Someday you will be standing on a podium giving a reading from your new book and at the end, during the question and answer session, someone in the audience will shyly raise her (or his) hand and ask you the following question: Where do you get your ideas?

It’s time to rewind through some of the best blog posts of the week related to writing, books, creativity – and sometimes just other fun but random stuff. Each Friday I link to my favorite posts of the week so you have another chance to catch an interesting post you might have missed or discover a new blogger.

Last week I wrote about the amazing and exhausting weekend I spent with a wonderful group of agents, editors and writers at the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Conference in Denver. In today’s post, I’m focusing on all that we heard about the importance of characters.

NOTE: This is the second of two posts about the conference. If you missed it, you can read the first post here.

I spent an amazing but exhausting weekend with a wonderful group of people at the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Conference in Denver and want to share some of what I learned from the agents, editors and writers who held sessions.

NOTE: There’s a lot to cover so this is the first of two posts about the conference.

"A writer uses a pen instead of a scalpel or a blow torch." - Michael Ondaatje

I promise not to obsess about writers' birthdays, but September seems to be a very writerly birthday month. Leo Tolstoy's birthday was three days ago and today is Michael Ondaatje's birthday, so I want to extend my best wishes to one of my favorite authors.

It’s time to rewind through some of the best blog posts of the week related to writing, books, creativity – and sometimes just some other fun but random stuff. Each Friday I link to my favorite posts of the week so you have another chance to catch an interesting post you might have missed or discover a new blogger.

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Leo Tolstoy was born today – 181 years ago. I’ve always had a fascination with Russian literature (likely related to the fact that my parents named me after Dr. Zhivago’s love interest in Boris Pasternak’s novel) but Tolstoy has been hailed as one of the greatest novelists of all time.

 A tribute to the gift that started me writing and how sometimes going back to the beginning can be the best place to start.