Hey folks, I was handed this post on a silver platter by a commenter back in April over on my Daily Journal. Huh. I almost wrote “on the proverbial silver platter,” but to my knowledge there is no silver platter mentioned in Proverbs. Anyway, the commenter wrote “Cycling requires a tremendous amount of trust from the creative side. That you’re not going to meddle with the story unnecessarily….” I omitted much of her comment, but she … Read more
Hey Folks, I’ve wanted to write a post on this for awhile now, and it’s finally time. This post results directly from a high-action scene, a fight scene, I wrote back in April in my crime/action-adventure/thriller novel Blackwell Ops 5: Georgette Tilden. It was probably the best high-action scene I’d ever written, at least up to that point. This isn’t so much a “how-to” as a “how-I-do-it” post. All of this will go to my individual … Read more
Hey Folks, f you’re going to be a professional anything, you have to make that anything a priority. If you’re still in the workforce, that priority is set for you if you want to continue to draw a paycheck. If you’re a cop, you have to put on the uniform once a day and go clean up human dregs. If you’re a mechanic or a construction guy, you have to show up at a particular time … Read more
If you missed Part 1 of this post, you can see it HERE or HERE. Hey Folks, To continue briefly with the discussion I started re traditional publishers, I have two motivating factors: One is the possibility that lightning will strike in the form of a large paycheck. Yeah, that would be nice. Two, at the moment I’m not wanting to expend the effort to publish my own paperback version of my books. Nor do I … Read more
Hi Folks, At 66 years old, with 40-some novels and almost 200 short stories under my belt, I’ve decided to go hybrid. I’m announcing it here, publicly, because it’s a major personal policy shift for me and because it might be something for others to think about. To be clear, this isn’t something I recommend, but it’s something I recommend looking into. Part 1: Statement, History and Rationale My work has been traditionally published before. I’ve … Read more
Hi Folks, This special post comes mid=week because, well, it’s important. If you write at all, you need to understand the value of your short story or novel. You need to understand what you own—Copyright. Intellectual Property (IP)—and you need to understand that you own the right to license that IP. As an aside, THIS is the big reason I’ve always been so frantic about getting the next short story or novel out. Because that one … Read more
Hi Folks, From Reedsy’s Writing Prompts newsletter (as I write this back in early March), “You’re a professional cleaner and the beginning of spring is always your busiest time.” This is for their current short story contest, but it could also easily be a premise for a novel. Here’s what sprang to mind for me: First, define “cleaner.” It might be a person who cleans houses and businesses for a living (as intended). It might also … Read more
Hi Folks, Despite what most of us heard in school (from non-writers, ahem), you don’t have to keep everything about a particular topic in one massive paragraph. Especially in fiction. And blog posts. In fiction, you should begin a new paragraph every time a different character speaks. Most everybody knows that. You should also begin a new paragraph when the scene or setting changes (even in the same setting, even a little). The primary benefit of … Read more
Hi Folks, The initial image many of us conjure of Ernest Hemingway is that of a writer writing. That’s the first image I see too. But the image I most often conjure is of a man’s man. Living, by which I mean adventuring, continually seeking adversity and attacking it where it lives. Of course, that’s larger than life, but so was he. Wasn’t he? To feel truly alive, we all need an antagonist. Don’t we? I … Read more
Hey Folks, When my young son came home from school quietly wiping tears from his eyes one day, I asked what was wrong. Turns out some of the other kids at school in our gang-infested town had called him a “bastard” as he was walking home. Not for any particular reason, but just to be jerks. Kids do that sometimes. That word carries an unfortunate and untrue stigma, that a person born out of wedlock is … Read more