genre. So far, it remains in the single digits for members, but I am hoping that moderating and finding content for the group will push me to read more and research more. I have been looking at Amazon and GoodReads (and blogs) for lists of…

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Old West and Old Thoughts

Old West and Old Thoughts

While I was attending the Inkubator conference, I was running solo, so I had a lot of time to think between panels and during note-taking about what I wanted to work on. A lot of that time was devoted to idealistic planning of community and goals for the future, but some of that time went to dwelling on a very real and very important issue – Racism in the Western Genre. It isn’t just from the…

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Inkubator 2022, Overview

Overall, my experience with LIT CLE’s Inkubator was absolutely 10/10. I attended panels on New Media, on finding an agent, on writing suspense, and on giving better feedback. I was really fascinated by the variety of perspectives offered by the different talks, and the peek into a different, published world. I bought the book “When the Stars Go Dark” by Paula McLain after seeing her speak about…

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Inkubator 2022, Saturday

I missed Friday’s programming because I needed to work, but I am here today at the Cleveland Public Library – Louis Stokes Wing, attending Inkubator 2022. This is a free writing conference that has been a great experience so far. Masked up socializing is fun. I love meeting the huge variety of folks who are seeking to be better writers – from published authors to completely new writers like…

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Progress on my Novel

Progress on my Novel

I’m 24k words in now, with some delays in having to focus on work and not being able to keep up my original NaNoWriMo-esque pace. Still excited to be working on a concept that I love. Some folks plan novels out in detail before writing, some use the ‘seat of the pants’ method. I think that most folks fall somewhere between those two on the scale of planning to pantsing. I know that personally I…

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Debut Work

13k words into my debut Fantasy-Horror novel, working title: Gate and Barrow. I am so excited about it, I even made a mock-up cover – just some text over one of my completed paintings. It is interesting to learn about the marketing and editing that goes into a book, far beyond the simple process of telling the story. I don’t have many folks following my work yet, but I appreciate all of you who…

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