The Daily Journal, Thursday, March 21

In today’s Journal ▪ More on tutoring ▪ Daily diary ▪ Of Interest ▪ The numbers Yesterday I announced that I’m willing to tutor a few writers. I wanted to give you guys the first shot before I announce it over on the big blog since I can only take on a few writers. But it was a confusing announcement at best. So I’ll clarify. This is to benefit you, so your writing will be the focus. I’ll provide instructions, examples ad nauseam, and exercises as necessary. We can work on one or more areas of your actual writing: punctuation, … Read more

The Daily Journal, Thursday, March 14

In today’s Journal ▪ Quote of the day ▪ Update on admin stuff ▪ Topic: Four Harsh Truths ▪ Daily diary ▪ Of Interest ▪ The numbers “You only fail if you stop writing.” Ray Bradbury *** Well, I got my main author website up to date yesterday. And I got Blackwell Ops 4: Melanie Sloan uploaded for advance orders. It will release officially on April 15. The universal link is https://books2read.com/u/4NZxYz, but it’s currently available only in a few stores. (It takes a few days to get into all the stores.) The publisher website is going to take a … Read more

The Daily Journal, Monday, March 11

In today’s Journal ▪ Daily diary ▪ Of Interest ▪ The numbers Rolled out at 2 and found some amazing stuff for “Of Interest.” If you write fiction and have the means, consider signing up for Dean’s Anthology Workshop for next year. I’m a little stuck on the WIP. Somewhere along the way I lost interest in it. I’ve done this enough to know that means somewhere along the way the story veered in a wrong direction. So at 4 when I opened the file, I scrolled up to the top and started reading. I’m not even cycling. Just reading. … Read more

The Daily Journal, Thursday, March 7

In today’s Journal ▪ Daily diary and challenge stuff ▪ Of Interest ▪ The numbers Rolled out at 3 this morning, per my internal clock. So far it’s a great but slow morning. One of my first readers read Blackwell Ops last night and responded already. Very fast. I applied his corrections and one suggestion. Then I completed a quick first-page critique for another writer and got that sent off. (I do still offer a free critique of up to about the first 500 words of your WIP, if anyone’s interested. Just email me.) After that I read a lot … Read more

The Daily Journal, Monday, March 4

In today’s Journal ▪ Update on Pro Writers Writing ▪ An experiment ▪ Daily diary ▪ Of Interest ▪ The numbers The contributors to Pro Writers Writing have begun scheduling their posts. We’ll kick the site off “live” on Monday, March 18. I hope all of you will subscribe. More than likely, I’ll reference some of those posts in my Journal in the “Of Interest” section. But I won’t reference all of them. If you subscribe, you will definitely find some things that work for you but that I might have skipped over. UPDATE: Terry Odell (http://terryodell.com), whose posts I … Read more

The Daily Journal, Thursday, February 28

In today’s Journal ▪ Quote of the Day ▪ Topic: Words ▪ Daily diary ▪ Of Interest ▪ The numbers Via the Passive Guy, the quote of the day: “Tomorrow may be hell, but today was a good writing day, and on the good writing days nothing else matters.” ~ Neil Gaiman Topic: Words Words are our friends, writers. There have been many bits of advice handed down over the years, sometimes from “on high” by writers who have Made It. Like Stephen King famously writing “The path to hell is paved with adverbs” or Samuel Clemens’ admonition to hunt … Read more

The Daily Journal, Monday, February 25

In today’s Journal ▪ Update on PWW ▪ Thanks in spades ▪ The Hovel, Part 2 ▪ My special offer stands ▪ Daily diary (and pictures!) ▪ Of Interest ▪ The numbers I received notice this morning that we have our first new subscriber who isn’t also a contributor at Professional Writers Writing. Woohoo! If you haven’t subscribed yet, I hope you will. And I hope you’ll tell all your writer friends. I think PWW is really going to be a big deal, a go-to source for writing information, advice and inspiration. *** Thanks for all the comments recently on … Read more

The Daily Journal, Thursday, February 21

In today’s Journal ▪ Update on the PWW site ▪ Daily diary ▪ Of Interest ▪ The numbers The basics of the PWW site are set in concrete now. We’ll have six regular contributors who will post once a week on Monday through Saturday. Sunday will be reserved for the guest contributors, who will post in rotation. Later today I’ll add a subscription form. I was going to use WordPress.com’s “JetPack” plugin, but WP.com has gotten too big for their britches. The plugin basically took over the PWW site, so I deactivated and uninstalled it. At the worst, I’ll create … Read more

The Daily Journal, Tuesday, February 19

In today’s Journal ▪ Please read this, and update on PWW ▪ Of Interest ▪ The numbers Please read this. Looking back, I wish I’d set up this blog with only an excerpt via email from the beginning. Folks are just more likely to comment on the blog if they’re reading it on the website itself. Of course, I tried the experiment of going to a click-through model with the Journal, but most respondents didn’t like it, so I switched back. And don’t get me wrong. I don’t blame them. The format of the Journal isn’t conducive to excerpts. For … Read more

The Daily Journal, Thursday, February 14

In today’s Journal ▪ Topic: An Apology ▪ A new blogger ▪ The daily diary ▪ Of Interest ▪ The numbers Topic: An Apology Yesterday in “Of Interest” I posted a link to “Nine Lessons from a Small Indie Publisher.” Had I read it first (I usually do), I wouldn’t have posted it. IMHO, this is not a “small indie publisher.” This is a traditional publisher doing his best to make indie publishing look bad, and he’s doing such a bad job at it that the attempt is transparent. How low will they stoop? Yes, in true indie publishing the … Read more