From the Mind of R.M. Almeida

I wrote a poem for my wife. Not just any poem, but lyrics for a song. It has been over 15 years since I have written any kind of poetry, but I felt moved to do so. At the urging of my fellow 5Artz Creative Affiliations members, I have decided to post the first draft […]

I just received an email from Martin Cavannagh from Reedsy about book covers. It was a simple, concise letter that reminded me how important a book cover is when selling a book. As a bookseller with over 30 years of experience, I know too well, how books are sold. I cannot count the number of self-published […]

Tonight’s workshop at Barnes & Noble, Summerlin was a measure of success. By the looks of our workshop attendees, I believe I can safely assume that it was by far, a great measure of success. Yes…you are correct. I am the dumpy-looking one in the background, next to Bill Guthrie. If you don’t know Bill […]

The day is here. Our first night of a packed venue, our second Meetup at Barnes & Noble, Summerlin. We may not be on the schedule, but after tonight, I hope that our store managers will place us on the map as a regular occurrence at the store. We will be discussing the “Hero’s Journey“, […]

I checked how long it has been since I made my last post and was appalled. My last post was made on June 25th of last year. I stopped because the advice I was given was that my writing was not ready. When is your writing…”ready”? I can agonize over punctuation, grammar or content until […]

I refuse to allow another week to transpire without publishing something of significance to this blog. I am still editing past blog posts, to ensure that they reflect a degree of professionalism. In the interim, I have decided to share short original written work ranging from 500 to 1500 words that deal with my personal experiences […]

Today’s Creative Series blog post will be available tomorrow. My apologies. A number of errors were discovered in many of the initial blogs. Rather than post submissions with errors, I am correcting all punctuation, grammar and style errors, so that they reflect a more professional site.

There are no perfect words to bestow upon characters that we create.

This part of our Creative Series will cover characters. Characters are a very important part of every good story. Characters are the primary colors of your plot. Without characters, a story can become a lifeless, dull, carcass of a plot which loses the reader’s interest. It is the writer’s job to create interesting characters to […]

Today is the day that we meet our muse. What I will be doing from this point to the end of the series, is creating a storyline and finished product online. For the next few parts in our series, we will literally create a story from this blog, using all of the tools that we have covered.