There are all sorts of productivity routines out there. Most of them say something like, ‘Do your most important work first when you’ve just gotten up and are fresh for the day,’ or ‘Get up at 5am and knock out a couple of hours of work before everyone else has started their day.’ Now, there’s nothing wrong with these strategies. They work for a lot of people, but they’re sold […]
Maximizing My Schedule Read More »
I’ve run across a lot of people lately who say something like, ‘I’m not writing with a message. I just want to write fun stories that entertain people,’ and also, ‘Thinking about the big ideas you’re working with is misguided, it’s not a writer’s job to work with a theme in mind, it’s the job of the critic to think about theme.’ There’s also the old wisdom that says, ‘If
In Defense of Theme Read More »
Ok, so a couple of things. First, good news! Looking at my sales from the first of this year to now, I have already sold more books/made more money than I did all last year! That seems like a nice marker of progress, especially since most of these sales weren’t from any sort of campaign but from me posting about my books and people hitting the links. Those sales mean
My last post went over the basics of how Self-publishing works. But there are a lot of other things you need to make decisions about. Here are some things you need to think about when you start your self-publishing journey. What’s an ISBN Anyway? An ISBN (International Standard Book Number) is the identifier your book will carry in various retail systems. It’s how the system identifies it. You need one
More Self-Publishing Questions Answered Read More »
I often tell the story that I was unable to complete a book satisfactorily until 2019 when I first learned to plot. A lot of writers are allergic to this advice, thinking having a plot will kill their desire to write their story. This might be true for them, but there are also diverse levels of plotting, from detailed scene plans to a rough sketch of what you want to
I’ve been doing a deep dive into worldbuilding lately because that’s where I identified I most needed to level up. And I have so many ideas for worlds, characters, and stories that the hard part is realizing that I can’t do everything at once, and I know from experience that I can’t draft more than one book at a time. So, I used my favorite coping strategy, making a
The State of Things Read More »
Whenever I see a list of questions people have for working writers, ‘How do you get over writer’s block?’ is near the top. I understand why this is such a common question. A lot of people seem to deal with this issue, and until I figured out my process, it happened to me a lot. Writer’s block can be a lot of things. For me, it was happening because I
What We Talk About When We Talk About Writer’s Block Read More »
I’ve read a lot of writing craft books over the course of my life, and I thought it would be interesting to talk about my favorites. In general, I don’t like books that are very proscriptive. The ones who give you one correct path you must follow to accomplish your goal. The best ones help you think about things in new ways, and help you put your work
My Favorite Craft Books Read More »
Tilii Eldarion rarely ventured into the human district, but this morning he had a reason. One of the library’s patrons, a certain Mister Edgerton Sharpe, had a rare book he wanted to donate to the collection. He was house-bound due to an injury to his legs, and Librarian Silverthorn hadn’t wanted to trust this errand to a messenger, so Tilii, her trusted assistant, had been dispatched. Tilii didn’t mind. If
Preview of Curse of the Onyx Heart Read More »
The other day my writing group was discussing a post by Dean Wesley Smith, about five levels in a writer’s life. It was focused on their skill level, and while I found it valid, it also didn’t speak much to me. I started thinking about the various levels there are to a writer’s actual career (and I use the term loosely). There are five distinct stages to this, with a
The 5 Stages of an Author’s Career Read More »