Writing

by 3 comments on "Context reading in Adult SF&F"

…or, ‘I Am Not Five, and I Don’t Read Like This:’ I’ve recently followed some online critiques of other people’s science fiction and fantasy works-in-progress. I noticed a common factor: some readers’ inability or unwillingness to deduce words from context. One example: a friend’s Norse-flavored take on the Tam Lyn folktale held seven or eight…

Read More Context reading in Adult SF&F
Aside 2 comments on "Content writing for blogs"

A handy tip on writing for your blog: do most of it yourself or don’t do it at all.

Sure, cultivate guest blog trades for relevant and relatable posts. It’s fun and lets you network with peers. But your blog should be about your voice and vision, not someone else’s. Especially not someone you’ve hired to scrape and repackage web topics. Otherwise you’re not blogging, you’re just a spamming spammer who spams. 

If you can’t write well enough for publication, take some classes or use free online English-as-a-second-language resources until you can. 

Especially if your blog is your business contact and showcase.

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C’mon, you gotta know this one. It went from pun to meme to geek celebration? May the Fourth be with you. It’s a bittersweet holiday for me. ‘Star Wars’ was my Sf&F call to action back in ’77. It galvanized my attention like Tolkien had a few years before: big settings, classic stories slightly retold,…

Read More Happy Star Wars Day
by 1 comment on "Intergalactic Medicine Show: free fiction"

I’ve witnessed some extraordinary discussions over the past month, as the Hugo Awards controversy continues in the science-fiction and fantasy community. Eventually, I’ll provide links (cribbed and cited from a couple of diligent AW sources) to the best explanations of what happened and why. Part of the fallout? Free stories listed online by authors, editors,…

Read More Intergalactic Medicine Show: free fiction
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…is adding a kickass prologue that brings the fantasy novel up past 85,000 words, which is the minimum that several great Big Five publishers want to see. Once I finish minor tweaking to answer comments from four beta readers, I should see a book around 87K. More to the point, it’s a good book. I’m…

Read More More happiness
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Especially in America, there is immense corporate pressure to have a college degree – as a meal-ticket to a better job and future, not necessarily as a proof of one’s intellectual skills. When the fact of having the degree is more important than the process of earning the degree, the stage is set for fraud…

Read More Thesis mills
Aside

If all you write are erotic ‘romance’ books where the plot is a flimsy excuse for more (and more graphic) contractually obligated sex scenes…then yeah, you might burn out on writing sex scenes altogether.

 

by 2 comments on "Selfie or not?"

There’s a writers group on LinkedIn I was considering joining. I’m not, now, because they require a headshot photo of all prospective members. (I did end up joining, after all; see update in Comments below.) I don’t have many pictures of myself not costumed or otherwise masked. They’re around. I’m just not happy about adding…

Read More Selfie or not?
Aside 1 comment on "one of these platforms is not like the other"

(Borrowing from Stephen Colbert): A Tip Of The Hat to commercially published authors who are self-publishing their backlists. That’s good for them and their readers. We don’t want a return to the days of the midlist mass-market paperback that had a print run of 2000 copies, and about two weeks on the bookstore shelf to prove itself.

A Wag Of The Finger to those same authors who imply or state their current self-publishing experience and results are 100% applicable to the masses of unpublished, unagented, likely unpolished, and possibly under-informed writers who follow them.

A reasonably successful commercial author can springboard their self-publishing efforts off already existing readerships, and whatever work their old publisher’s marketing department did on their behalf.

Unknown self-published authors have a far rougher road. 

by 3 comments on "Sad Puppies, the Hugo Awards, and WTF"

So…over the weekend, the Hugo Awards nominee lists were released to the public. And the Internet blew up. For anyone not an SFF geek, the Hugos are the SFF publishing industry awards voted on by the members of Worldcon. They’re a coveted prize, but by no means an all-encompassing or even reader-relevant accomplishment. To be…

Read More Sad Puppies, the Hugo Awards, and WTF
by 2 comments on "Happiness"

…is typing ‘the end’ on the last page of an 83,000-word revision of the fantasy novel that has been kicking my ass for fifteen years or more. It’s going to beta readers tomorrow, then the agent and I will hash out what we want to do with it. Tired. But happy.

Read More Happiness
by 1 comment on "Anne R. Allen’s ‘How Not To Sell Books’"

The sun rises. The living move in the waking world. Sadness remains, as well as selfish fury at a universe that would take Terry Pratchett before he could give us another Tiffany Aching book…* Sigh. I’m short-tempered this week, partly because of that. I’ve put several people on ‘ignore’ in various social media forums, because…

Read More Anne R. Allen’s ‘How Not To Sell Books’
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(I keep coming back to this post and fiddling with it. A threnody-in-progress, as I consider what this man meant to me.) Well, we knew this day was coming, but we are no less sad. The world is without one of its finest satirists and humanists today, with the passing of British comic writer/fantasist Sir…

Read More In Memoriam: Sir Terry Pratchett
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Throughout the month, the authors over at Marketing For Romance Writers (MFRW) will be having Tweet Days, blog hops, interviews, and contests showcasing some of the best romance writers around. I like this group because it connects commercial and self-publishers, writers across all subgenres of romance, and some amazing promotional opportunities. Today is one of the…

Read More our version of March Madness
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 A reluctant vampire hunter, stalking New York City as only a scorned bride can. From Bathory Gate Press principal Margo Bond Collins comes another fast-paced, grimly funny paranormal romance/mystery/horror/comedy. And this week only, it’s $.99! (Buy links after excerpt) _______________________________________________________ Elle Dupree has her life all figured out: first a wedding, then her Ph.D., then…

Read More Margo Bond Collins, Legally Undead
by 1 comment on "Yet another literary writer epicfails at genre…"

…then revels condescendingly at her own faceplant, and then manages to sell a smug little literary essay about it while touting her ‘purer’ work. To round out the trifecta of writing-related articles this week, here is the National Post’s unintentionally funny ‘confession of a failed romance writer’. Jowita Bydlowska’s essay touches on every single stereotype…

Read More Yet another literary writer epicfails at genre…
by 4 comments on "An agent talks about publishing"

Another article of note, this time a Guernica Magazine interview of superstar agent Chris Parris-Lamb. He’s mostly into literary fiction, not genre, but he has some very interesting and incendiary things to say about writing, publishing, Amazon, big books, and big advances. Selected quotes: On Amazon’s huge efforts to police its relatively tiny returns from publishing:…

Read More An agent talks about publishing