How to Reward Your Faithful Fans By M. C. A. Hogarth One of the most common refrains I hear in writing is ‘don’t put all your eggs in Amazon’s basket—protect yourself by diversifying your income stream!’ and this is instantly followed by the advice to ‘go wide’—which is to say, make sure your books are... Continue Reading →

I am, like Mr. Bennet in pride and prejudice, a mixture of Odd Parts. During the late (but not great, mostly just sad, disappointing and destroying the rest of the mystic I saw in the organizations in the field) kerfuffle in the field, someone on our side in politics decided I needed to be destroyed... Continue Reading →

So there was an interesting kerfuffle on my blog, and I got very angry. If this is posting after twelve it's because I didn't get it written in time to make it to my doctor's appointment for prednisone. I'm not going to name the commenter, because this is not the point of this post and... Continue Reading →

Back when joining SFWA was a mark of finally being a professional (okay, okay, so it probably wasn't even then, but we didn't know any better), our older son joined SFWA at thirteen, with his first professional short story sale. We sent in the application and didn't hear for a while. Turned out that there... Continue Reading →

Hi there, all of you shiny writers and beginning writers on the other side of the screen! I'm here to bring you great tidings: you're going to fail. Whatever you think you're going to do with this writing thing? You're going to fail. And it's going to be amazing. Um.... stop crying okay? Let me... Continue Reading →

Tempus Fugit. And speedily too. At the close of the year, you know how it goes, looking at the past years and what went wrong and what went right. I of course feel I must apologize to all and Sundry -- I don't know who Sundry is or why he/she/it/blobfish is not included under "all"... Continue Reading →

Recently, for several reasons, Mike Rowe's S.W.E.A.T. Pledge has come to my attention, and I realized how much of it applies to writers. Even to -- particularly to? -- indie writers. Indie writers particularly those of an ADD bent are stuck on a peculiar crucible. Actually we all are. You see the problem we have... Continue Reading →

On Being Lydia Bennett A Blast From the Past from November 2018 *Excuse me for this, but it's a Blast From the Past From my other blog, According To Hoyt. I was at a loss for what to write today, and stumbled on this post I didn't remember writing, and which is ALL about writing. Or... Continue Reading →

Years ago, I was mentoring someone (I've mentioned it here before) who thought "Novel" was a length. Before you go "but novel is a length." Sure, it is, but it is also a unit of plot of action and hopefully character experience and growth. If you sat down and wrote 80k words of your character... Continue Reading →