Kiah's Musings

  This Content is for Adults 18+  Trigger Warnings: Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse; PTSD from Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, including Intrusive Thoughts of Being Violently Killed by a Monster During Sexual Encounters.  FOR THE GIRLS WITH MONSTERS. The monster was born in a dark room filled with the smell of sweat and used genitals. The curtains had been drawn to hide the foul deeds done in its confines. The monster glutted on the stench of stale bodies and the shame of a trust turned sour. It filled itself until it grew so large it might burst, then it hid its bloated body inside the little girl sleeping on the corner of the bed. Imani, the little girl, woke from a feverish dream and her eyes landed on a vase shaped like a deer. White lilies had been stuffed into it— their brightness came to her eyes even in the darkness. Imani walked over, took the lilies out, and ripped the petals into small pieces. She didn’t know why she did it, really, but it felt good.  ...

What is an MFA?  An MFA is a Master of Fine Arts. Getting an MFA in Creative Writing is often seen as a waste of time and money. Many people want their degree to help get them a job and if that’s what you’re looking for in an MFA, you’re looking in the wrong place. Having a masters can give you a small boost when applying to teaching jobs, but publication credentials are often preferred over education. So, what is an MFA good for? And what are the downfalls? Most importantly, if you want to take the leap and apply, how do you decide which school?  PROS  Validation Getting into a writing school can feel like a validation of your talents and abilities. People who are actually involved in the writing profession have judged you to be a good enough writer to take on and teach. If you’re very confident in your writing ability already this may not be a good reason to apply to a school. But if you’re anything like my past self and doubted all the teachers and family that told you...

     Trigger Warnings: Racial Slurs, Threats of Racial Violence The negroes in the growing town of Canton were vanishing without so much as a whisper left behind. Leslie had been hearing the stories for weeks now. At his job at the textile factory, his coworker Desmond made a habit of sharing the latest disappearances when they stood around the maple tree, waiting for more batches of finished product to come through the factory doors so they could load them onto the boxcars. Leslie spent twelve hours a day heaving the heavy bundles of finished cotton cloth. It was grueling work that had made the muscles in his back develop a constant ache, even when he wasn’t working, but occasionally a machine would break down which meant the negroes could gather round the maple tree and share a few words. Leslie was on one such break now and took the opportunity to bite into the ham sandwich he’d made himself that morning. He ate quickly— one could never know how fast they would be call...

Kiah Sherif provided valuable insight at a time where I felt in a rut, listless, and unable to clearly see my own manuscript anymore. I’d worked on my manuscript for years since graduating from grad school, and found it had become an utter mess, much like an undefined oil painting with so many underpaintings that the artistic design was muddled. What I should have done was contact Kiah earlier, that would have saved much consternation. Kiah’s edits proved incredibly useful on many levels. Formatting edits helped to put things in their proper place, word choice edits helped to clarify sentences. In short, Kiah provided line edits and overarching edits. She read the manuscript twice, allowing me to see edits from her first and second read. And yet, she didn’t over edit. She would make a point and let it stand, coming back to remind me of that point when called for. She focused characters and made the action of the novel much clearer. She is incredibly conscious of the way she phrases – w...

Who wants to pay thousands of dollars for a master’s degree? Well, no one really. I’m grateful for the knowledge I gained from going through my master’s program, but really, you can improve your writing without going broke or going into debt. And the best part is, you’ll only have to spend a few dozen dollars instead of thousands. Here are my tips:   1. Read.   Read, read, and read some more. Read a lot in your genre to become aware of the rules and conventions within it. Find out what is generally accepted and what isn’t. For example, in young adult books, you might have a harder time getting a deal if it’s loaded with curse words. It’s possible and those books do get published, but it might be more of a challenge because of the “protect the children” mindset that many parents and industry folks have. In an adult book this obviously wouldn’t be an issue.   I also recommend reading outside your genre. You never know what cool tricks and devices you can adopt for writin...

So, you have the basic idea for a story, and you think you have a good idea of what it’s going to be about, but then you reach a wall. The problem is, you write fantasy or science-fiction and you just can’t seem to tap into your creativity, can’t seem to come up with more ideas for your world. Maybe you’re not so good at fleshing out your initial ideas. Or all of your most brilliant and original concepts seem to have been used up in your older stories. You want your new tale to be unique and believable, but how?   Whether you’re writing high or low fantasy or science-fiction, you’re going to need to do a little—or a lot— of worldbuilding. Sometimes the ideas flow and sometimes you get stuck and your creative mind seems to have shut down or disappeared. Well, I’m here to help with that. Below is a list of questions I ask myself while brainstorming ideas for new worlds. They allow me to delve into specific areas of worldbuilding, taking me from the broad and vague, to the very partic...