The Digital Reader

The Journal, Tuesday, 7/18

Hey Folks, If you aren’t distributing through Draft2Digital.com (D2D) yet, here’s another reason to do so. I received an email this morning saying D2D has partnered with Findaway Voices to provide audio books starting, actually, today. To read about this innovation, visit https://draft2digital.com/blog/d2d-partners-with-findaway-voices-to-provide-an-alternative-to-acx-starting-7182017/. Of special note, if you use Findaway Voices via D2D, the former even waives their normal $49 admin fee. Worth checking out. Best of all, it gives readers one more way to find your work, and it gives you one more trickling stream of income. Today, and Writing I did little or nothing but reading and researching … Read more

The Journal, Friday, 7/14

Hey Folks, Probably another full day of editing in my camp today. Then that will be behind me and I’ll turn my hand back to fiction. Topic: POV—It Belongs to the Character, Not the Writer This is massively important. Summed into one sentence, Everything in every setting in your story or novel must be described through the POV character’s senses and flavored with the POV character’s opinions of the various aspects of that setting. The POV character’s description of a setting enables the reader to see (hear, smell, taste, feel) it. The POV character’s OPINION of that setting brings it … Read more

The Journal, Monday, 7/10

Hey Folks, This is important, so it goes up front. Just in case you happen across “How To Easily Proofread And Edit Your Own eBook” (by The Digital Reader), IMHO there’s only one piece of valid advice in the whole article: Read Your Work Aloud. Everything else there either lets someone else into your work or won’t work. Topic: What a Writer Needs, Post-Story You need a good first reader. By “good” I mean someone who enjoys your work, but someone who will also point out four things: misspellings, wrong words, inconsistencies, and any place where he or she feels … Read more

The Journal, Thursday, 6/29

Hey Folks, I love to enter a room to find most common sense has fled. The absence makes me feel superior. Yeah, I need to stay away from Facebook more. (grin) Hey, both Christopher Ridge (http://creaturecritter.blogspot.com/) and Linda Maye Adams (http://lindamayeadams.com) are taking on a major writing challenge at the moment. Visit their websites to follow along and support their efforts. I’ve also added a link to their pages on my main website under Readers’ Resources. Last night my brain was full and I thought I was finished with website stuff. Then I sat down and hovered my cursor over … Read more

The Journal, Tuesday, 6/27

Hey Folks, Wow, there sure are a lot of blank spaces on my spreadsheet where there should be fiction numbers. I don’t imagine that bothers you a lot since they’re my goose eggs and not yours. But just in case, I can promise you they’re going to change pretty soon. (grin) Probably in a big way. What follows is a bit of personal rambling, which is why it isn’t preceded by the word “topic.” I might have mentioned here before an old Marine Corps acquaintance of mine. I won’t mention his name here. It wouldn’t mean anything to you, and … Read more

The Journal, Monday, 6/26

Hey Folks, Wow. I could post this right now and chances are you’d find value in it. Just check out today’s “Of Interest” to see what I mean. There’s a lot there. *** By the way, I requested and received a “free website critique” of my main website from Nate Hoffelder. In a word, the guy’s legit. He’s also super helpful. My website doesn’t suck, but (to continue the analogy) he pointed out a few places where vacuum leaks exist or are forming. So I’ll take care of those over the next week or so. So once again I encourage … Read more