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Courage in a World of Artistic Freedom
Artistic Freedom From a Different Perspective… Last week I did three posts about the artistic freedom that all fiction writers have in this new world. Artistic freedom, at its base level, means the freedom to pick your own path in fiction writing, write what you want to write for whatever reasons you want to write it, and be responsible at the same time for your own mistakes. Artistic freedom means having the choice to try to chase a traditional big-five book deal, even though the consequences of catching that brass ring is loss of the book and massive frustration. Artistic freedom means you can write whatever novel or story you want.…
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Writing to Market… Timing
Artistic Freedom Part Three… I got some great comments on yesterdays post on this topic, but a few people, both in the comments and in private e-mails to me are confused about what I mean exactly about not writing to market. I finish my work, don’t I? Isn’t that a form of writing to market? Nope. I try to sell what I do write. Is that a form of writing to market? Nope. What I have been attempting to say is this: When you decide, before you have written a word, to do a project because you think it will sell (because you know more than anyone about selling books,…
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A Little More Running
A Little More Running A very busy day today, as was expected after a long weekend. And from all the people I ran into in the banks and post office, I wasn’t the only one having a busy day. But still managed, even though it was raining a little, to meet Kris at the lower parking garage for the mall and do some running and walking while she ran the entire time. She’s way ahead of me on this running thing. Way, way ahead. And a lot smarter about it as well. I am down 17 pounds from July 1st, but still too heavy to push the running too…
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Topic of the Night: My Seven Keys of a Challenge
Topic of the Night: My Seven Keys of A Challenge A number of people have written me and made comments on the blogs about how they like the crazy challenges I come up with. Let me give you, in seven points, my reasoning about any challenge. 1st… I have learned it has to be short term. My memory and attention span is so short that if I try for long-term challenge that can’t be broken down into much shorter challenges, I will stop cold or just forget, which is more likely to happen. 2nd… It has to be something I haven’t done before, or have an element that makes it new.…
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Fun Stuff Happening This Week
Fun Stuff Happening This Coming Week Kris finished reading Star Fall: A Seeders Universe Novel and she liked it. She didn’t have many corrections at all, so took me about an hour tonight to run through it and put in her corrections that I agreed with, then got it off to WMG. As I said earlier, the book will be in a bundle in the middle of September. And speaking of bundles, I have a book in a really nifty bundle right now. It’s called “Out of This World Bundle” and it has 16 sf and fantasy novels in it, including one by me and one by Kris and a fantastic…
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Day One: Novel Challenge
Day One: Novel Challenge Really a strange start to this new novel challenge. I ended up getting to the WMG offices around 2:30 p.m., then headed out for errands, first going to our south store, then to a bank, then back to WMG offices, then to a second bank and the post office before heading to walk with two other writers. Got done with the walk around 5 p.m., headed to the grocery store for some lunch and to pick up what I needed for dinner, then back to WMG Publishing to work on workshop stuff. Home by 7 p.m., so 3.5 hours of work, 1 hour of exercise. Cooked…
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Approach With Attitude
Approach With Attitude I got a hunch this topic is big enough for a book all its own, or maybe a workshop, but I’m going to talk about it just a touch tonight in regards to the challenge I’m starting on Friday. See below.. ——- The Day Meeting at WMG Publishing offices at 2 p.m., then at 3:30 p.m. I started my standard running all over hell-and-gone doing business errands. Made it back to the office to work on workshop and covers by 5:30 and then off to the grocery store and home to take a nap. Kris did dinner and I did dishes and I got in here around…
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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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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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Topic of the Night: Can’t vs Don’t
Can’t vs Don’t Over the last month or so I’ve been seeing tons of writers talk about how they can’t do this or that aspect of publishing. All I have been doing is shaking my head and mostly turning away. I kind of equate this to saying I wanted to be a professional fiction writer when I started in 1974, but I couldn’t mail a manuscript to an editor. Pretty much a terminal problem for a career when I started off. So let me start off with giving you one thing you absolutely can’t do (in my opinion.) You can’t do your own copyediting. We writers just can’t see our own mistakes.…