I've been writing. For a while this winter the words weren't coming, so when the flood hit, by gosh, I just sat down and went for it. 31K so far. Not up to NaNoWriMo levels of verbage, but it beats the alternative. So, have a sample: Viktor had collected a dozen eye witness accounts of... 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 →
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 →
Unleashing the Imagination
My apologies, but I'm not ready with the art for the children's book slash coloring book slash humorous illustrated rag just yet. So the cover design post will happen likely next week. This week? I'm somewhere between auggh! and hngghh... this morning. My dear lovely husband suggested I write this post last night. I was... Continue Reading →
Never mind his eyes
There’s a story that I think I first encountered as a Turkish proverb, but that I suspect is nearly universal among cultures. A hunter walked through the forest with his bow, shooting down birds for their feathers. As he walked, he wept for the beautiful birds whose lives he was taking. A young bird said,... Continue Reading →
Yesterday I Did Not Write
I had been writing every day this month. Not a lot, some days. Looking at my tracking, I've ranged from 12 words, up to 3989 just a couple of days ago. Mostly, though, it's been two-digit days. Last night? My day went from a good day, wrapping up the week with getting away from work... Continue Reading →
Distractions
Well, lucked out till halfway through September, but it looks like it's my turn for a tropical storm. So I'm scheduling this ahead, in case of power outages. And it's definitely a distraction, checking the National Weather Service for updates. Or is that an excuse? Who knows? But I ran to the store yesterday for... Continue Reading →
Going Back, Looking Forward, Making Plans
For much of our lives, we're told to look forward and not look back. We all know the problem with that. If you don't look back, you don't study history. If we don't study history, we will repeat the mistakes we should have learned from. The same can be said of writing. So let's talk... Continue Reading →
tiers and tears
Traditional publishing was always - or at least for as long as I had anything to do with it - a two tier affair. If you were first tier you got bells and whistles, and felt the love from the industry, its sycophants and establishment. You got your book advertised widely, your book got launched... Continue Reading →
Trust Yourself
Trusting Yourself I think I may have reached a new level of writing. Or maybe just come up with an excuse to slack off. Every once in awhile . . . All right. Every story has a sticking point, and I have to finally grit my teeth and get it down on, well, screen, sentence-by-sentence.... Continue Reading →