The Passive Voice

The Journal, Tuesday, January 1

Hey Folks, Be patient. There’s a LOT in today’s Journal and in the “Of Interest” section. I hope you will find most of it entertaining and/or useful. Happy new year, everybody! May we all have a year filled with peace and good health. I don’t mention prosperity because, after all, we really can’t take it with us. My strongest personal urge is to live as long as I can and leave a legacy of sorts. As they say down south, can I get a big “Hell yeah!”? Like so many, I’m personally glad 2018 is behind us. Without belaboring the … Read more

The Journal, Monday, December 31

Hey Folks, Rolled out early this morning, excited to get started on covers. I started the day by downloading several photos from Unsplash at https://unsplash.com/. I can’t recommend them highly enough. Great royalty-free stock photos and they’re free. I redesigned the cover for Nick 4 (Consequences), which will release on January 15. Then I designed the cover for Situation Solved, which will release on February 15. Later today, I hope to design a cover for Blackwell Ops. It will be with my first reader as soon as I find one. (grin) I haven’t decided yet whether to release Blackwell Ops … Read more

The Journal, Friday, December 28

Hey Folks, Merry Second Christmas to me. My excellent first reader returned her input on Situation Solved this morning. (huge grin) So it will release on February 15 as scheduled. Thanks, Alison! Alison Naomi Holt is an accomplished writer and screenwriter in her own right (see https://alisonholtbooks.com/). She is also a personal friend. A retired detective from the Tucson PD, Alison writes the Alex Wolfe mysteries (four books so far) as well as epic fantasy and psychological suspense. I particularly enjoy her Alex Wolfe mysteries, and you can get the first one (Credo’s Hope) FREE just by signing up for … Read more

The Journal, Monday, December 24

Hey Folks, Wow. Up way earlier than I expected to be, again. But being up a couple hours earlier than my version of normal gives me time to “wake up” etc. and still have a good writing day, so I don’t mind. Hey, happy Christmas Eve. And just in case I don’t show up in your inbox tomorrow, I hope you will all have a fun, joy-filled Christmas Day no matter what particular holiday your celebrate. After we swap gifts, my wife and I will share a semi-traditional Mexican Christmas dinner with our neighbors. No tamales (nom nom nom) but … Read more

The Journal, Friday, December 21

Hey Folks, If you’re part of Draft2Digital, yesterday you received a very nice Christmas poem from them. I always find it interesting when a company does something they don’t “have” to do. D2D didn’t have to send out that holiday greeting. After all, it went out (at least via email) only to those who are already signed up. It isn’t even on their blog. To see the poem, click This Link. D2D is a vibrant young innovative distribution company, still at the stage where they actually care about writers. If you aren’t using D2D yet, I hope you’ll jump on … Read more

The Journal, Monday, December 17

Hey Folks, I rolled out a little before 2 this morning and was in the Hovel by 2 to start my day. I haven’t explained for awhile why I run such “odd” hours, and we’ve had several new folks join us in following this Journal. For me, my hours aren’t odd at all. It’s a matter of balancing writing time with family time, chores, etc. We all have 24 hours in each day, and we all have physical bodies. So the first basic division of our time is between Sleep and Living. I don’t personally care for sleep, and I … Read more

The Journal, Sunday, December 16

Hey Folks, Quote of the day (to consider, on distractions): “…email [is] an infinite hamster wheel powered by other people’s priorities.” — Jake Knapp on Medium (see “Of Interest”) And another: “…write excellent books. That’s the only ironclad, long-tail secret to a career.” — James Scott Bell (see “Of Interest”) And one more: “Don’t let being a writer interfere with actually writing.” — John Gilstrap (see “Of Interest”) *** Just in case seeing my own reckoning with this “test” of December might help you, I’ll lay it out here each day in detail (when the detail matters). I rolled out … Read more

The Journal, Friday, December 14

Hey Folks, Topic: On Challenges (It’s That Time of Year) In Dean’s post today (see “Of Interest”) he’s talking about restarting his challenge on January 1 to write 10 novels in 100 days. His plan is to write 10 50,000 word novels in that time. It will “stretch” him (and hence, be a challenge) because he isn’t sure he can write 5,000 words per day consistently for 100 days. I’m considering joining him in that challenge, but with a twist. I would write 10 novels in 100 days, but probably in a particular world, so a series. Or maybe two. … Read more

The Journal, Wednesday, December 12

Hey Folks, I’m a little depressed. I post regularly here and over on my Pro Writers blog about writing, both Story and Mechanics. I post regular warnings, too, about the endless abyss that is traditional publishing today. But this little Journal reaches fewer than 100 readers that I know of. Even my “big” Pro Writers blog reaches only several hundred. Frankly, you who read this Journal have a much better deal. You get a lot more information. That’s why many of the posts on the Pro Writers blog are reprinted topics from the Journal. Yet every day, as I scour … Read more

The Journal, Monday, December 10

Hey Folks, I had an interesting question re the new Gutenberg “blocks” that WordPress shoved upon us recently. The long and short of it is this: If your website is hosted on WordPress.COM, you have to pay extra to be able to add plugins to your website. That’s one of the things I don’t like about WordPress.com. It’s “free,” and then they nickle and dime you to death. Same with a lot of the other so-called free providers. ALSO and more importantly, if your site is hosted on any of those, be absolutely certain to read the terms of service. … Read more