the writing life

The Daily Journal, Tuesday, January 22

Hey Folks, First, thanks to my new donor and the first person to take advantage of my Patronage program. Thanks, Scott T! This morning during my wake-up period, I remembered a friend wrote me recently to request a “Search this site” feature on my website. She wanted to see whether I’d talked about Digital Rights Management, but didn’t find it in the tag cloud at the bottom of the site or anywhere else. That request served initially as a catalyst for my brief topic on DRM a couple of days ago. This morning, I added a search feature to both … Read more

The Daily Journal, Monday, January 21

Hey Folks, Update: I talked with Mark Alpert via email. He did not take down his post at the Kill Zone blog. According to Alpert, unspecified others at TKZ took it down because it was “too political.” I can understand that, given that the stated purpose of the blog is to provide “Insider perspectives from top thriller and mystery writers.” But I still don’t like censorship. Oddly, I lost a long-time (over a year) subscriber yesterday too. I believe she left because of my response. Possibly I wrote too much re the Alpert column. I can’t apologize for that. This … Read more

The Daily Journal, Sunday, January 20

Hey Folks, My apologies if you went looking for Mark Alpert’s post on “The Ultimate Taboo: Killing The President” at the Kill Zone blog yesterday. I went back this morning to see whether he replied to my comment, and apparently he’d taken the post down. It wasn’t there. That was not my intention. Free speech is perhaps the most important freedom guaranteed by our Consititution, and I value it even when I disagree with the speaker. That’s why I passed along the link to Mr. Alpert’s post in the first place. If you didn’t get to read it, in the … Read more

The Daily Journal, Saturday, January 19

Hey Folks, Even though it’s a Saturday, I didn’t get up until almost 3. There’s a ball game starting at 1 that I want to watch, and if my wife wants us to do anything together, I will give that precedence. So possibly a short day today. Days like this are why it’s good to have a few days in the bank. (grin) This WIP is filled (thus far) with psychological minutae, so up to this point it’s necessarily slow going. This one will fluctuate, but I’m hopeful. The first novel in this series came in at around 53,000 words. … Read more

The Daily Journal, Friday, January 18

Hey Folks, I guess my inner child is more interested in finishing my WIP today (a Stern Talbot PI mystery) than I am. (grin) The mind controls the inner clock, and despite a relatively late night (for me), I came wide awake and rolled out at 1 a.m. this morning. This is a perfect example of the 2 year old subconscious mind standing at your bedside, tugging at your hand, and stage-whispering (so as not to wake up the person in the other side of the bed) “C’mon! Let’s go play!” I suspect, as he has all along, my 2 … Read more

The Daily Journal, Thursday, January 17

Hey Folks, Oof. Rough night. The moon was big outside I guess, seeping through and around the venetian blinds that cover all our windows. So the ladies (our two cats) played tag all night. Most often the tag consisted of the tagger pouncing unnannounced and landing on the taggee as if dropped from six feet up. And most often it occurred right next to my midsection. When I am jarred awake, I usually can’t get back to sleep for an hour or so, and last night was no different. So I think I got maybe 4 hours of sleep last … Read more

The Daily Journal, Wednesday, January 16

Hey Folks, I learned from Linda Maye Adams’ newsletter that the 2019 Superstars Seminar will run from February 7-9 this year. So I looked it up. (grin) The seminar focuses on the business side of writing, but according to the website they’ll also have a separate writing craft day on February 6. You can attend that as well, or separately. According to Christine Mandeville, the conference co-director, some sessions are full but there are a lot of extras. I recommend it. To see the lineup of instructors. the curriculum and the schedule, click http://superstarswriting.com/. To see the fees, visit http://superstarswriting.com/fees/. … Read more

The Daily Journal, Tuesday, January 15

Hey Folks, Well, Consequences released today. Woohoo! I got an email from Amazon letting me know that, so it released at D2D and Smashwords as well. I’ll upload it to BundleRabbit later today. Frankly, I’d forgotten what day it was, and at the moment I can’t remember what the story was about, except that it’s in the Nick Spalding series. How’s that for not making a particular book “special”? (grin) *** While I’m rambling, let me recommend Linda Maye Adams’ newsletter again. In it she occasionally drops a real gem. You can sign up by visiting her website at https://lindamayeadams.com/. … Read more

The Daily Journal, Monday, January 14

Hey Folks, In today’s “Of Interest” DWS talks about trusting your character(s). As usual, he’s spot-on, and with a very timely post. And there’s an absolute must-read from The Kill Zone blog. Enjoy. Topic: Averting a Conscious-Mind Attack Yesterday, in addition to what I wrote and reported here, I also took a wrong turn in the story and wrote 560 words that I didn’t report. How did I know it was a wrong turn? Because the writing began to trudge along. I’d write a sentence, then stop. Then I’d think “Just write the next sentence,” and I did. And then … Read more

The Daily Journal, Sunday, January 13

Hey Folks, Some good stuff in today’s “Of Interest,” as in the purloined topic, “Crappy First Drafts,” which I blatantly stole from my friend, Dan Baldwin and his Writing Tip of the Week. One note on James Scott Bell’s examples at the Kill Zone blog: Nobody, and I mean nobody, says “ta” for “to” or “ya” for “you.” Folks in Minnesota say “ya” occasionally for “yeah,” but even they never say “ya” for “you.” When writing intelligently (meaning with the reader in mind), dialect and accents are not rendered “over ta the saloon” or “What ya doin’?” (Read them aloud. … Read more