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Topic of the Night: Blaming the Reader
Topic of the Night: Blaming the Reader I got a letter from a very angry person about how his books weren’t selling at all and it was all because readers were too stupid and couldn’t find his books in all the crap on Amazon. Now normally, I just laugh and delete letters like that as hopeless. With this person, I should have done that, but instead I wrote him back a letter basically saying that the readers were never at fault, more than likely it was his covers or blurbs or writing. He might not like what I would say, but I offered to look at them if he sent a link.…
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Topic of the Night: Three Types of Thinking
Topic of the Night: Three Types of Thinking More than likely this will be a topic I’ll talk about regularly in numbers of ways. But for tonight, what got my focus on this was a comment made by the Passive Guy on a post he put up from Kris. (Scroll down to Kris’s post, his comment is under hers.) He said, “Under current contract practices, the author is the only person who has to think in the long term while everyone else in the publishing business is focused on the short term.” Wow, is that the truth. In so many ways. And so few writers focus on long term in business. In fact, my…
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Thinking Differently
Thinking Differently It’s been interesting how the long-term thinking topic has come up a lot this last week. So going to talk a little about that in the topic above. ——— The Day Made it up to WMG offices to work for a short time there before the 2 p.m. writer’s lunch. It was a good one, with a number of the writers from the romance workshop staying over. Then after a short run to the store for cat supplies, I worked in my office with the little new cat sleeping in Allyson’s office. Finally, around 6 p.m. I loaded all the cat stuff up in my van and then…
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Topic of the Night: Help Getting Through the Time of Great Forgetting
Help Getting Through the Time of Great Forgetting Every year now for the last three or four years I have talked about something I notice with beginning and early-career writers. It happens like this: Writers are all excited at the first of the year, make resolutions, plans, challenges. All great with great intentions for their coming year of writing and production. And for months, things are working great. Somewhere around the last of April to the first of June, life from the outside starts to intrude and the writing takes a back seat, slowly, over weeks or a month. And then the writing is forgotten for the most part, or…
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Clean Copy
Clean Copy Tonight I was running through The Idanha Hotel to put in the corrections Kris had found on her read, at least the ones I agreed with. That was the book I wrote in seven days last week, remember? Well, this time through I agreed with all of her corrections, mostly just typos, and what was even more interesting, this was the cleanest manuscript I have had in a very long time. I normally do clean copy in my one draft, but this was noticeably cleaner. Kris only found about one typo every six or seven manuscript pages, and sometimes there would be no typos in numbers of chapters.…
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Topic of the Night: The Blog That Destroyed An Art Form
The Blog That Destroyed an Art Form I got a great comment from a guy this morning. I didn’t put it through because the guy called me some pretty good names. *ss*ole was only one of them. One word I had never been called before. Creative. But he said he had liked my writing. (I think the operative word there is “had.”) So why was he so angry? And why did I damn near fall out of my chair laughing at this angry post with a bunch of swear words aimed at me? (Not the reaction he was hoping for I am sure.) Because he said, basically, that with my…
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Topic of the Night: Writing a Novel in Seven Days: Epilogue
WRITING A NOVEL IN SEVEN DAYS Epilogue The Challenge Was Simple. Day One: 3,000 words. And then each day after that add 1,000 words to the amount needed. Seven days, if my math is right, I will have a 42,000 word novel. 3,000… 4,000… 5,000… 6,000… 7,000… 8,000… 9,000 words. 7 Days. Looking Back The Writing of The Idanha Hotel: A Thunder Mountain Novel Day 1… 3,700 words. Total words so far… 3,700 words. Day 2… 5,100 words. Total words so far… 8,800 words. Day 3… 5,600 words. Total words so far… 14,400 words. Day 4… 6,050 words. Total words so far… 20,450 words. Day 5… 7,500 words. Total words so far……
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Topic of the Night: Writing a Novel in Seven Days: Chapter Ten
WRITING A NOVEL IN SEVEN DAYS Chapter Ten: Day Seven The Challenge is Simple. Day One: 3,000 words. And then each day after that add 1,000 words to the amount needed. Seven days, if my math is right, I will have a 42,000 word novel. 3,000… 4,000… 5,000… 6,000… 7,000… 8,000… 9,000 words. 7 Days. Day Seven (9,000 word day) Got the book done!!!! The goal today was at 9,000 words and needed to be the focus of my day because I had no idea how many words I would actually need to end this book. I had 3,000 words in the bank, so that helped the worry some. Counting 3,000 words for…
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Topic of the Night: Writing a Novel in Seven Days: Chapter Nine
WRITING A NOVEL IN SEVEN DAYS Chapter Nine: Day Six The Challenge is Simple. Day One: 3,000 words. And then each day after that add 1,000 words to the amount needed. Seven days, if my math is right, I will have a 42,000 word novel. 3,000… 4,000… 5,000… 6,000… 7,000… 8,000… 9,000 words. 7 Days. Day Six (8,000 word day) Once again made my goal for the day. This goal today at 8,000 words was pretty much my focus for the day. I still worked up at WMG Publishing, but for not as long. (Yes, I still worked my day job, got my e-mail, and did these blogs while writing 8,000 words.) Counting…
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Topic of the Night: Writing a Novel in Seven Days: Chapter Eight
WRITING A NOVEL IN SEVEN DAYS Chapter Eight: Day Five The Challenge is Simple. Day One: 3,000 words. And then each day after that add 1,000 words to the amount needed. Seven days, if my math is right, I will have a 42,000 word novel. 3,000… 4,000… 5,000… 6,000… 7,000… 8,000… 9,000 words. 7 Days. Day Five (7,000 word day) Once again made my goal for the night. I paid a ton more attention to the challenge today than I did yesterday. Seven thousand words is a serious number of words in one day and I gave the writing of that much the respect it needed to make it happen. Counting 3,000 words for Day…