Has been written down... somewhere (as the Peter Sarstedt song said.). I set out to write original stories. To break new ground. I got smartarse one day... Ok more than one day. Most days. You'd think I'd learn, but I plainly don't. It's hereditary, I think. I got it from my children. Anyway, various pantsers... Continue Reading →
Days Off
Make sure you schedule some slack; you need to refill the well as well as drain it doing all the responsible, productive things. The last two years, I've had a resolution to write. 2020, it was to write every day. That produced a nasty flare of carpal tunnel syndrome not that many months later, and... Continue Reading →
Take a Down Day
I've been going hard. On a personal level over this last year, I've left one job, started another, encountered a real life 'we have altered the deal...' and then started a new job. I've dragged my family bag and baggage a thousand miles to form a new life in a very large city, completely out... Continue Reading →
Censorship rears its ugly head again
It seems that anti-Semitic prejudice is impacting the publishing world, particularly in Europe, but here in the USA as well. The publishing world today is extremely woke. And woke-approved manuscripts on Jewish themes must now pass a simple purity test: Thou shalt not portray Israel or Zionism in a positive light. American novelist and former... Continue Reading →
Be The Unicorn
You're a unicorn. A beautiful, shiny, fascinating unicorn. Why are you staring at me? Yes, okay I was asleep five minutes ago. The Safeway Select (well, it's not Winnie the Flu. It's Generic) cold is taking forever to make its way fully out the door. Though I think it's gone, it just left exhaustion behind.... Continue Reading →
It Takes Work
Oh, my. This isn't going to end well. I haven't had coffee. My sinuses are killing me. Worse, I came across several posts this morning that left me wondering why in the world people decide being a writer is something easy and that they will become rich and famous just by throwing their books up... Continue Reading →
Pseudo-history and paperbacks
I have managed to get the paperback of Cloud-Castles up (the text is a link on which I get a few pennies of commission. I was going to hold back on announcing it until I had my author copies in hand and could check that they were all right, but I got some dear soul... Continue Reading →
Changing our Release Approach
To put it very loosely, there are three audiences out there: readers who know and like you, readers who liked your books but forgot about you, and readers who've never met your books yet, but will like them when they do. The first are the easiest to sell new work to, but the smallest, while... Continue Reading →
History of Cosmetics in a Nutshell
Men and women alike have been trying to make themselves more beautiful in their own eyes by applying various substances since forever. We only know about what was written down, of course, but I'm confident I can state that even where no record exists, someone was still smearing daubs of clay on their face, berry... Continue Reading →
No Problemo, Dudette!
Actually, the Work-in-Progress has a problem. Which is that the Characters are cruising competently through all the steps they need to solve the problem, without a setback, a misstep, or a single failure. This is not good. It is, in fact, a good way to bore the reader. Drat. Now I have to kill... Continue Reading →