Month: June 2022

The Journal: Pure Writing Into the Dark

In today’s Journal * Welcome * I’m Back! * Topic: Pure Writing Into the Dark First, welcome to r2zajac and any other recent new subscribers. You picked a good time to drop in. (grin) I’m Back! I’m not bragging here folks. I’m celebrating. I just felt like sharing this good news with my friends. Starting Blackwell Ops 8, my current novel, has been nothing short of restarting my life as a fiction writer after a very long 10 months. I’ve written five or six different openings for this novel, and I struggled with all of them. It was like pulling … Read more

The Journal: The Squeaky Stair Technique

In today’s Journal * Topic: The Squeaky Stair Technique * Of Interest Topic: The Squeaky Stair Technique I’ve long wanted to write a topic about pulling the reader into the story quickly and more deeply by focusing down. That is, writing some small thing that causes the reader or viewer to focus his or her attention down on a fine detail. Doing so causes the reader to lean more closely (or deeply) into the story. In fact, I recommend you use this technique in literally every opening you ever write. The point of a good opening is to ground the … Read more

The Journal: Very Short Post Today

In today’s Journal * Very Short Post Today * Should One Seek A Critique? * Of Interest Very Short Post Today Just not a lot to say, and I’m aware that a lot of the stuff inside the recent topics has been negative. I want to get away from that for awhile. Also, the novel’s coming along, but very slowly. I put down fewer than 500 words yesterday, so I didn’t bother updating the numbers. I feel the novel is (I’m) on the verge of breaking out, but it’s (I’m) not quite there yet. As you might imagine, critical mind’s … Read more

The Journal: The Lessons We Learn

In today’s Journal * Quotes of the Day * Topic: The Lessons We Learn (a guest post) * Thanks, and guest posts * Of Interest Quotes of the Day “[I]f the market [target audience] determines what works, … what good is a critique in advance?” Matt Perryman “Creating the impression that copywriters need critiques is lucrative business.” Matt Perryman Topic: The Lessons We Learn a guest post by Matt Perryman I wanted to relate an anecdote that relates to your post on crawling befor you walk. Your post made me laugh because it’s not limited to fiction writers. In my … Read more