By Larry Leech @LarryJLeechII Sun. Sand. If not sand, maybe a pool instead. Or maybe a nice, quiet cabin in the woods. Whatever your pleasure, a good book, or books, is necessary. With summertime right around the corner, compiling a summer reading list might be near the top of your…

By James Hannibal @jamesrhannibal The Search Engine Swamp. The Wikipedia Wastelands. The Data Doldrums. Look out! It’s the Research Bog. Stay on the path.  But wait. What should you do if you lose the path and get lost in the muck? [tweet_box design="default" float="none" inject="#Writing #research"]Research: Escaping the Research Bog…

By James Hannibal @jamesrhannibal The Search Engine Swamp. The Wikipedia Wastelands. The Data Doldrums. At the center of the author’s pirate map to story treasures, we find a dense bog where the blotted scrawls of the cartographer’s quill read, “Here be time-eating monsters!” It’s the Research Bog. Stay on the…

by Edie Melson @EdieMelson The other day I was talking to a friend of mine and this person confided that she was afraid she didn’t have what it takes to be a writer. “I’m just not good enough to get a book published, and I don’t know if I ever will be.”…

By Aaron Gansky @ADGansky Some time ago, I had my Creative Writing students draw up a map of the town in which their story takes place. I had them label streets, buildings, homes, shops, etc. The response was greatly varied, from island villas to battleships, to starships, to fantasy worlds…

by Lindsey Brackett @LindsBrac I hope you’ve enjoyed these short introductions into the Enneagram and have found the information useful to typing your characters (and maybe yourself). My favorite thing about the Enneagram is no one is ever all or nothing. By carrying tendencies of the nine different types, we…