Why Teaching Research Writing Is More Important Than Ever

As Harlan Ellison said: “You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. Everything else is just hot air and farts in the wind.”

5 Myths About Writing Science Fiction

So you want to write a science fiction novel.  However, you feel like you don’t know what you’re doing.  Perhaps you read science fiction like this humble author and you’d like to try your hand at writing something in the science fiction genre. Well, there are a few myths about science fiction novelists, and I’m

Notes from Middle Earth: Every Novel Needs A Detailed Back Story

Backstories are extremely important in creating a setting. We must write a history, an ecology, a governmental system and many other things to make a believable setting.

Gifted and Talented Youngsters: Enrichment for Future Dreams

Today was a very special day in the life of my little 9 year old Leigha Colby.  She is my middle daughter, sometimes feels left out, yet like all of my children has a special talent or gift.  Where my oldest son Conner is gifted in deep love for others and my oldest daughter Kaylee

Writing the Apocalypse: Everybody Needs a Good Plague

I am currently two thirds of the way through writing book one of my latest novel, This Broken Earth: The U.S. of After.  I would say that one of the most challenging things was giving a global pandemic a realistic feel without sounding too much like Stephen King’s famous novel The Stand.  The super flu in

Writing the Apocalypse: Economic Collapse

As a precursor to the release of my new novel This Broken Earth, I will be posting periodic research I have been doing into the possible downfall of our world as we know it.  I wanted my novel to have a realistic feel as if the events I describe could possibly happen to our world.

Google Zeitgeist: How a Writer Uses Trends

As a fiction writer, it is important to know your audience.  If you have never done any research to discover what demographic your proposed novel might reach (or not reach) then you may be wasting valuable time writing a novel that no one will read. Google Zeitgeist is a fantastic engine created to show researchers

“Behind the Myths Tour”: The Report

Monday night I drove down to Dallas, TX with a colleague to see the “Behind the Myths Tour”, a traveling Mythbusters roadshow with Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman. They were taking people out of the audience to do demonstrations of scientific principles, but since we lost our way in the strange tangle-briar of the Dallas