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Setting Up New Writing Schedule
Setting Up New Writing Schedule Still pretty tired from the sleep schedule getting screwed up, so spent the day doing workshop stuff and getting ready to really fire back up the writing. See Topic of the Night below. ——— The Day Once again nothing really much to talk about. Made it through some errands and then went for a walk with another professional writer to get some steps in. Then back to WMG offices to work on workshop stuff. Then I headed home around 8 p.m. to cook dinner, then back working on workshop stuff and my writing stuff for the rest of the night. ———- Workshops May Online workshops…
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Topic of the Night: Writing a Novel in Seven Days… Prologue
WRITING A NOVEL IN SEVEN DAYS Prologue This is going to be fun. That’s how I am going at this new project and these chapters leading up to the challenge and the challenge itself. I will be doing a chapter a day here on my blog through the writing of the entire novel, so you can follow along with the time involved, the thinking behind the idea to do a novel in seven days, the preparation, and everything else. And I will detail out the writing sessions as well as I start up. Today is Tuesday night, and I plan on starting writing on Saturday night. So a decent amount…
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Time and Writing
TIME AND WRITING I have noticed this in the past, but just remembered it once again. When planning on returning from writing after a vacation or a sickness, or both in my case at the moment, the time you think you will return is never the actual time it takes you to manage to return. As I have always said, starting writing is far, far harder than just writing every day. ——- THE DAY Made it to the WMG offices around 1 p.m. and worked there until five p.m. I got all kinds of things moving, such as Smith’s Monthly, moved some shelves, and had great conversations on different…
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Figuring Writing Investment Return
Figuring Writing Investment Return The topic tonight comes from a couple people asking how a writer could figure ROI (Return on Investment) on their writing without following the numbers. More on that below. —— THE DAY Slept late, raining solidly here today. Nasty kind of rain, not our normal dump and then the sun comes out. I did errands, snail mail, bank, grocery store, other things, then got to WMG offices around 5 p.m. Worked there until 6:30 on Smith’s Monthly, then home to cook dinner, then back to WMG to work on Smith’s Monthly and do some work on the new store. Then home to do workshop assignments and…
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The New World of Publishing: How to Keep Your Writing Going for All of 2014
This an almost complete update of a post I had here in late 2012. I figured it was worth my time and energy to get this updated and out again, especially since so many of you have been watching me with my “Writing in Public” posts and some of you are even subscribing to Smith’s Monthly to read what I actually write. Thank you, everyone, for that support over the last year. It’s made this all great fun. Some basics to start: Any business and production plan you decide to set up for yourself is made up of goals that can be attained with work. The focus of the goals…
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Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Publishing: #9… Writing is Hard
Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Publishing will be out later this winter with an introduction. And then it will be followed by a book called Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Indie Publishing. But first I wanted to put each myth or “Sacred Cow” up here again as I promised. The Myth: “To be Good, Writing Must Be Hard.” —- This myth comes in many forms and has many faces, but let me put it as plainly as I can to start. Myth: To be Good, Fiction Writing Must Be Hard. (And it can’t be fun.) Total hogwash, of course, yet it is stunning how many new…
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Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Publishing: #3…Rewriting
This series of posts will turn into a book called Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Publishing later this fall with an introduction. And then it will be followed by a book called Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Indie Publishing. But first I wanted to put each myth or “Sacred Cow” up here again as I promised. This third Sacred Cow article was published here in 2010 and I redid it once in 2011, but now it is slightly redone for the world of 2013/2014. However, this third incarnation hasn’t changed that much. On many of these posts it is amazing to me as I redo them…
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“Ghost Novel” Writing So You Can See
Numbers of people were wondering exactly what I was writing when I did the ten days of blogging about writing a 70,000 word novel. They were bummed they couldn’t see the final result or I couldn’t even give hints as to the genre. So, taking a page from of a much better writer than I am, (Harlan Ellison, who wrote a lot in public) I figured I would do the same thing I did with the “ghost novel” blogs, only do it for five short stories. And let you all read them as I finish them. I’m thinking about starting this on June 10th and going until the five stories…
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Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing: Writing Fast
Years ago I did this series called Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing. I stopped doing this because I hoped for a time that indie publishing would murder a few of the myths on its own, but sadly, it hasn’t. In fact, indie publishing created some new ones to go along with the old ones. Since I am going to blog about a ghost novel I’m writing here, I figured why not bring this forward to make sure everyone is on the same page as I go into this writing week. And maybe after I get the book done I’ll start back updating and bringing forward all these and get…
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Blog 3,000 Days in a Row!!!
Without a Miss… Think that through…. That is 8 years, two months, and 19 days. A blog every day. Sometimes more than one blog a day if circumstances required it. Computer crashes… Yup! Internet connection failures… Yup! Power outages… Yup! Sickness and hospital stays… Yup! Kris very sick… Yup! Major move to new city… Yup! Major business office move… Yup! Biggest problem was nights I was too tired to care and had nothing to say… Those were the hard nights. Why do this? I have no damn idea, to be honest. None. Whatever reason I started this daily blog for (as I also started Smith’s Monthly on the same day) is…