writing

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POINT OF VIEW: Writing Is My Escape From Pandemic World

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space portal - deposit photos

As I write this, I am sitting in the parking lot at the grocery store waiting for our weekly grocery curbside pick-up. It struck me, driving over here, how small my world has become since the pandemic began. Once a week I leave home to go to the post office, then to the grocery store, and then back home again. Every four weeks, I plug in the Prius to charge up for the next month. I’ve been doing this now for more than six months, and only on a couple occasions have I gone farther than this two-mile radius from … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Upping the Odds

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Some writers seem to have an innate sense of the publishing marketplace, surfing adroitly from one trend to another, catching every wave and riding it to success.  The rest of us aren’t so lucky. I’ve been writing seriously for six years now, and I can’t lay claim to catching a single trend. Trends are, by nature, often short and ephemeral – so unless you can turn around a book in ninety days (and some writers can and do) they are notoriously hard to catch. My first book took me five years to write. I did my second book in thirty … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Writing Without a Win

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Waiting room - deposit photos

It’s been 7,464 hours since my last sale. Not that I’m counting. Honestly, it’s partly my own fault. In October last year fell into a bit of a … let’s call it a rough patch, since we’re not dealing with clinical depression here, and I don’t want to minimize those who suffer from it. Still, I basically stopped writing for months. I’d just finished and published the last of my two trilogies, and had wrapped up a novel, submitted it to Pitch Wars, and then utterly failed to even attract a full manuscript request. Since then, I’ve thrown myself into … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Put a Wolf Under the Table

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wolf snarl - deposit photo

Your characters are on a quest for the fabled Sword of Bighands. They’re sitting around a thick iron-banded wooden table at the Borderlands Pub, a dark, seedy local hangout where you can buy anything from drugs to human slaves. Or a really good guide to get you out of Bordertown and across the great Scorched Desert, to the fabled Treasure Lands across that hot, dry, shimmering expanse of red sand. Your characters are talking about the long trek ahead, sharing war stories, and sipping on curiously ice-cold mead. And they’re absolutely bored out of their gourds. So what can you … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: The Best Oreos

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Every writer has their vice. For some it’s the siren call of alcohol – a nightcap before bed to help drown out the muse’s voice, or a cold beer in the afternoon after a hard couple hard hours wrestling with plot bunnies and squirrels. Hey, anyone know the difference? I could never figure it out. For others, it’s the terrible lure of social media, a great place to avoid, you know, actually having to write something, while feeling good about yourself for posting all those fantastic writing memes to your Instagram account, Twitter feed, or Facebook page. For me, it’s … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: After the Plague

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sunrise - after the plague

My friend A. Catherine Noon asks: What do you want to change when we come out of lockdown, and what do you want to leave behind? What do you want to make (assuming you had energy and no stress)? (Make includes write.) Wow, that’s a big question. Some of my answers come easily – like the first things I want to do when this is all over: I want to hug my friends tightly. I want to go to Starbucks and get a trenta mint java-chip frappucino and drink it until my brain hurts. I want to have dinner out … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Getting Up With the Roosters

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alarm clock - Deposit Photos

I’m trying something new. Anyone who knows me knows I am insanely busy, all the time. Mark and I run about twelve websites, plus I’m both a writer AND a human who occasionally needs to eat and sleep. In the past, I would write when Mark went to the gym, usually between 12 and 1:30 PM. But now, with the Covid19 crisis, there’s no more gym. And although Mark is awesome at staying out of the way during writing time, more and more I’m edging into writing time with other work, losing 15-30 minutes (sometimes more) when I could be … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Taking My Time

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stopwatches - pixabay

I’m writing again, and it feels really good. 🙂 But I’m doing it a little differently this time. I’m working over my first three chapters multiple times before moving ahead, making sure that I have three things settled in my head: The thrust of the plot The interdynamics of the characters The major and minor details of the world I always do this to some extent, but have never done so in such a thoughtful and deliberate way. From Pantsing to Plotting When I first started out as a writer, I was a total pantser. My overflowing “drawer” of what … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Diving Deeper

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Diving Deeper - Deposit Photos

I’ve always said when you stop growing as a writer, your writing dies. We’re like sharks, swimming and swimming to keep that oxygen pumping through our blood. A few years ago, when I first started writing seriously and sold my first story, I was on top of the world. I felt like I had finally arrived, and knew how to do this shit. People were actually taking me seriously as a writer. That didn’t last long. I got a rejection, and another, and another. I sold a few more stories too, but then my reviews started coming in, and I … Read more