Next New Book

As a blossoming, somewhat seasoned writer and self-publisher, I get asked often for advice from other writers. Sometimes I'm asked to take a look at a book and give it a review. Such is the case. 

You know what . . . despite what might jump to mind when you first look at the title and the cover, it's a darn good book. In fact, I'm a bit jealous. Why?

Weekly Writing Status Update - 6

I feel like these aren't doing much, but it was recommended to me by that book, and I've pledged to do it for 50 updates, that will be almost a year, so I'm going to keep plugging away even if they don't feel immediately impactful. If there's one thing I feel like I'm good at, it's hanging in there for stupid even pointless exercises and relationships and friendships and even jobs, long after I should have quit, and long after others would have quit.

Last week was a good-ish week for writing. I kept up with my writing 300 words a day for every day except one. Why did I miss that one day? I can't remember now. I just know I did. 

More Essentials of Writing a Novel

I love how every now and then, in a book, on social media, in life . . . anywhere, these little nuggets show up that speak to a person. They hit me and I think, "BOOM! that makes sense" . . . or "that resonates," or even better, "That's what THAT means!" 

Many of these I try to file here in the blog as evershades or sox entries (see HERE or HERE), but many others get lost or integrated into my other blog hoi polloi.

This one is getting it's own post. 

Essentials

I was listening to a podcast for a while, James Thayer's podcast on novel writing. It was good but each time I listened to it, usually on my commute, I found myself wanting to take notes and really listen, not background listen as I tend to do when I listen on the drive. 

So, I've stopped listening to the podcast. Which is too bad, I really liked it. 

Griffin Four

It's an interesting way to start a book. To talk about cavalry sabers being repurposed to machetes but WEB Griffin always does things this way, and then the reader is captured on that path for the first part of the story, and sometimes even further than that. 

I'm onto the fourth book in this series. I'm on the fifth book in the Clancy Series, I'm on the second book in the Martin series, I finished the Stranger Times series, and I'm stuck on the third book in the Sackett series. So, it feels good to keep moving through this series.

Weekly Writing Status Update - 5

So, the biggest thing that I should provide an update on with this status post is about my 300 words a day goal. How did it go? Is it positive?

Overall it was a good  . . . and IS a good exercise. First, I'm stunned that 300 words really isn't that many words. I can knock out 300 words in no time. 

Cardinal of the Kremlin

I just finished Cardinal of the Kremlin. This is such a great book. So I've read, Hunt for Red October, Red Storm Rising, Patriot Games, and now Cardinal of the Kremlin as a part of this reading of the series thing I'm doing. 

Hows it going? I like the series reading. I finished all of the Stranger Times books. So that series is over. I've had trouble getting back to the Sackett series that I started. I might try and pick that one up again soon. I'm in the midst of the Corps series too, of course. And I can't think of it, but I know there's another out there. 

Sometimes I Forget

Here I am plugging away on my novel, Sunset Perfect . . .which is renamed to "Murder in the Kingdom" a title change I'll explain more later. But sometimes I forget why this is important to me. Sure, I enjoy the aspect of working on a creative project and setting it through . . . I love the character development, and the ability and chance to tell a story, . . .but then there is that feedback and the kudos. This is the part I sometimes forget. 

Every now and then I go check Amazon and read the reviews for my novels, and I'm usually happily surprised to see some new ones have come in and the reviews are usually good. 

More Shades

Ugh, this one hits hard. Why? I guess cause it's so true. 

You deserve a calm love with someone who's your safe space, your best friend, and soothes your soul during stressful situations. Life is hard enough, you deserve someone who brings you peace, not problems. 

Weekly Writing Status Update - 4

This week I “completed” a lot of my writing . . . And started a really decent (so far) writing habit. Two great things if you ask me. 

The completions consisted of submitting my article to Interactive Learning Systems. This is a Taylor and Francis academic journal that I selected as my target journal for one of my articles that I drafted from my dissertation. It’s not all of my dissertation. The first three chapters of the dissertation are 25K words. I’m only allowed 6K words for the article so I pared it down quite a bit.