James Scott Bell

The Journal, Sunday, September 30

Hey Folks, I can’t stand publishing scams, and it hurts me to see so many writers falling for them. Hence this post. Yesterday I did nothing at all except finish judging the contest. We got the results out in the mail. Today I will work on the copyedit for awhile, then take the rest of the day off. But this morning, I saw that one of my writer friends in Oklahoma posted a newsletter from Booklocker.com to a Facebook group we both belong to. That posting caused me to write a response and then the following. Topic: The Scams, They … Read more

The Journal, Monday, September 24

Hey Folks, A LOT in “Of Interest” today. I even added a couple of them to my website Writer Resources page. Absolutely nothing to report from yesterday. But this morning, after spending a couple of days getting over this cold or whatever it is, I feel better enough that I can at least think. I mentioned a few days ago that I received a copyedit. It’s a re-edit, so it shouldn’t be all that difficult. Since it’s also prepaid, I’m going to set everything else aside and work on that until it’s finished. Some reshuffled priorities, in light of my … Read more

The Journal, Sunday, September 16

Hey Folks, Not a lot to talk about today unless something occurs to me later. For now, I’ve browsed the Internet, didn’t find much, and am going to write for awhile. Which spurred this thought: Once again, I’m setting a goal to write fiction every day. This self-discipline is nothing more than a trick to get me to the keyboard once a day, every day, and I’m stubborn enough to make it work. My life is not one in which I have tons of responsiblity. Been there, done that. But now, I don’t have a day job, I don’t report … Read more

The Journal, Friday, September 14

Hey Folks, My buddy Dan Baldwin dropped by from Mesa (a 3-hour trip, much thanks Dan) this morning for coffee, a good cigar and a little philosophy slathering. Of course, we talked about writing too. While I was waiting for him to arrive, I decided to cycle back through the last part of my WIP. Almost two hours later, I finally realized maybe it would be better to just forget it for awhile. (grin) As I mentioned before, we’re going through a bit of a life roll out here. It’s some medical stuff that will be partially resolved sometime (we … Read more

The Journal, Sunday, September 9

Hey Folks, I’ve had a sense of urgency about time and life since I read a book when I was around ten years old. If I remember correctly, it was Cheaper by the Dozen, in which siblings talked about growing up with their efficiency-expert father, Frank Gilbreth. As a result, I developed a kind of “do it right now because you might not have time later” thing. Right or wrong, that philosophy has guided my life ever since. To this day I hate wasting time. It really is the most precious commodity we have. In my life, the philosophy extends … Read more

The Journal, Sunday, August 26

Hey Folks, As I expected, no fiction writing yesterday. If I write today, I’ll report it on Monday. I received feedback on my previous novel from my first reader yesterday, and this morning I applied that feedback and (I hope) enlisted her aid as the first reader for the one I’m working on now. (grin) Now I just have to come up with a couple of titles. One for Nick Spalding 2 (the one I finished) and another for Nick Spalding 1 (the WIP). In the meantime, here’s Part 2 of the topic I started yesterday. (You can see Part … Read more

The Journal, Sunday, August 12

Hey Folks, Well, I took pretty much a full day off yesterday. I did a lot of things and had a great visit with my buddy, but I did no fiction writing at all. And three or four times, when nothing else was going on, I yearned to get back to the story. One of those good/bad feelings. So today it’s back to writing for at least awhile. I’ll set up the writing ‘puter in the Hovel, and every time I have a half-hour or so of dead time, I’ll head out there. We’ve been spoiled during this monsoon season … Read more

The Journal, Sunday, July 29

Hey Folks, A lot in “Of Interest” today. Some of it’s spot on, and some of it, not so much. With the abundance of writing advice out there, I’ve taken to carrying a shaker of salt with me as I read, so I can take a grain as necessary. I receive James Scott Bell’s infrequent newsletter. In today’s edition, he notes that his stand-alone thriller, Don’t Leave Me, is on sale for 99 cents. But the tagline is what prompted me to add this entry: “When they came for him it was time to run. When they came for his … Read more

The Journal, Saturday, July 28

Hey Folks, Today’s Journal entry is all about writing advice, the Kill Zone blog, and the “Of Interest” section of this Journal. In my own hunt for writing advice, I seek out other professional writers who are farther along the road than I. Once I find them, I gauge whether their advice is valuable to me overall. If a blog post is rife with misspellings and wrong word usages, awkward phrases and misplaced modifiers, or if they display a certain level of ignorance about the language (for example, ignorance of the difference between “likely” and “probably” or “if” and “whether” … Read more

The Journal, Sunday, July 8

Hey Folks, I’m a guy who generally doesn’t “should” on people. (Thanks to my friend Lloyd Chaves for that bit of sleight of mind.) Today I stumbled across one of the worst articles I’ve ever seen on writing. I won’t mention the name of it here (or the URL) because I don’t want to advertise it. But it was all about a number of steps to achieve efficiency as a writer. Four of the “tips” were the same old time-worn crap everybody repeats almost constantly: find a good place to write (really? thanks for that); find time to write, etc. … Read more