Hi Folks, This is a revised post from earlier. First, if you’ve ever felt you’re starting too late in life as a writer, please visit Dean Wesley Smith’s post on the topic. You’ll be glad you did. Second, the next post in Pro Writers, probably around the end of this week, will be the Introduction and maybe the first chapter of my new nonfiction title, Writing the Character-Driven Story. I will post successive chapters here, free, … Read more
Hi Folks, I’m about to try something I’ve never tried before. One of my goals this year is to write at least six nonfiction books on writing or publishing. To help me achieve that goal, I’m going to publish them right here first, on this blog, one chapter at a time and free of charge. I will announce each book here when I start it. Then, each time I finish a chapter of the book, I’ll … Read more
Hi Folks, Okay, first, wishing you a Happy New Year. May it be everything you want it to be. As I write this, I recently visited Dean Wesley Smith’s website (link below) and read some of the comments there. The comments are almost always as informative as the posts themselves. In fact, I regularly pass along tidbits from his site over on my Daily Journal. (Subscription info below.) To sign up for my diary of a … Read more
Hi Folks, A very brief post today. First, I wish you a happy Christmas Eve, a Merry Christmas, a happy and prosperous New Year, and an overall happy holiday season. I also invite you to check out my Journal for today. Anytime today, please visit This Link. I’ll be updating the post until around 3 p.m. To make it more valuable to writers and the curious, from this day forward the Journal will contain an introduction … Read more
Hey Folks, If you’re a human being with dreams and aspirations, this is a great time to be thinking about what you want to attain or achieve in 2016. If you’re a writer, that means thinking about goals. At the minimum I recommend setting a daily writing goal, one that automatically resets at the beginning of each time period. If your goal is to write 1000 words per day and you meet or exceed it, great. … Read more
Hi Folks, I’m sending this out a little early because, darn it, it’s the Christmas season and I wanna give you a few presents. I’ll slip in an appropriate post on the 21st just to keep the routine of every ten days going. That’s when this one would have gone if I’d left it to its own devices. First, Merry Christmas. If you don’t celebrate Christmas, I hope you have an enjoyable holiday season. Also, I … Read more
Hi Folks, Back on track for writing during my quiet time. In fact, during the wake-up, I wrote an article, basically, to rebuff a HuffPo article in which the author got pretty much everything wrong. As my response was not really long, I’m including it in this post. For reference, the full Huffington Post article is here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janet-tavakoli/apple-taxes-authors-patie_b_8711882.html I hate it when such obviously slanted stuff is offered (and bought, unfortunately, by many writers) as fact. … Read more
Hi Folks, Well, on the second day of my new system of writing during my quiet time, I messed it up. (grin) On the up side, I limited my waking up time to about ten minutes. On the down side, I spent the next two and a half hours on admin stuff, prepping The Scent of Acacias for layout for print. Sigh. I forgot I hadn’t done that yet. I already have folks wanting boxed sets … Read more
Hi Folks, Today is the first day of me going back to writing earlier instead of allowing my quiet time to be taken up with other nonsense. I’m allowing myself a half-hour to an hour and a half administrative time. During that time I’ll check and respond to emails, update my Fiction spreadsheet and tend to other administrative matters. I’ll also take care of the kitten and come here to begin the Journal entry for the … Read more
Hi Folks, This was mostly a non-writing day. I wasn’t really planning it to be a day off, but that’s how it turned out. So about 2:30 p.m., I called it. Suffice it to say I really need to start getting two to three hours of writing done while the world is quiet in the early morning hours. Then no matter what happens the rest of the day, at least I got something done. The Day … Read more