In 1947 a book titled Of Worlds Beyond: the Science of Science Fiction Writing was published. It was a collection of essays about writing science…
Another Obscure S-List Writer
Tag: writing
The correct answers are “Planet 10” and “Real Soon”, but those won’t help the aspiring novelist doing NaNoWriMo. On Day 3 the original run of…
My principle goal this NaNoWriMo is figuring out a sustainable writing habit. Like a lot of NaNoWriMo winners the year I won I burnt out,…
Today’s episode of The Everyday Novelist is about getting started, titled appropriately enough “Here’s Where You Start”. The first time I listened to these episodes…
I have completed NaNoWriMo once, back in 2018. I lacked the courage to publish that novel at that time. I have tried NaNoWriMo a couple…
I have been reading How to Be an Artist by Jerry Saltz. It is one of my two bathroom readers. The other is How to…
The picture heading up this post was taken back on the fifth. Z moved back to Georgia last month and these abandoned gas pumps and…
I quit writing fiction in February. Actually, I quit more than writing. I quit writing related MeWe groups, at least two Discord channels, and my…
Way back in 1982 in El Paso Texas in a bookstore that disappeared only months later I bought a book I’d only heard about in…
I had ordered some comics; Spiderwoman #1 is the chief one I remember, from Mile High Comics. As a result, I wound up on their…
The feature picture was taken on my return drive from my last trip to see Z. I’ve meant to take it for several trips now…
This weekend I ran across the rare writing tweet I could answer. While Mr. Nevair was happy with my answer, I thought others might get…
I think I am misdefining a genre. At the very least either I’m looking at the seam between two genres or reading one a bit…
In her essay, “Why I Write,” Joan Didion says that writing is an imposition on the privacy of the reader. Specifically, she says, “there’s no…
Where do you write? That might seem like a simple question to answer: at home, at work, wherever I can are obvious answers. For me,…
Lester Dent was a great author of the pulp era. His first published story in September 1929. His last published novel was in February 1959,…
Each of those characters embodies one or more things I want to talk about. A shortlist of those things could include gender roles and their relationship to sexual dimorphism in humanity, Orthodox Christianity, immigration, the Southwestern United States, the for purpose in life, my fears of aging, my fears of retiring, atonement and forgiveness, and a personal sense of moral worth or lack thereof.
Queen Takes Knight remains 80% finished. By the time I was writing it, I had started to drift away from the S&M world. As I gained distance, the passion for writing the first good F/m erotica or porn faded. The novel itself was less erotica; it had never really been porn and more a detective novel with three graphic sex scenes that advanced the plot. The graphic details could be cut without losing the story.
So H is for haunting, the artistic pinnacle of the writer. It is a writer’s imperishable fame.
It also has allowed me to understand why I haven’t liked a Hugo winner in over a decade, but reread books like The Coming of the Horseclans and The Man Who Never Missed. While fantasy and science-fiction reality genre, they are action novels in terms of content. Not everything I love is action, but a good deal of it is.
When someone sets out to become a self-supporting indie author there is a lot of discussion of finances. Discussions about being debt-free, having a healthy…
I have wondered if this is a mistake. I have considered experimenting with retyping in my process. Could marking up a written manuscript and, instead of doing the edits in your word processor or text editor of choice, typing it fresh from the beginning serve as a useful step in language polishing?
There is a term for a comfortable living made by appealing directly to customers with some kind of gatekeeper, be they editors or employers. That word is freedom.
It might not seem like it, but this is actually my best resolution progress in years. I have made two reflections in a row. This indicates mindfulness and commitment I did not have in 2020 or 2019. That alone is a positive step. I think at this rate the two new identities will be firmly in place by 12/12. The big question is will writing be refreshed and move forward towards my “retire to a final career of writing fiction on 2026/05/10” goal.
That was a few days ago. This city discussion in Dael Kingsmill’s video on witches is in D&D prompted the comments. At the time I was once again reminded of how average my game soon to me. I generally do not think of myself as a creative person yet I want to move on to a final career in a very creative feel.
Writing a blog twice a week on gaming taught me a lot about getting out of my way and letting the words flow. Writing blog posts about gaming and storytelling have helped me find my voice. I already reject style choices in ProWriting Aid and Grammarly because “that’s not how I say things.”
For the challenge, I’m writing about learning to write fiction. At least, that is how I initially framed it. A more detailed answer is I’m…
Twenty-nine days have passed since Groundhog Day and we’ve come to March 3rd. It is time to review my Groundhog Day resolutions. A quick refresher, this year I decided to focus on three identities and the habits you would associate with them. I’ll look at them in order from least successful to most so far.
Having to write every day, about something, just to get a blog post, might be what I need to break the damn. I have a longer, more traditional blog post in first draft for tomorrow. Wednesday, of course, will be my Groundhog Day resolutions update. Beyond that, there isn’t a plan beyond having at least a few hundred words about something up every day at 6 pm here in Georgia.
Powell’s had the chance to show the protesters what the real signal would be like. They could have spent the labor to put up a display and invited Ngo to sign books. They could have accepted the cost of the broken window and the free publicity of protests. They could have risked the inevitable arson attempt. They could have been everything independent booksellers claim to be.
So, inviting luck, writing, and using a calendar seem like a pretty ambitious year. Come back on March 3rd to see how I’m doing.
Writing 500 words only to learn I was wrong is one of the two substantial rewards of blogging. In writing an essay on a schedule, every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday, in my case I am forced to clarify my thoughts. I am also forced to stop when something new enters my thoughts and decide if it is worth clarifying.
That is why I’m working on craft more than on getting items up and for sale. The Visions of Cireb is up. Putting it up was a huge milestone in terms of committing to the field, but now it is time to learn my craft, to learn my fundamentals.
Today is the the Sunday after the Elevation of the Holy Cross and the feast day of Greatmartyr Eustathius Placidas, with his wife and children,…
That is just a sample of Homer’s descriptive violence. If you write historical fiction or fantasy and want to upgrade your descriptions of fighting, do yourself a favor and read a good poetic translation of The Illiad if you haven’t already. I know it is improving my writing. I think it will improve yours.
Looking back, I went off the rails, but I still think it’s worth sharing. The story is a side of Navy life you don’t see in the movies.
When I am working on something, I’m going to give the bottom of the piece as much attention as the top. A lot of the…
New feature, in addition to videos and song, why not share a book. I am a writer, even if I’m just an obscure S-list one.
I knew the sensation from the Forgettings I had done. Forgettings are a must for an alchemist. You have room for only so many memories before the mix and start to still your sanity. Any alchemist who finds the Stone or the Exilir has to learn rituals of forgetting.
Whatever I was thinking, I’m in it now. Either I’ll look like a fool and having nothing or I’ll look like a fool with a very bad first book.
Two weeks ago, I made a post about starting my Groundhog Day resolutions planning. After looking at areas in my life to consider, I pointed out back in December I started a list of processes I might focus on this year. Today, we’ll look at that list and see where it fits in the six areas to which I had narrowed my thinking.
Today is the Twenty-ninth Sunday after Pentecost and the Twelfth Sunday of Luke. It is the feast day of Venerable Makarios the Great of Egypt, the Anchorite.
Specifically, I want my Groundhog Day goals to be about measuring processes I want to have in place, or in the case of bad habits, processes I want to ease off my routine.
This post has a rare style, called a “paragrapher” that stems from the introduction to my latest essay collection.
From the world of politics and journalism is a lesson that no one is above genre expectations. In writing about it there is also a lesson that to essai is to often not come to the conclusions you thought you would when you started.
I don’t have one. I’m writing this in the older meaning of essay as a verb: “to make an attempt at; try.” I try to find a proposal here, but I find myself still trapped in Einstein’s warning. I cannot get beyond political ideas about moving money around.
I love to read such tales. I wish there were more of them.
The section on mentors is up front and shorter. The section on influences is about nine times as long as the one on mentors. One reason according to the author is not everyone gets to have an intentional mentor, but we all learn from those around us and who came before us.
The playlist began with my first sprint inspired by Chris Fox’s book. I used the Tenggar Cavalry radio station on Spotify. That day I saved the first few songs. Now I add as I’m listening to something and think it fits the book somehow.
I talked about self-help books last week. I even mentioned the book in question was Organize Tomorrow Today. In case anyone cares, I have been…
Still, Pulp Fiction has issues as a story. As a film it is a good film with some great scenes and beautiful direction, Where it fails is as a cohesive story.
I tend to refer to the two categories as white collar and blue collar writers. One works at a leisurely pace that could be considered an air conditioned writer’s room. The other toils to make their 2,000 plus words per needed to keep up their multiple books per year pace.
Nope, I’m talking about why here it is Tuesday afternoon and I don’t have a Tuesday blog post started. Like any activity writing comes with plenty of excuses not to do it. Perhaps only exercise comes with me.
When you refuse to write something because the character or the outcome is from a viewpoint you fear you are cutting off an entire sphere of solutions. That leads to giving up on great stories.
I do not believe as a reader I am culpable for the moral behavior of an author no matter how much I enjoy their work. It is not a sign of depravity to continue enjoy something I enjoyed prior to this knowledge.
The last Sunday in March is here, and it appears the lion is roaring one last time. Today at noon was over 20 degrees cooler…
It is a new world for writers of fiction. With the introduction of the Amazon Kindle and Amazon Direct Publishing, the gatekeepers of publishing big…
One typical piece of advice for writers is to understand and respect the conventions of the genre they are writing in. Yes, that includes you…
It is the twelfth day of the twelfth month and thus time for the final review of those goals I set myself on the second…
It is uneven and, if I decide to do it, will need a lot of work, but it is done. Most important, I written 30…
I had not planned on doing NaNoWriMothis year. I did not plan a story. I did not outline. I did not even have a coherent…
I missed four months of Groundhog Day review. The last was back in April. At that point, I was struggling with two of my three…
This past month I cut the cord. While I subscribe to Netflix and it is both Z and C’s primary form of television my viewing…
I am sinning against one of my own principles. It isn’t the most passionate principle. It has provided a few rants over the years. As…
D4: Story in a Flash As promised way back in But I Want to Write here is a link to the story on writing flash…
Last week in my Groundhog Day update I said, “I had planned a more thorough discussion, especially of my failure to get any traction on…
Lost Daughter of the Amazons, 3,994 words is finished. Correction, when I print in Scrivener and open the RTF file I have 5465 excluding title,…
Note: This should have posted yesterday but did not. It is March Third and time for the first review of my Groundhog Day Resolutions. First I’ll…
Today is Groundhog Day or as I used to call it in my past Engineroom Lower Level Day. Today, the midwatch engineroom lower level watchstander…
I figured I’d cross post my vignette from the According to Hoyt prompt. Her body language conveyed it. After all, if you were looking for…
As I’ve long said if members of the super mommy, Christian mommy, or lifestyle submissives begin to adopt something you know the other two communities…
And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you…
D4: Sounds like bullsh*t An Austin band decides Autotune isn’t misused enough and makes a ruined version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. I tried to…
What is success in writing? I got to thinking about that when a friend posted an article about new writing awards and said, “This is…