Progress can mean different things to different people. For some, it might mean people are just a little more tolerant of each other. For others it means that technology continues to move forward and our lives are getting easier and better. For me? Well, I tend not to think on quite that grand a scale. Progress for me is, I weigh a little less today than I did a month ago. I’m actually sleeping through the night and I’m almost finished the latest revision of Mik Murdoch: The Power Within. In fact, all of the above are true which makes this a Wednesday worth celebrating. I’ve also made some strides forward on a few things of a less quantitative nature. For example, I […]
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Check Your Ego at the Door
Ego is important for writers to have. It is what drives some of us to actually take our writing and send it to perspective publishers. I say this because, without having enough ego to actually think your writing is worth reading, it would never leave your hard drive (or, for you archaic more traditional types, file folder). It is also what keeps us writing after we have seen some success. This is where the “but” comes in. BUT, too much ego is not a good thing. Too much makes us do silly stuff like, argue with the publishers who don’t accept our submissions (obviously, you are too stupid/inept/challenged to see the brilliance of my work). Too much makes us refuse to […]
Read moreMik Murdoch: The Power Within Update
I have been asked by many people, “When is the next Mik Murdoch book coming out?” While I don’t have a definitive date for the release of the next book, I can assure you, I am working diligently on it. I received my first set of edits back from the publisher in November and I have been writing/rewriting/revising ever since. Why so long? Well, my publisher and I want to give you the best book possible. That and I have this little thing called a day job. I need that to pay my bills and feed my family. I have a self-imposed deadline of the end-of-March to finish this round of edits. Once they are complete, I will be sending […]
Read moreMore Adventures in School Visits
Last Monday I had my first paid school visit. Note, I didn’t say, “my first school visit”. That actually happened last month when I spent the morning with a Grade 3 class at Ecole’ Holy Name school. That first visit was done as a donation of time for a school fundraiser. This time, however, I went as an honest-to-goodness paid author. It was done through a Writers In Schools program and I was to do two presentations to two Grade 8 classes Monday morning. Forty-five minutes each in the school library. I’ve known for a few weeks what I was going to talk about: Writing from Experience. I chose that topic because, when I first started to write seriously, I […]
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