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These Marvelous Beasts is Here!
Well, more or less. By January 30, you'll have it all...
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How Pinterest and Process Saved My Novel (And Can Save Yours, Too)
Writing a book, as the old adage goes, isn’t the hard part. I mean, yeah, it’s hard. It’s a butt-ton of work. For me, writing books isn’t the hard part. It’s something I do, more or less, whether or not I want to. But while the writing part isn’t exactly a mystery to me, there have been some real challenges over the past few years that have challenged everything I thought about writing. First thing? In 2008/2009, I was learning to write novels. Like, write them and finish them. I wrote a lot between 08-10, until my hands gave out. Yup, literally my hands stopped allowing me to write, and…
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Watcher of the Skies: Drafted!
It’s been a while since I was able to make such an announcement–but lo! I have completed another novel. This time, it’s the follow-up (I won’t say sequel, because it’s part prequel/part standalone) to Pilgrim of the Sky. While it took much longer than anticipated, mostly due to the ungodly amount of research that was involved, I’m happy to report that I’m quite pleased with the product. It’s a more solid draft than I usually write (see: time to write) and plot-wise it’s a lot more dense. (Even Michael, who’s a surprisingly insightful and critical reader felt the same way.) How am I going to pitch this to you? It’s sort of……
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I have an announcement…
Today is September 22nd, which happens to be the birthday of Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, give or take. And while this day is perfect for gorging on cheese and mushrooms, taking walks in the park among the trees, and starting adventures, it’s also a good one for announcements (or so I’d like to think). No. I am not disappearing. I have no magic rings, and even if I did own one, I’d probably have lost it by now or else left you entirely. I’m far too much of a Took to let a ring sit in an envelope for years. The announcement is this: I have sold my first book!…
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Thoughts from a #dumbwriter
For every thing I learn about publishing, writing, and editing, there are about a dozen others that I’ve yet to figure out. No, I’m not an imbecile. (Though I sometimes walk into walls, I owe it mostly to my roving imagination and general lack of coordination.) I’m just a #dumbwriter. Over the last few years, I’ve been doing my best to get a full, bird’s eye view of Writing and How to Get Published in This Day and Age, but there are still instances where I just miss entire chunks of the geography. Those black holes on my map are where the #dumbwriter lives. Sometimes, it’s because I can be,…
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Dear self-important new writers: STOP. You’re making us all look bad.
<rant> I wasn’t going to write about this, because frankly, I’m a new writer and I doubt there’s anything I really say that will be enlightening on the subject. Except I started thinking about how pissed off I am when I read excerpts of the pertinent emails and conversations. It’s not the professional writers’ responses that bother me so much, but the tone and self-importance of the new writers that makes me ill. Yeah, some of the established writers’ responses to Josh Olsen’s original piece have been a little, um, tough to read. But not every writer is going to turn n00bs away if they adhere to a code of…
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Just to clear something up re: self-publishing
Okay, so the last few weeks I’ve been thinking a great deal about “self-publishing” and its definitions. Publishing has been radically altered because of the Internet, and so have the concepts of rights ownership and creative property. From the getgo, when I started The Aldersgate Cycle Blog, the idea was that I wanted to invite people into my creative process with no strings attached. Yes, technically podcasting my chapters is self-publishing, but it’s not the end-product. I don’t plan on going through Lulu or any of print-on-demand publishers at this space in time because, frankly, I haven’t even tried to get the book published. From the beginning I have referred…
