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Sometimes It’s Just a Day
Friday again… I tend to be at a loss of energy on Friday nights. I have always wanted to believe the loss of energy was caused by the fact that for 17 years of my life I tended bar and Fridays were the big day. Friday, the day of the week when all the amateur drinkers went out and pretended they knew what they were doing. Now understand, I haven’t tended bar since I sold my first novel in May of 1988. Same day, actually. I wish I could say I was stupid and quit my job when I sold my first novel, but actually I had just been laid off,…
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The Power of the Creative Voice
Trust the Process… I have said that simple statement a lot over the years to other writers. And for years at a time I had that simple saying over my computer. Trust the process. So simple, yet so hard to do at times. Tonight, let me tell you about something that happened to me to illustrate that saying. Point one… You all know I write into the dark. I have no idea where any book or story is going, never do any work ahead, just sit down and write and trust the process, trying to entertain myself as I go along. Anything else would be too boring for words and…
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Two New Online Workshops Announced!
TWO NEW ONLINE WORKSHOPS ANNOUNCED… That’s right, not one but two. Writing Endings will start in January and Writing Secondary Plot Lines will start in February. And above this is the announcement for a special on online workshops because so many people missed the Kickstarter we did a few months back. It’s a one week special, so don’t miss it. We won’t do anything like it again until the next Kickstarter campaign two years from now. Besides that, the online workshop schedule is posted now for December through May to help with planning into the new year. You can sign up for any of the workshops on the list at any…
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Go Slow
Go Slow… Not sure if anyone is tracking my progress on the fiction page linked below, but I have been starting back up again after having over a month where I did little writing. Very little. And for me it was for no reason other than my attention was diverted to other stuff. But many times all of us stop writing for various reasons from health to family to world events. But then we come back and that’s when things get interesting. I did an entire lecture on starting and restarting. But let me tell you here, quickly, how I am doing this. — My focus is no pressure on the…
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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…