In 2011, I joined an online message board forum called Kindle Boards (later KBoards) where other self-publishers had joined to give each other support, share what works, and otherwise band together as a community. Back then, self-publishing was considered the kiss of death, and many of my former writer “friends” shunned me for starting down… Continue reading Goodbye KBoards, or how I was banned for the sake of social justice.
Tag: Thoughts and Reflections
A glorious fisking and what it means to be a real man
Oh my heck, I just read the most glorious fisking of my life over on Larry Correia’s blog. The subject is a New York Times article titled “27 Ways to be a Modern Man” (is it just me or is the NY Times taking its cues from Buzzfeed?), and Larry pulls no punches. Glorious. Absolutely… Continue reading A glorious fisking and what it means to be a real man
Of pioneers and politics
Today is Pioneer Day here in Utah, where we celebrate the achievements and heritage of the Mormon Pioneers. One hundred and sixty-eight years ago today, Brigham Young looked over the Salt Lake Valley (a barely hospitable desert at the time) and declared “this is the place.” I feel a great deal of pride for my… Continue reading Of pioneers and politics
Streamlining
About a month ago, I decided to make some changes to my writing process. I’d noticed that a lot of time was passing between book releases, and that even though I was writing almost every day, there wasn’t much to show for it. My old process tended to go in one of two ways: ONE… Continue reading Streamlining
My take on the Sad Puppies
There’s been a lot of mud-slinging in the past few months regarding the Sad Puppies, and it’s increasingly difficult to navigate the SF&F side of the internet without getting caught up in it. I’ve been reluctant to weigh in publicly on Sad Puppies 3, simply because I’ve been dissapointed to find that authors whom I… Continue reading My take on the Sad Puppies
Thoughts on Clean Reader
In case you haven’t heard, there’s a new app in the book world that is stirring up quite a bit of controversy. It’s called Clean Reader and it basically goes through an ebook and filters out the profanity, with settings for “clean,” “cleaner,” and “squeaky clean.” It was designed by the parents of a teenager… Continue reading Thoughts on Clean Reader
Blogging vs. journal writing
So as you may have noticed, I generally blog a lot less nowadays than I did just a couple of years ago. That doesn’t mean I don’t blog at all, or that I don’t value keeping a blog, but it’s just not something I do as frequently as I used to. I’ve been wondering why… Continue reading Blogging vs. journal writing
Thoughts on the danger of falling in love with your characters
As a writer, I spend so much time in the heads of my viewpoint characters that I can’t help but like them. So it sometimes comes as a surprise when readers get frustrated and want to slap my characters around. To be fair, sometimes I do that on purpose. For example, in Stars of Blood… Continue reading Thoughts on the danger of falling in love with your characters
Thoughts on American Sniper
Yesterday, I saw American Sniper. In a word, it was fantastic. Super intense—so much that the friend I went to see it with had to walk out in the middle—but well, well worth it. The movie is about Chris Kyle, a US sniper in Iraq who had an incredible number of kills. He’s credited with… Continue reading Thoughts on American Sniper
Things I want to learn in 2015
I was going to follow up my retrospective 2014 post with another one, but instead I want to look ahead at the things I hope to learn in 2015. Of course, I’m sure that many of the things I’ll learn are things that I couldn’t have foreseen, but it helps to have some direction to… Continue reading Things I want to learn in 2015