All right. Sorry for the delay. I’ve had a bit of a life roll recently, so this one took longer to get through than the others. In addition, the topic is tougher, so I wanted to focus better. So I took a little more time. JUMPING IN You might ask what the Three Laws of […]

Last post I wrote about The Three Laws of Editing Lou Anders created many years ago, and touched on how the (and particularly the First Law) created the environment for Independent publishing to grow. Today I’m going to talk mostly about the Second Law. First, let me restate those Three Laws: In a just world, […]

Through the mystical tangles of modern social media reposting, today I came across an interesting frame of reference—written originally by Lou Anders—for how the traditional publishing industry works. It was done in the mid-2000 (2006, as I recall from memory?). But given the fundamental nature of its presentation, I’d say it’s as true now as […]

The Book in a Month Dare continues. Today Brigid and I went to a little place on the corner and wrote together for one of my 90-minute blocks. That’s always fun. In general, that’s how I work. Ninety minute runs, then a break to do something else—be it business or frivolity. Then ninety more. Depending […]

The bad news is that my main computer’s check disk ran through the day and into the night. So no more words. The good news is that nothing was truly wrong. Just some indexing gone astray and whatnot. So nothing seems horribly wrong. I think, anyway. Regardless, things seem to be running smoothly. So it’s […]

So it’s the first day of a new year. A fresh start. Yay us! Lisa, Brigid and I stayed up last night and watched fireworks over Las Vegas. I’m of multiple minds about the relative merits of such displays, but it was quite enjoyable as far as that goes. Our view of the Strat, the […]

So, Brigid and I are doing a Novel Dare alongside Lisa Silverthorne. Yes, round up the usual suspects, right? Yesterday was Day 1, and it went “well” in that we’re working on OUTFIELD MAGICKED, Book three of our Faries and Fastballs series. We had completed chapter one a month and a half ago, but then […]

Forgive me for being on pins and needles this morning. I’ve just hit “Launch” on my latest project, a nonfiction work titled On Creating (And Celebrating!) Characters, and my mind is a bit of a mess, thank you very much.  But, yes, there it is, my newest little baby flying out in the open for […]

Simply because the idea struck a minute ago, and because my brain needs a rest, I thought I’d while away a few minutes listing my Top Five protest songs of all time. Like I said, don’t ask where the idea came from. Mostly I was humming Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” in my brain as […]

Dean Wesley Smith is on a kick, writing a series of blog posts that he calls “I Feel Bad for New Writers.” The gist of it is that he’s come back from watching twelve new writers at this year’s Writers of the Future session as they try to deal with career advice—and that the bulk […]