Pantser or planner – your writing practice is yours and yours alone. For most of my writing career, I’ve been a pantser. Pantser = one who writes by the seat of their pants. An idea popped into my head – and I sat down with my notebook or at the keyboard and started on it….
Can you have too many stories in the queue? I don’t believe so – but your mileage may vary. In September 2015, I began a sci-fi story idea that would evolve into my Void Incursion series. I published the first two books of the series in 2020, then the next 2 in 2021. The fifth…
Do you go with traditional, non-traditional, or REALLY non-traditional publishing? For a long, long time, the only way to make any money as a fiction writer was to go the traditional publishing route. Along the way, you could submit short stories to magazines, lifestyle sections of newspapers, and anything else that might help you land…
Yes, but you must do the work to make that fleeting idea into something more. Have you ever had an idea that came and went almost instantly? Or have you had an idea that nagged at you until you addressed it and did something with it? Sometimes, all you get is a fleeting vision, an…
While it may have helped me as an author, I’m done with Twitter. Like you, I’ve been watching Twitter come apart at the seams. What Mr. Musk had planned as his end game for his actions is anyone’s guess. While I expected it to be gone soon – with or without Musk at its helm…
There’s always a line – and you choose if it intimidates you or not. There are many lines in life for us to find, straddle, and cross. Most are utterly intangible. They’re lines that represent crossing from one idea to another. Some are deeply negative – like making polarizing statements, disenfranchising people, and otherwise causing…
Struggling with identity tends to be a matter of active mindfulness. I wrote my first 50-page, hand-illustrated sci-fi novel when I was 9. The next was 36-pages, typed single-spaced, when I was 13 or so. After that, I wrote on and off, in fits and spurts. But writing was always the focal point of my…
Are You Ready for November and The Start of Another NaNoWriMo? NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writer’s Month – has begun again. In 2004 or 2005, I was introduced to National Novel Writer’s Month – NaNoWriMo. Every November, NaNoWriMo is a challenge to reach 50,000 words of writing in 30 days. While that’s a lot of…
You won’t fail if you don’t share what you create – but you won’t succeed, either. Sharing your work can be terrifying. It can feel like you’re putting yourself out there to be judged. I write and post blogs 4 days a week. In addition, I do a podcast once a week. Then, because that’s…
Since this comes up from time to time, I’m sharing advice I offer other writers. On Facebook, I’m in multiple writing groups. No matter what subject or genre, there are a group of questions that come up frequently about pausing, rewriting, editing, story order, writing as a pantser vs planner, and other niggling details relevant…
