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Intensity in Your Writing
Intensity in Your Writing… In the Point of View online workshop, in the last week of the class, I mention in passing a major area of fiction writing that is never taught. Intensity. And the reason this area is never taught is because of the advanced nature of it. In fact, most writers never notice it until long into their career. And never really know how to work it for the longest time. But when realizing there are readers on the other side of every story, one goal of the mind control of readers is to play on their emotions. To even understand that your words will generate emotions. Emotions are…
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The NaNoWriMo Challenge
The November Annual Challenge I have had a couple people write me and ask me what I thought of the NaNoWriMo challenge that goes on every November. Well, I think it’s fine as far as it goes. Anything to get writers motivated to write is a good thing in my book. But at the same time, I often feel it is tragic. The people who push the challenge are so far down into the myths, they bode no other methods. What they push is this: Write sloppy, train yourself to write sloppy because you can always fix it later. And very, very few writers ever spend the time or have the…
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The Power of a Streak
The Power… This is day 1,150 of posting a blog without missing a day. Yes that is over three years. It is Saturday night. Very few people stop by here on Saturday night. Yet because I want to keep that crazy streak alive, I am posting nothing that has to be typed. (grin) Those of you who understand the power of a streak and apply it to your writing with words produced tend to really get ahead of everyone else quickly. Streaks are very powerful things when you get one started. Right now I have walked five miles four days in a row, a new streak starting. Tracking Fiction Page…
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Point of View
Point of View… I’ve been having a really fun discussion about point of view with a writer who took the new point of view online workshop in October. We have been talking about how there is no omniscient in fiction writing and how summary openings that feel omniscient have viewpoint, both author and character, often combined. For me, putting the point of view online workshop together was really fun. I was able to get past the basics in the first week and really start working on other deeper skills with writers. The point of the POV workshop was to not only give writers new tools, but make writers aware of the…
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Blast From The Past
Great Old Picture… From my first moments at science fiction conventions back about 35 years ago, Jay Kay Klein was there, taking photographs. I have no idea how many thousands of pictures he took of me over the decades, but it seemed that every time I turned around there was a flash. And it never once bothered me. Jay Kay Klein started taking photos far before I arrived on the scene and kept up taking photographs of sf authors and fans until just before his death at 80 in 2012. He was a very, very nice person, published some decent stuff over the years as well, but was a stunning…
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Some New Goals
New Goals… I am back at writing and exercise with new goals on both. Writing Goal My big goal is to get back up to pulp speed (million words a year fiction) and hold it for all of 2017, which would include staying on time until issue #50 of Smith’s Monthly. Now that’s an impossible goal to wrap my head around, so I am going to break it down into a shorter time frame to start with. Between now and the end of the year I want to write a number of novels, with luck at least three or four done between now and the end of the year. And at least eight short stories. That…
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Thanks for the Comments
Thanks… I really appreciate the comments about the two workshops the last two days. Seems the copyright workshop might be worthwhile if it focused on how to use copyright to make more money with your fiction. So Kris and I will give it some thought. And I’m having fun moving over the lectures to a new place easier to use for everyone. I have seven of the lectures moved so check it out. I think they look pretty good. http://wmg-publishing-workshops-and-lectures.teachable.com Tomorrow back to running and to writing. Got a fun new running plan to talk about which should also work for some of you with writing and goal setting. Stay…
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Keeping Track of Books Published
Keeping Track of Books Published… Now most writers don’t have an issue with this. Seems I am not one of the most writers. I have a horrid issue keeping track of what I have published and always have. Why? Because once I have finished writing a story or novel, it’s done and I am moving on to the next one. I never look back. And thus this minor problem. Just yesterday I was dinging along looking for a short story file on my old writing computer and ran across a novel I had written and that was published and that I had forgotten about and hadn’t counted. So in traditional,…
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Putting Together Smith’s Monthly Issues
Putting Together Smith’s Monthly… As I keep making changes to this site and get going on year four of my magazine, I thought it would be fun to sort of let you all follow along with putting these issues together. You have been watching me write stuff here for three years, so why not the next step for the next year? So over on the right side I have listed the next three issues of Smith’s Monthly and what I have ready for them now. The assigned stories are there at the moment, but might change out if I write some new ones. I like to lead off each issue…
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Ten December Online Workshops
Ten December Online Workshops… Instead of constantly having the workshop schedule listed in every post and on the side of this blog, I’m just going to do instead an occasional post about the upcoming online workshops. Feel free to forward these workshop posts to anyone you think might be interested. Online workshops are geared to any writer working on the craft and business of their writing. As the next three months go on, we will be moving the workshops to a more friendly and less “clunky” place. Teachable.com. So I will announce that as they get moved, starting with the lectures first. And even though not yet listed, we will be…