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Some Fun Stuff
A Partial List of My Books… If you want a sort of graphic list of some of the books I have done over the years, a nice person sent me a link to my page on some web site that attempts to follow my work. It doesn’t begin to have all the books (not even close) that I have written under the Dean Wesley Smith name there, let alone all the short stories and such (Missing a few hundred is all). And forget about pen names there. But it is still pretty nifty how they do it, so at a glance you can scroll down and see a bunch of…
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Questions and Lecture Announcement
GREAT RESPONSES… First off, the response on yesterday’s question post was amazing. I really didn’t respond to any of them because I hope to do so in longer posts next week. Some of the responses require longer posts, so I’ll do the first one of those on Sunday. Thanks everyone. Great stuff for discussions. Now to the Lectures I’ve been meaning to announce the new site for the lectures and just kept forgetting. We are also going to be doing new lectures again now that they are on this new site, so watch for those announcements. Over the last six months we’ve got some great ideas from all of you…
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More Questions
A Bunch More Discussion Questions For Writers I have been mostly talking to myself over the last four days, trying to make sense of some questions I have that don’t flat seem to have answers. Or at least not easy answers. So on the idea I might keep this up, I thought for a short post tonight I would just toss out a few more questions that would be fun to talk about in coming posts. Again, just sort of talking with myself, but feel free to chime in with other ideas. —Why is every writer I know in a hurry? —Why are most writers totally incapable of planning longer…
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What Is Special?
With Writing, What Exactly Is Special? A nasty question I got a hunch I shouldn’t ask. Making a project, a chapter, a story special is a quick way to problems and critical voice issues. Making the speed of writing a project special is also a problem I just fell into. And have fallen into a number of times over the last few years. I did a book of blog posts called Writing a Novel in Ten Days where I did my last ghost-written project. Then I did another series of blogs into a book called Writing a Novel in Seven Days. And then to make writing speed even more special,…
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What Is Possible?
How Much Can You Write? I have always wondered why writers can’t produce more words. Back to that evil “Why?” question I talked about a few posts back. In fact, that question about why we can’t write more is the torture of all writers I know. And I am clearly no exception. I always think I should be doing more. Always. Satisfaction with my writing never comes in making the number of words I wanted to write in a certain time. I always fall short. So for fun I thought I might ask what is more? What is the ceiling? What has been done in the past and what can be…
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Become a Better Storyteller… Write Faster
The Problem of Writing Faster… You Get Better… I mentioned this in yesterday’s post and it went right past most everyone. So I figured I would tap dance on this concept a little to see if it would help a few people. What is Writing Fast? As I said yesterday, writing fast doesn’t mean you write sloppy or type faster. Or take shortcuts with plotting or story. Writing faster is simply spending more time in the chair telling stories. That’s it. Every moment you are in the chair writing you are doing the best you can. You just spend more moments in a day and a week is all. An…
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Excuses and the Fine Art of Self Sabotage
Excuses… Last week I came to the sudden realization that most of us modern writers are lazy. While at the same time convincing ourselves we are not. We convince ourselves that the time and energy we spend writing is exactly what we are supposed to be doing. And we seldom question those rules or guidelines or beliefs that lead to the “supposed-to-be-doing” issue. I’ve been questioning those rules and guidelines for a decade now, writing articles about Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing and Killing the Sacred Cows of Indie Publishing. And yet it was when I finished writing a novel in five days while traveling that I realized I had…
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Saturday Night Again
I worked on workshop stuff, watched a bunch of television, wrote a bunch of words, and had a good day. And that, my dear friends, makes this a filler post to keep the streak of posting every day alive. Back tomorrow night with some more questions from the discussion started last week about why modern writers are such wimps. Night.
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A Question…
Why?… Such a dangerous question when asked in relationship to so many different things. Yesterday, in the last chapter of the book I did about writing a novel in five days while traveling, I made a comment near the end that I found the exercise fun to be able to (just for a few days) feel like I belonged in the world of the pulp writers. And I made a comment that I was born too late. A reader wrote me privately with a good comment. Basically the reader reminded me that I should feel lucky to have the modern things we writers use such as computers, control of our…
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Epilogue: Writing a Novel in Five Days While Traveling
WRITING A NOVEL IN FIVE DAYS WHILE TRAVELING… Epilogue… I am writing this from the comfort of my office at home, the day after I got back, which was late last night. I ended having to fight a pretty nasty storm coming in, but made it fine. The drive from Las Vegas to the Oregon Coast took two days, with a stop in Redding. As I said, the novel came in at 37,100 words. But I know for a fact that I will need to flush out the ending slightly because I figured out the end, was tired and did a lot of “and then this happened…” So more than likely the final…