Several years ago, I was scheduled to teach my first Knoxville Writers’ Guild writing workshop. I had been teaching composition at local communities for a while, but what I wanted to do was reach writers who had stories to tell and wanted to find the best ways to write them. So I created a short video to introduce myself and the workshop I planned to teach. I put it up on YouTube and posted it on different social media sites. And boom! I had a YouTube channel. I did a few sho

Years ago, I used to write a daily private blog about everyday incidents that happened to me. When I return to the entries now, I’m amazed at the bounty to plunder for writing ideas. Without realizing it at the time, this was a great way to capture situations that later could be turned into scenes, dialogue and character development. Watching real life scenes play out as we go about our daily business offers a minefield of ideas. In today’s world, we have ample opportunity to