admin | January 31, 2009
Sometimes, for one reason or another or no particular reason at all, I’ll feel like my fiction writing is forced. Like I’m straining to hit my word count for the day, and it’s not coming out as smoothly as I’d like it to. Today was one of those times. It didn’t help that most of [...]
admin | January 30, 2009
Why did you have to be so good this season, Battlestar Galactica? Why did you have to ratchet up the suspense and excitement to such a fever pitch? You haven’t been this consistently good since Season One, or back when you ended Season Two by jumping forward a whole year in storytelling time. So why did [...]
admin | January 29, 2009
As Bob Dylan once wrote, “Most of the time, I’m clear focused all around. Most of the time, I can keep both feet on the ground.” Such is the case with me as a fiction writer, especially when I’m firing steadily on a project. Most of the time, I’m focused on the work, and my [...]
admin | January 28, 2009
The other day, I posted about rejection and failure, and how it teaches a writer to win by learning how to lose. I wrote about how a writer has to learn to pick up the torch and carry it onward immediately after each and every setback. I wrote about how perseverence benefits us all across [...]
admin | January 27, 2009
Here’s something to watch out for when writing. Sometimes, I’ll read or hear a word during the course of the day, and it’ll settle into my mind for no particular reason. It could be any uncommon word, one I’d expect to notice because I don’t often see it hanging around. Later, I’ll be typing away, [...]
admin | January 26, 2009
My mentor, Dean Wesley Smith, has said that writing’s a form of mind control. As fiction writers, we visualize stories in our minds, complete with sensory details related to characters and setting. It’s then our task to use written language to reproduce these stories in the minds of others…to make them see and experience what [...]
admin | January 25, 2009
As far as I’m concerned, there’s no better season for writing than mid-to-late winter. January, February, and March are the perfect months to hit a novel hard. The weather in my part of the world sucks for the most part, so there’s little in the way of chores or fair-weather fun to draw me outside. [...]
admin | January 24, 2009
I had such a streak going! Since starting this blog on January 4, I hadn’t missed a single day…until yesterday. Long story short, my wife and I went out to celebrate Chinese New Year at my favorite local Chinese restaurant, the Szechuan on Main Street in downtown Johnstown. We met another couple there…Jeff, a good [...]
admin | January 22, 2009
Sometimes, I still can’t believe I did it. Shaved my head, that is. For most of my life, I dreaded the thought of being bald. Even Star Trek’s Captain Picard and Captain Sisko couldn’t change my mind. My father went bald at a young age, in his early 20s, and I was always afraid of [...]
admin | January 21, 2009
Here’s what dedication to your craft gets ya. Tonight, I was faced with a choice: make my Daily Grand writing goal or watch the season opener of LOST. Now, that might seem like a no-brainer. If I have what it takes to succeed as a writer, I should happily cast aside all frivolous entertainment, especially [...]
The Fictioneer will be appearing at World Fantasy 36, set for October 28-31, 2010 in Columbus, Ohio.
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