Tweet This year I’ve missed a lot of blog posts. I missed some because I was so busy with school work. I missed some because I was so miserably sick. And I missed some because I was so frantic finishing up novels or promoting them to an oblivious public. I’ve had lots of good reasons […]
Last week, I read this blog post by The JackB. Jack talks about blogging because you’re passionate about it and blogging what you’re passionate about. He takes exception to bloggers who blog about things they don’t really want to be talking about — all for the sake of SEO, King Content, and headlining. Jack’s post made me wonder if that’s the trap I’ve been falling into lately…
Tweet There’s a bug that’s been going around recently. As a matter of fact, there’s two. The first is a summer cold. An upper respiratory virus. Nothing terrifying or crippling, but just enough to take a man down for six to ten days. In this case, the grown man was me. That’s only a small […]
Tweet This week we’ve got guest posts from my good friend and fellow Consortium Writer, Joshua Unruh. He’s back today to talk about writing product descriptions, or back-cover copy for your books. Last time I gave you a bit of my career background to help explain why Aaron crowned me king of back-cover copy. (Kings […]
Tweet This week we’ve got a guest post from my good friend and fellow Consortium Writer, Joshua Unruh. I could tell you more about him, but he does a great job introducing himself below. Read on. Ladies and Gentlemen, please direct your attention to the CENTER RING! What’s up, party people? I’m Joshua Unruh, novelist […]
What happens to a creative when she’s not creating? She either wilts, or she gets restlessly itchy… .
Tweet Yesterday’s post on the narrative difference between conflict and adversity ended with some specific advice: Avoid adversity by putting malicious cause behind your protagonist’s setbacks. The best way to do that is to make your antagonist responsible, but sometimes it can be a challenge to follow through on that. The trick is to manage […]
Tweet Way back when, I tried to start a series around here on some of the specialized storytelling terminology I’ve been learning in my Master of Professional Writing course. I got into Plates and Hooks and Scene Questions and Story Questions, and that diverted me off into a separate series on Story Questions. I’m not […]
Tweet I lived in Wichita, KS, for six years while I was growing up. That’s where I attended middle school and high school. That’s where I wrote my first fantasy story, and my first (terrible) novel. That’s where I met my wife. That’s where I made most of the friends who have shaped my life […]
Tweet It was a couple weeks ago when I talked about the importance of designing good story questions. Since then I’ve talked about the diverse properties of bones, and some rules for using story questions to build a structurally sound novel. Leaving out the cute story about my kid, most of the discussion has been […]
