Topic

The Journal, Thursday, January 3

Hey Folks, Today’s “Of Interest” is long and loaded with great links. I encourage you to read them. You’ll learn a ton. I considered pasting an excerpt of Kris Rusch’s post on Pricing here, but I decided against it. All you have to do is click the second link below and you’ll get the whole thing. And it’s good. To see what I was going to paste, scroll down to “Here’s [sic] the other things you need to do on setting the right price”. *** Whether or not you decide to use BookFunnel (mentioned recently by Kris Rusch), for some … Read more

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, Saturday, December 29

Hey Folks, Well, another day, another lesson. From now on, when I’m ending the writing day early for some special reason, I’ll check to make sure the special reason is worthwhile before I send off the Journal. (grin) Yesterday I shut down a little before noon. The football game I wanted to watch was well into the first quarter by then. So I sent off the Journal, closed the Hovel and headed for the house. Turned on the TV and saw the score was already 42 to 6. Oh my. Even though I like both teams (Auburn and Purdue), I … 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, Thursday, December 27

Hey Folks, I got into a short email discussion with a fellow novelist who also writes off into the dark. The upshot was, he wondered whether maybe — when a character does something that’s unexpected and out of character — it’s all right or even necessary to create a history for that character that would explain the unexpected action, a kind of character sketch (my term, not his). I decided to copy my response here as a topic. Topic: Writing Into the Dark, Take 2 I did a post on Writing Off Into the Dark over on the Pro Writers … 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, Saturday, December 22

Hey Folks, Happy Winter Solstice yesterday. I forgot. (grin) Topic: The Importance of Paragraphs While glancing over the internet this morning for items of interest, I checked in on a blog I’d saved in my bookmarks but hadn’t looked at recently. When I save one in my bookmarks, it’s because I hope it will provide valuable, or at least valid, information. A writer posed this implied question: I have trouble trying to figure out when to begin and end paragraphs and when to have dialogue included in the paragraph and when to have it stand on its own as an … 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, 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