Mark interviews bestselling writer, editor, and writing instructor, Wulf Moon, who won the national Scholastic Art & Writing Awards at the age of fifteen, and followed that with winning the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Contest, and Writers of the Future. He leads the Wulf Pack Writers group and is the author of The Illustrated Super Secrets of Writing and How to Write a Howling Good Story.

Prior to the interview, Mark reads comments from previous episodes, shares a personal update, and then says a word about this episode's sponsor.

This episode is sponsored by the Stark Publishing book How to Write a Howling Good Story by Wulf Moon.

The book is 25% off at the Smashwords store until the end of Jan 2024.

Patrons of the Stark Reflections Podcast can get the book for 75% off until the end of Feb 2024.

In their conversation Mark and Moon talk about:

How Wulf Moon might not have been the name that he was born with and how the name "Moon" which he has been called most of his life came from his Ojibwe grandmother
Moonbeam Road, a local road his father named after him when he was growing up
Not having a father who was supportive of his writing, and even having to run away from home when he was younger
Finding an important positive voice as a youngster in a teacher
The additional lengths this one teacher went to support and encourage Moon in his writing
Winning the Scholastic Art and Writing Award at the age of 15, among so many other awards that this teacher helped him find
Getting beat up so often in high school that the only thing he could do was look down as he walked in the hallways - but how he found his power in writing
The importance of finding a way to be who you are and to not allow others to repress you from that
Starting up Wulf Moon's Super Secrets Writing Workshop right after winning Writers of the Future - and offering all this support to other writers for free
The repeated authors who have gone through Moon's teachings and then ended up winning Writers of the Future
The Wulf Pack Writers group that Moon manages
Following the concept of "how can I help you with what I know"
How writers don't understand proper Manuscript Format
The high ranking sales that HOW TO WRITE A HOWLING GOOD STORY has hit since its release in November 2023
Moon's concept of Heart's Desire as the most important principle in a story
Caring that happens in the heart of the reader, which can create the Reader/Hero bond
Getting to a point in his life that was so low that he took risks and was burning bridges behind him and not writing for 10 years
Realizing that he couldn't be happy and couldn't be fulfilled not being a writer
Moon's experience meeting Dean Wesley Smith at the Nebula Awards in Eugene Oregon
The importance of having both the fundamenals of writing and the belief in yourself
The mantra "belief determins reality" that Moon instructs his students to write down
The dedication in Moon's HOW TO WRITE A HOWLING GOOD STORY
Meeting other people "like me" at writer conferences, etc and the incredible value that can bring
Advice Moon would offer to newer writers
And more...

After the interview, Mark reflects on the importance of not denying who you are and not denying the things that bring you pleasure. He also reflects on the concept of finding your people, your Tribe, and the positive impact we can have on one another if we just take the time to listen, to reach out, to others.

Links of Interest:

Wulf Moon is a bestselling writer, editor, and writing instructor. At fifteen, Moon won the national Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, and followed that with winning the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Contest, and Writers of the Future. He leads the Wulf Pack Writers group. He’s won both Best Author and Best Writers Workshop four years running in the Critters Readers’ Choice Awards, and is the author of The Illustrated Super Secrets of Writing and How to Write a Howling Good Story. www.thesupersecrets.com

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0