Michell Plested's Blog, page 42

Back in the Short Story Saddle

It is always an internal conflict for me whether to write short fiction or simply focus on novel-length work. On the one hand, short fiction can expose me to new audiences and on the other, it pulls me away from my novel-length work. There are other reasons to write short fiction, of course. Short fiction [...]

Get Published Episode 117 – Seeing Through the Eyes of a Child

Last episode you got to listen to a panel on writing for middle grade and young adult readers. This episode, I would like to present my final panel titled, Looking through the eyes of a child. This is, as you can probably tell, another young adult genre panel. We talked about how we capture the [...]

A Ways to Go

I couple weeks ago my publisher, Robert Runte’, suggested I changed this website’s tagline from “from an amateur’s perspective” to “from a former amateur’s perspective.” I thought about his comment for a couple days before I went ahead and made the change as he suggested because…well, I AM being paid for my writing (more often [...]

Second Guessing

I want to begin by saying I am not trying to come across as being insecure about my writing or myself. Honest. But, the truth of the matter is, I’m second guessing myself and Mik Murdoch: And the Power Within. I’m doing that despite the fact that I KNOW the book is better written than [...]

Finishing Projects/Ignoring the Shiney

One of the challenges that I face regularly is too many great ideas to work on. That may not sound like a challenge, but trust me, it is. If I give in to the temptation to start new projects every time I get an idea I would never finish the ones I’m already working on. [...]

Get Published Episode 116 – Writing for Middle Grade and Young Adult

I attended the 2013 edition of When Words Collide on the weekend of August 9th to 11th. I was on several panels where we had the chance to discuss writing in ways. On today’s episode, I will be playing back one of the panels, specifically a panel about Writing for MG and YA audiences. The [...]

I’m a Real Writer

It’s amazing how hard it can be to admit to myself that I’m a real writer. I mean, I’ve written several books (one of which has been published), several short stories (some of which have been published) and edited a book (which has been published). I’m even being paid regular royalties which, by definition, even makes me a professional writer. [...]

My First Newspaper Interview Article is Now Available

Hey everyone, I had the good fortune to be interviewed last week about Mik Murdoch, Boy Superhero. The interview was for my hometown newspaper, The Ponoka News and was conducted in response to a library visit I did there. The interviewer was Amelia Naismith. Amelia asked a lot of great questions and I think the [...]

Point of View

I’ve had a couple of things happen in the past day or so that makes me realize that what I see is not necessarily what others see too. Or, at least, not exactly the same. I guess it goes back to the saying that if you ask ten people about an event you will get [...]

Get Published Episode 115 – Matthew Wayne Selznick, Creator

Matthew Wayne Selznick was one of the first people to ever podcast a novel. Like, in the first 2 dozen, first. He learned a lot doing it and made a name for himself along the way. I’ve been wanting to talk to Matthew for quite some time now, and I am happy to say, the [...]