Michell, Author at Irreverent Muse

Good Edits Take Time

Posted on June 27, 2019 by Michell

I am hot and cold on editing. There are times when I absolutely LOVE the process and others when I would prefer to do anything but. Regardless of how I feel about them, I have recognized the need to really think about what my editor is asking for. I find if I don’t, I might completely miss their point and either: (a) write something that doesn’t fit the story, (b) write something I’ve already written so it appears more than once in the story, (c) delete some of the stuff that was good, replacing it with bad/worse writing. In full disclosure, I have done all of those things at one point or another when I tried to rush my edits. […]

Self Awareness is Important to a Writer

Posted on May 31, 2019 by Michell

I had never considered how important self awareness might be to my writing until just recently. During a brainstorming session for a new book my thoughts turned to the character dynamics that would really make for a compelling story. I was mixing and matching character traits, genders, background stories and the like when I started to think about my own time growing up. I had a thought. My own self-image was probably miles away from how people actually perceived me. I’m not quite sure why that revelation took me so long to get to. After all, I see young people today who clearly have a different idea of who they are than my initial impressions of them. Is it possible […]

Mik Murdoch 4 Gaining Momentum

Posted on May 24, 2019 by Michell

Mik Murdoch is starting to pick up momentum. I’ve sent the second major editing pass to the editor AND it finally has an honest-to-goodness title. That title will be, Mik Murdoch: Identity Troubles. I knew what the book was about before I started writing it; kind of important, I’m sure you’ll agree. But, because it addresses a number of themes and ideas, the title was a tough one to nail down. I’m convinced we have the best title now (some of the earlier iterations were rather long). The book has a July release date so a proper title (other than Mik Murdoch 4) is important. It’s also very helpful for the cover artist to be able to put a finished […]

You Are the Author of Your Life

Posted on May 15, 2019 by Michell

I do my best story-thinking when I’m out for a walk. It is also the time when I’m prone to wax philosophic. The other day my brain latched onto the saying, “You are the author of your life,” and I really started to think about that. Of course, I approached it from the perspective of story-telling, but it gave me real pause because I had never really looked at my life that way before. We all want to be the heroes of our own stories, but what do we really do about it? For example, I regularly write about a character who, when he sees something wrong, goes out and does his best to fix it. I know I’ve said […]

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