Unintentional March Break

Blog No. 174

Last week we a flurry of activity coming of the super successful weekend Christian and had, everything was moving forward—until it wasn’t. I’m not sure how it happened. (I’m never quite sure how it happens). For some reason, I just stopped working. Progress was good, spirits were high, the intentions were there, then (poof) nothing. It seems to be a disturbing trend. Whenever I’m feeling good, or successful, I totally slack off and throw it all to the winds. It’s not a conscious thing, there are just a lot of video games I want to play and TV I need to watch. If I add on real responsibilities to that, nothing gets done and I have only a few thousand words to show for all that time.

Layout and Design

Blog No. 157

In days of yore, and author was responsible for one (or at the most a few) things. The number one thing on that list is writing. They may find time to do readings or interviews. If they are successful enough, they may hold signings, be judges in contests, or teach classes, but above all of that, there was the writing and little more. Once they were finished with a manuscript, they sent it off to their publisher who would take care of the rest. (That’s a major simplification, but you get my drift). Even now there are a lucky few authors who have enough clout that their publishers handle most things, but the most successful of those tend to be active members of their own publicity.

Busy, Busy

Blog No. 81

I’m writing this on Wednesday night (which I sometimes do) because I am going to be away from Thursday to Sunday. I’m calling it a writing retreat but it’s really just a trip to Wheatley with the members of Adventure Worlds. We rented a house on the lake and are going to spend as much of the time as we can, writing and doing writing related things. (I’m not sure what those things are right now, but it’s all about the writing). The main idea (for me) is to have the full Friday and Saturday to see if I have it in me to do an eight-hour-day of writing – to see if I can treat it like a job. I expect to have to take a break or two, but I want to have a steady stream of words on the page and a steady amount of time spent doing it. I have a lot of little goals, finish the story I’ve been working on, get another small one done, sort out some novel and novella stuff, but as long as I’m writing, I’ll be content.