Hey Folks, If you remember, Dean Wesley Smith had a challenge during which he proposed writing 10 novels in 100 days. At first it faltered, so he restarted it. Now, he’s announced it’s faltered again. (Actually, he says it’s “still going on” but then says the restart didn’t work well.) I wish him luck on the re-restart, whenever it happens. I suspect he will successfully complete this challenge once he gets going on it. I can’t … Read more
Hey Folks, Today I feature a guest post from Dean Wesley Smith, republished here with permission. Enjoy. Say your goal is to walk across the United States. About 2,800 miles. So say your writing career (in a modern world) lasts over forty years like mine and gets you 280 books written. Got to make the numbers round for this metaphor. (grin) So every 100 miles is a novel in your hike across the United States. So … Read more
Hey Folks, Well, I’m leaving this post up for another week. Not because I don’t have plenty else to write about, but because… It’s that time of year again. The new year is rapidly approaching, and with it comes new opportunities and new resolutions. A time to reset writing goals and maybe jumpstart our writing. What better way to start than with a personal challenge? We use challenges to stretch ourselves just a bit beyond what … Read more
Hi Folks, In a recent post (as I write this), Dean Wesley Smith wrote “…all that matters is the writing, not the end product.” That seemingly innocuous statement is only one of the many truly major lessons I’ve learned from him and attempted to pass along. To establish credentials, Dean Wesley Smith is a USA Today best selling novelist with over 200 novels to his credit. He has also written several hundred short stories, almost all … Read more
Hey Folks, Today we have a guest post from USA Today best selling writer Dean Wesley Smith. I’ve added a comment at the end. Enjoy. Dangers of Not Trusting The Creative Voice Things Stop When You Lose Faith In The Creative Voice… I watch this loss all the time and hear about it from hundreds of writers over every year. Not trusting your creative voice is deadly. This came up a couple days ago when I … Read more
Hey Folks, Back to science fiction this week. Today’s offering presents a somewhat horrific future-Earth scenario. Could you mine the bones of your own ancestors? And if so, at what cost? In the early 22nd century, the Earth is governed by the World Equality Organization (WEO). Like all corrupt governments, they not-so subliminally strive to plant imagined problems for the citizenry, then parlay the citizens’ fear into power. The Jewish people, who for centuries have been … Read more
Hi Folks, An interesting article titled “Micro-Progress Your Novel” caught my attention back in late February. I had to share it because it’s so… well, not new. Despite the high-falutin’ title, the article is all about eating an elephant one bite at a time. That’s all. Instead of trying to “write a novel,” which the author of the post calls a “daunting prospect,” the idea is to set a series of smaller goals, like writing for … Read more
Hi Folks, Please Note: This is a guest post by Dean Wesley Smith, who graciously allowed me to cross-post it here. You can find the URL for Dean’s website below and in the Quick Links in the sidebar. This was originally posted on Dean’s site on February 20, 2018. There Are So Many… I mentioned that I had taught at a wonderful writer’s seminar called Superstars. Put on by Kevin Anderson, Rebecca Moesta, Eric Flint, Dave … Read more
Hey Folks, This is a special bonus post to all my Pro Writer subscribers out there. Enjoy! First, let me recommend you read the comments on Dean Wesley Smith’s post from a few days ago. There are some ideas for goal-setting and challenges there that might resonate with you. For your convenience, here’s the link: https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/getting-ready-for-2018. What follows is the thought process and rationale that helped me set my own goals and challenges for the upcoming … Read more
Hey Folks, So many of us have forgotten that our primary purpose is to entertain, first ourselves and then other readers. Entertainent really is the sole purpose of writing fiction. We get wrapped around words. Yet in and of themselves, they just don’t matter. Words really are only tools, like nails to a carpenter. (If the carpenter drops a nail, does he stop the project? Uh, no.) We get wrapped around sentence structure, or about whether … Read more