I’ve got a piece on Jay Lake’s blog that is in the final 5 of his flash fiction contest following the voting of Jay’s panel of esteemed judges. I’m thrilled to have made the cut. It’s for the story After the Golden Times, although in the Jay Lake poll it’s untitled (and you can read […]
I’m a pretty linear thinker. I’m also content to read books and watch movies and let the plot unfold without a whole lot of guessing about what’s going to happen. As a writer, this doesn’t serve me well. But I forge ahead anyway, looking for ways to sift through the mound of cliches clogging up
They say that the road ain’t no place to start a family. –Steve Perry, lead singer of Journey. The road is also no place for me to start a story. We just got back from Nags Head, NC where we visited with some old friends. I always marvel at how much I enjoy seeing those
Writing on the Road (or not) Read Post »
I wrapped up the first draft of my first novel three days ago. It felt good. Not great, but good. The following day, all I could think about was all the stuff that needed to be rethought, reworked and rewritten. The prospect of doing those things is daunting and exciting. I look forward to the
I hit 100,000 words on the first draft of my first novel today and feel like I’ll have things wrapped up within the next 10,000 or so. My original goal was 100k by the end of August, with the idea that I’d also have a complete story. That gives me 11 days to get to
Just a quick question to all three of you who occasionally read this thing. I’m closing in on the end of my first draft and there are definitely elements where I feel like I’m swimming in a whole bunch of concepts, many of which seem disparate. At one point in my mind they seemed coherent,
I hit 90k words yesterday. Things are coming along well enough for the first draft. The story lines are coming to a head and the ending is in site. I figure I’ll have about 110k first draft words after the dust settles. With a little luck, some of it will be good and worth keeping.
I read a fair amount of writing-related blogs and websites to help keep me going. There’s tons of good stuff out there and today I found Bibliophile Stalker’s links and plugs post to be an especially nice melange of good stuff. I went from there to John Scalzi’s Whatever blog, where I dug into his
Figurative Inspirational Espresso Read Post »
I hit 80k words last Friday – it felt damn good. I added a little sumpin’ to the word pile on Sat, knocking out 1000 words in an hour. I am set to finish up within the deadline I set in April – the end of August for my first draft. My laptop has other
80k Must Be the Breaking Point Read Post »