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Goodbye Miss Thang
Miss Thang The very sick elderly cat we have been trying to get back to health for the last two months didn’t make it. More on all that below. ——- The Day Started the day off with a visit to the vet. Then back to WMG store for the writer’s meeting and lunch in the back area. It feels sort of strange, actually, to have a writer’s meeting in a store I own. In my first bookstore, both the science fiction club and the writer’s workshop met in my store every week. One on Tuesday, one on Thursday. That was in 1982-1984. Things go around and come around again in…
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A Book I Read and A Challenge
A Book I Read and a Challenge I get some wonderful recommendations from readers of this blog about books I might be interested in. And the readers are often right. Thanks, folks!! One such recommendation was for a book titled Paperback Confidential: Crime Writers of the Paperback Era. Author is Brian Ritt. The book has only been out a few years and it had passed me by. So when it was recommended, I got it at once. I love history of writers. So a discussion on it below and some interesting things about how this kind of thing works for me sort of like what many of you say this…
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Day 1,000
Day 1,000 Now ain’t that a kick? 1,000 days of writing this blog without missing a day. 95 more days before it becomes three years of counting. Now that’s a streak. I’ve talked about the power of streaks, but going to do so again in the topic below. ——- The Day Got to the office around 2 p.m. and then went off and did errands, then walked with two other writers, getting back to the store around five. I worked until about 7 p.m. in the new store, then home to cook dinner. Then assignments, getting that done around 11 p.m. and taking a nap before going to watch some…
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Author Earnings Report
AUTHOR EARNINGS REPORT Today a new Author Earnings report came out form Hugh Howey and Data Guy. Normally these reports are amazing, especially watching the trends from quarter to quarter over the last year plus. But this time they went even farther. They got 82% of all books sold in paper, audio, and ebook on Amazon. And they talked a lot about the dark matter, the huge area of books that sell very, very few copies yet make up a lot of the volume on Amazon. This report is a stunner. Take your time and read it. I’ll give a few of my opinions below in the topic of the…
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First Day
FIRST DAY As expected, knowing I was going to get started today on the run up to ground effect writing, I gave the writing more attention, meaning I actually thought about it during the day. And between now and the end of August, I will go back to detailing out the day as I have done at times in the past. Skip it if it bores you. ————— The Day Made it through a bunch of errands starting at 1 p.m. and then to the regular Wednesday meeting by 2:30 p.m. That lasted until 5:30, but good stuff happening. Then I worked upstairs for about two hours, including two trips to…
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Topic of the Night: Ground Effect in Writing
Ground Effect in Writing The definition of Ground Effect: In fixed-wing aircraft, ground effect is the increased lift (force) and decreased aerodynamic drag that an aircraft’s wings generate when they are close to a fixed surface. When landing, ground effect can give the pilot the feeling that the aircraft is “floating.” M.L. Buchman once said that when the writing is steady and going at a good pace, pulp speed pace, it feels so, so easy, as if there is a ground effect under the words being produced. Wow, did he have that right. I felt this a few times last year, once in July, another in the fall during a month…
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Another Month Down
ANOTHER MONTH DOWN For those of you who have been following along with my writing adventures over the last 34 months (986 days in a row or so), you know that this May was my worst month by far writing fiction in all that time. My worst month before was just under 30,000 words. This crushed the old record, and it was all purposeful. My focus and energy went to starting up our new store and I had a blast doing that. So I did what I advise others to do, when the focus is elsewhere, don’t force the writing, let the writing remain a fun place, not a place…
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Topic of the Night: Restarting Your Writing
Restarting Your Writing All of us, for one reason or another, stop writing for a time. Sometimes it is health reasons, sometimes it is family reasons, or sometimes it is because we just forget, which happens right about now for a vast number of writers. For me, I stopped about thirty days ago to focus on opening a new collectables store, comic book store, and book store combined. Great fun. And even though I thought about writing along the way since I was teaching and still around numbers of writers who were writing, I really flat didn’t want to write. And I didn’t force myself. And I had no illusion that…
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The Battle of the Restart
Great bundle with two of my books in it. And a wonderful book by Lawrence Block and a great book by Kris. Don’t miss it. http:/storybundle.com/writing The Battle of the Restart Back writing. So easy to say, so difficult to do for almost all of us after a layoff. I am no different. Annoyingly so. More in the Topic of the Night post above. ————- The Day Managed to get to the WMG offices and the new store around 2 p.m., after nine hours of sleep. I think I needed that. Ran a bunch of errands, including my third trip to the sign shop to pick up…
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Some Fantastic Writing Books!
Writing Bundle Folks, there is a new writing bundle that just started with ten writing books. Two are mine. Another by Kris, another by Lawrence Block, another by Gerald Weinberg, another by JoAnna Penn, and so on. Trust me, you don’t want to miss this one. I’ve read all but two of these books and trust me, they are worth a lot more than what you would pay in this bundle. Those of you who want to learn, this is the cheapest education you can get from people who know what they are talking about. The Write Stuff 2016 Bundle Here is Kris’s blog about the bundle: The Write Stuff…