We ALMOST got out of winter without any major snowfall. After last year’s record three foot blizzard and the two days it took for us to dig out of that, plus several other small storms, I was very pleased that (until last night) we had gotten nothing but a few traces of snow here and…
Being a good sport is hard, particularly when you’ve tried – and failed – multiple times at something. But it’s a requirement for living life the right way, so you suck it up and do it. Period. Take Pitchmadness/Pitchwars. I’ve participated several times now (3 total I think). All three times I failed to make…
I’ve long had a problem with finishing my stories. Whether short stories or novels, I start out white hot, stumble into mediocrity, and eventually move on to something else that excites me. I think I’ve mostly overcome that now with concerted effort and setting my word goals last year. But it still rears it’s head…
With Summer off to the editor for a developmental read and nothing much else to do at this point, I’ve decided to get back to work on the World War One fantasy novel I began last year. I’ve been laying down new beats this week in the form of some new characters and putting more…
One of the things I’ve discussed with folks many times now is the concept of “every man” as a content producer. Or woman, depending on your preference for gender correctness. Maybe we’ll be Switzerland and go with “every who”. So Every Who in the past could not create and publish content themselves, at least not…
The past year has been a year of milestones for me. I wrote 350,000 words last year in new fiction, finished the first draft of my second novel, worked hard to find someone interested in my first novel (still no luck), and completed a bunch of short stories. I also completed my fifth year with…
Lately I’ve been feeling melancholy. It’s a great word, you should look it up. I know people frown on using big words, but I enjoy having a rich vocabulary and being able to resort to a wide variety of words to express my meaning. I lump all that “speak simply” stuff in with typical anti-intellectualism…
It’s been pretty crazy in the “real world” since January 20th. We’ll ignore what happened on that date, because the majority of us would rather forget, but the 21st was hugely exciting. We attended the Women’s March in DC that day, and spent all day surrounded by 500,000 new friends peacefully protesting what we see…
The differences between working on my first novel (the still unpublished and seemingly never to be published Shadow Of A Doubt) and my latest work in progress (Summer) continue through the editing process. I think it’s intriguing to note how much things have changed. When I finished SOAD, it was a hot freaking mess. It…
I love audiobooks, I really do. They have totally transformed my commute into a – if not enjoyable – much more tolerable way of spending 2 to 2.5 hours of my life every day while boxed up like a sardine in my four cylinder economy bread box. I’ve enjoyed everything from classics like Mark Twain’s…