Daily Journal

In Today’s Journal * Quote of the Day * The Most Intriguing Review I’ve Ever Received * An Hour with Gordon Lightfoot * Of Interest Quote of the Day “Have you [as a reader] ever paid close attention to dialogue tags? If not, that’s awesome.” Ellen Buikema for Writers in the Storm (see Of Interest) The Most Intriguing Review I’ve Ever Received In a recent post, I talked about not paying much attention to good or bad reviews. I stand firm on that advice for the reasons stated. Usually the reader is only stating an opinion about whether a story … Read more

In Today’s Journal * Quote of the Day * The Bradbury Challenge Report * A New Short Story * A Few Photos * Of Interest Quote of the Day “No two people on earth are alike, and it’s got to be that way in music or it isn’t music.” Billie Holiday The Bradbury Challenge Report Participating in any challenge is a great way to have fun and grow as a writer. The requirement is to write at least one short story per week, then let me know the title, word count, and genre per the format below. During the past … Read more

In Today’s Journal * Quote of the Day * Conversation Part 2 * Of Interest Quote of the Day “Everything you look at can become a fairy tale and you can get a story from everything you touch.” Hans Christian Andersen Conversation Part 2 Technique matters. Opinion doesn’t. In fact, listening too closely to anyone’s personal opinion of your work can actually be harmful. More on this later in this post. As a long-time fiction writer with a pretty big body of work over several genres, I can confidently advise you on the reader-magnet techniques of storytelling: hooks, levels of … Read more

In Today’s Journal * Conversation with a Writer Conversation with a Writer A very good fiction writer and mentoring student emailed me recently to send me a story she’d written a few years ago. She wanted to know what I thought of it. After I responded, she asked a series of questions about that particular story. I thought some of you might benefit from reading that overall conversation. Today I’ll give you the actual back-and-forth conversation, then finish it tomorrow with general advice and an example. First, to put the rest into context, here’s my email to her after I … Read more

In Today’s Journal * Quote of the Day * I’ve Reached the End * Of Interest Quote of the Day “I’ve never written to please other people. … “I just write. You either do it, or you don’t.”” Larry McMurtry in a 2015 interview (see Of Interest) I’ve Reached the End The quote of the day is appropriate. For a very long time, I’ve written, and now I won’t. After a dozen years at the helm of TNDJ plus delivering numerous writers’ conference sessions, copyediting bouts, and private in-person seminars on the glories of writing fiction, the end of my … Read more

In Today’s Journal * The Bradbury Challenge Report * A New Short Story * A beginner’s guide to dystopian literature * My Writing * Of Interest The Bradbury Challenge Report Participating in any challenge is a great way to have fun and grow as a writer. The requirement is to write at least one short story per week, then let me know the title, word count, and genre per the format below. During the past week, the following writers wrote these new stories: Erin Donoho “A Strange Encounter” 2600 Contemporary Suspense Vanessa V. Kilmer “Pin Stripes” 3120″ Syfy KC Riggs … Read more

In Today’s Journal * Quote of the Day * Inviting Manuscripts * Of Interest Quote of the Day “Writing at speed, into the dark, without an outline, or any rewriting … needs training and a slow build up…. They are skills you work up to, practice and train for, and then just let go and do it.” Dean Wesley Smith Inviting Manuscripts or Becoming a Traditional Venue If you’re among the rare few who want to take-on editing and publishing a fiction or other online or paper magazine, remember to respect your potential authors. I have a lot of street … Read more

In Today’s Journal * Submitting Manuscripts to Traditional Venues Note: Whether you’re submitting your manuscripts to traditional magazine publishers or looking to begin your own magazine and invite submissions yourself, this post and the next are all about my personal best practices in publishing. I intended to cram all of this into a single post, but it became too long so I split it into two parts: submitting manuscripts and inviting manuscripts. Submitting Manuscripts to Traditional Venues If you’re looking to submit your manuscripts to traditional venues vs. self-publishing them (you can still do that after rights revert), two quick … Read more

In Today’s Journal * Writing Nonfiction to Instruct and Entertain * Of Interest Writing Nonfiction to Instruct and Entertain A few days ago I mentioned receiving an email from Andrew S that served as a partial catalyst for this series of posts. This post addresses Andrew’s request for advice on how to write “short, pithy, quality articles.” In his email, he also wrote that he sometimes still struggles with tag lines for dialogue. Tag lines really are inconsequential. Beyond including them only when they’re absolutely necessary to avoid reader confusion, the writer should show them no more concern than the … Read more

In Today’s Journal * My Quote of the Day * A Flash Autobiography, Part 2 * Right Now, Today * Of Interest My Quote of the Day “There is a certain dignity in owning one’s afflictions and abiding them in silence. To proclaim suffering is to lessen the benefit.” A Flash Autobiography, Part 2 The Transition into Writing and TNDJ After I met Dean Wesley Smith sometime between 1995 and 2004, the conference gigs continued. I was still writing poetry and song lyrics and essays, and I was also teaching as an adjunct instructor in three different programs at the … Read more