Whomever said “Without Risk, there can be no reward” was on to something. It is a saying that applies in spades to we writers. We can write as much as we want, but until we actually let someone see it, we have no idea if it is good, bad or indifferent. Indeed, I would argue that without making it available for critique we writers will never really grow in our craft. That sort of flies in the face of the “Practice makes perfect” mantra, but without feedback, we may get stuck writing the same stuff over and over. All that can do is solidify any mistakes we are already making. Granted, as we continue to write we probably start to […]
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Writing Humor
I’m working on a project right now that is stretching my brain and moving me into territories both unfamiliar and daunting. I am trying (note the word “Trying”) to write a Science Fiction Comedy. I love comedy writing whether it is Terry Pratchett’s “Discworld” series (yes, I know it is parody. It’s still funny), or Douglas Adams ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ or even Robert Asprin’s “Myth Inc.” series. Comedy writing is some of my favorite to read. It is also the reason I chose the title that I did for my blog. But, darn it, it is a LOT harder to write than I thought. I’m about 5,000 words into the project so far. I’ve got detailed character sketches, most […]
Read moreThat’s All She Wrote
Well, I have managed to win NaNoWriMo again for another year and as has been the case in each of the past three NaNo’s I learned something new about writing and about myself. I set myself a pretty ambitious goal this year. I wanted to get my 50,000 words completed by November 20th. That didn’t quite happen. The actual date of completion was November 22nd instead. Not quite what I planned but this NaNo had something others did not: days when I didn’t actually write. Yes, its true. I had a few things come up where I was on the road without time to write. I think the total non-writing days this year was three so, in theory, I actually […]
Read moreThe Power of Promotion
For those of you who tuned into the site yesterday, you would have noticed a strange message. In it I appeared to be talking about NanoWriMo only to have a weird “hacker” type message appear. This was not a mistake. I had actually volunteered to participate in JC Hutchins’ promotional campaign for his “7th Son, Descent” book launch yesterday. The premise was as follows: one of JC’s characters in “7th Son” is a world-class computer hacker. Wouldn’t it be fun if several sites were “hacked” by the character for promotional purposes? The same idea was carried out on Twitter too. JC has always had innovative promotional ideas and I take notes every time he comes up with something new. Promotion […]
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