Posted in Writing, tagged avard fairbanks, biographical novel, biography, book doctor, creative writing, editorial services, freelance writing, ghost writing, novelization, sculptor, Writing on 05 May 2016| 3 Comments »
I am an outliner, and right now, I’m damned glad of it.
Prior to beginning a project, I create a fairly extensive outline. Some writers prefer a more organic method; they set up a character in a conflict and write to see where it takes them.
If I were a writer like that, this project would be a nightmare. I wouldn’t know where to start. As it is, though, I knew precisely where to start: with an outline.
Posted in Writing, tagged biography, book doctor, creative writing, editorial services, freelance writing, ghost writing, novelization, Writing on 20 Apr 2016| 3 Comments »
I have discovered a corollary to Parkinson’s Law. If you don’t know, Parkinson’s law is:
Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.
My discovery, which I shall call the Researcher’s Corollary to Parkinson’s Law, is:
Research material expands to exceed the time available.
In my experience, the factor by which this material expands (aka the KRAG Coefficient) ranges anywhere from 50–100%, but in theory, it’s an open-ended scale.
Posted in Writing, tagged biography, book doctor, creative writing, editorial services, freelance writing, ghost writing, novelization, Writing on 14 Apr 2016| 3 Comments »
As regular readers have deduced, my current WIP, The Wolf Tree, has been languishing, left untended due to a variety of life events. I should probably call it a “work-in-stasis” rather than a work-in-progress. Now it’s official: The Wolf Tree is on the back burner.
The reason: I received an email asking if I’d like to write a book.
As a self-identified author, I’ve received pitches like this before: a guy has a “great idea” for a book, and all I have to do is outline it, write it, edit it, market it, sell it, and then (of course) give him a cut of the profits as payment for the use of his great idea. Win-Win, right?
Wrong. (more…)
Posted in Politics, tagged avoiding politics, blogging, Clinton, Cruz, FeelTheBern, generating ideas, presidential politics, Trump, Writing on 17 Mar 2016| 11 Comments »
I’ve been having difficulty selecting topics for my blog posts lately.
I’ve been having difficulty not because I don’t have ideas. I have plenty. My problem is, the topics that have been consuming me of late have been political, and I really really try to avoid partisan politics on this blog.
Why avoid politics? (more…)
Posted in Writing, tagged creative writing, short fiction, short stories, Writing on 29 Jan 2016| Leave a Comment »
Dear me. How perspectives change.
A quick follow-up on my decision to pull from the market a story I’ve been shopping around.
When I started going over it, for no other reason than to reformat it for the web, I found that this story, one that I had edited and re-edited, sent to researchers for fact-checking, and passed to my Beta Readers for feedback, this story that, a year ago, I felt was suitable for publication, really needs another round of edits.
And it’s not just that I don’t like this phrase or I’d say that a little differently. There are errors of continuity, spotty problems with past perfect and past conditional verb tenses, and even (shudder!) a typo (only one, but still…yeesh!)
So, grasshopper, remember today’s lesson well:
It’s never as good as you think it is.
k
Posted in Writing, tagged creative writing, short fiction, short stories, Writing on 26 Jan 2016| 15 Comments »
Sixteen months ago, in September, 2014, I began shopping my latest story. It had been a long time since my last go-round marketing a short story, and while a lot had changed, a lot had stayed exactly the same. (more…)
Posted in Books, Writing, tagged book marketing, creative writing, marketing your book, Writing on 21 Jan 2016| 7 Comments »
I’m not telling you anything new when I say that the publishing industry has changed a great deal in the last twenty years. However, throughout these decades of upheaval, there are two things I’ve observed that have remained pretty damned consistent:
Kurt R.A. Giambastiani 