Any word choice you make will impact your work. Whatever you are writing – words matter. The English language is messy. Someone I know described English as the language that takes other languages into back-alleys and shakes them down for loose grammar. Because English is how it is, many different words can be applied to…
Tag: fiction
Life is All About Stories
Stories come in many variables – true, false, and everywhere in-between. Everyone has a story to tell. Everyone. Some people tell stories quite matter-of-factly. Thing ‘A’ happened with person ‘B’ at time ‘C’ and the outcome was ‘D’. It may not seem like much of a story – but it still is. Many people don’t…
Escape Through Fiction
The world is a crazy place. We all need an escape through fiction from time to time. Many of my childhood memories are vague at best. But among those that are clear, there is this: Sitting in the theatre, the massive swell of music from an incredible theme and an unusual, scrolling text – and…
The Beauty of World-Building
You have tons of options when world-building – both as a pantser and as a planner. My primary love in writing is sci-fi and fantasy. With that comes a need for world-building. This can take any number of forms – and can be incredible on lots of different levels. And of course, my tagline is…
The More Things Change…
Current affairs can and will influence fiction. Some things never change. In the fall of 2020, I sat down and plotted out a story. It was the first time I had really done that. Before this planning, I had – except for some world-building – almost exclusively written as a pantser. Before long, I had…
Self-Publishing and Marketing
An ongoing challenge with self-publishing is marketing. I decided, after a large number of rejections over some 10 years from both agents and publishing houses, to self-publish. Yes, I questioned if maybe I just was not as good a writer as I thought I might be. However, after much analysis, I concluded it was less…
I Finished My Writing Project!
Congrats, you’ve finished – now what? I suggest 10 steps to follow here. I entered into 2021 with a bold plan. I’d write and publish 6 novels this year. As of last week – all six are written. Yes, I finished each book that I planned to write this year. There was a mixed, bittersweet…
The Therapy of Writing
Writing – fiction or nonfiction – can be therapy. There is something deeply cathartic about getting words, thoughts, and ideas out of your head and onto the page or screen. Whatever form that takes – journaling, nonfiction, fiction, storytelling, or what-have-you – writing can be massively empowering. If you’re not a writer – forcing it…
Where do The Ideas Come From?
Are the ideas my imagination – or am I channeling another time/place? There can be philosophy and psychology associated with fiction. While most of us are pretty sure the worlds we envision – far-out places of fantasy, science fiction, and the like – come from within us – they may be out there. Somewhere. Get…
What’s in a Name?
Revisiting an old challenge in the name I publish under. I debated this notion several years ago. Just after I began to publish on Amazon, it became a mountain I needed to climb. The issue at hand is the name I publish under. I write in three distinct genres – publishing online in two of…