Why I’m not a fan of writing groups

I was listening to a recent episode of I Should Be Writing today, and it got me thinking about writing groups and how my philosophy on them has changed.  Long story short, I used to love them, but now I’m not such a huge fan. I should probably start out by mentioning that I lead… Continue reading Why I’m not a fan of writing groups

New upload and thoughts on ebooks

Yesterday, I reformatted Genesis Earth and uploaded the new version to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.  Basically, I took everything I’ve learned about ebook formatting in the last few months and brought it up to date. Here’s the complete list of changes: Revised author’s note to include Facebook and Goodreads links, mention of newsletter,… Continue reading New upload and thoughts on ebooks

Edenfall update

So I haven’t exactly gotten into a good writing routine yet, but Edenfall is coming along pretty well.  I’m just about finished with the first chapter, and the dominoes are already starting to fall. It’s fun to revisit the world of Genesis Earth, but I’m not going to get too bogged down in recapping the… Continue reading Edenfall update

Plans for Edenfall

I’m trying something a little different with Edenfall: I’m writing the first draft entirely in longhand. I first got the idea a couple of years ago, when I was camping in Moab.  The beautiful landscape of southern Utah made me realize that I wanted to write Edenfall while experiencing that sort of connection with nature, and pen and paper seemed to… Continue reading Plans for Edenfall

Writer’s angst & post-convention ennui

In spite of the title of this post, I’ll try not to get too emo.  Not sure how well I’ll succeed, but at least I’ll try. Worldcon was great, but it put me into something of a writing slump and I’m not sure where to go next.  I was planning on writing the as-yet untitled… Continue reading Writer’s angst & post-convention ennui

Worldcon 2011: Friday

Wow, it feels like the second day of Worldcon was forever ago.  Usually, Friday is the first real day of a convention, but since Thursday was the first full day of Worldcon, that wasn’t the case. I don’t remember a whole lot from it, but there were a few really awesome panels. In the morning,… Continue reading Worldcon 2011: Friday

Breaking the Top 10, and a big thank you

As I’m writing this, “Memoirs of a Snowflake” holds the #8 spot in the Kindle Store for the general short story category — #150 overall.  Almost 1,000 people have downloaded it since it went free over the weekend, and it’s already garnered some fantastic reviews! All this positive attention makes me want to thank all… Continue reading Breaking the Top 10, and a big thank you

Fighting for a Homeland

For the past few weeks, I’ve been brainstorming ideas for my next big novel project.  One of the ways I’ve been doing this is to by trawling tvtropes and putting together a mashup of the story tropes I’d like to play with. By far, the one that’s struck me the most is Fighting for a Homeland.… Continue reading Fighting for a Homeland

Desert Stars 3.0 is finished!

That’s right; after almost exactly two months of writing, the third draft of Desert Stars is now complete! This is the first draft where I feel that things are truly coming together the way they should be, where the story is transforming into something that not only works, but is actually fairly awesome. I’m probably… Continue reading Desert Stars 3.0 is finished!

Q2 roundup

For those of you who don’t know, I keep a spreadsheet with my daily writing word count and use that to help set personal deadlines for various projects.  In order to keep myself honest, I do a report every quarter on how I kept up with my writing goals in the past three months. So,… Continue reading Q2 roundup