Tag Archives: Writing

I Finished Writing My Novel (Again)

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Mason Truman. He has a fork.

I finished writing my novel last night. I should say that I finished writing it again, because technically I thought I finished it about a year ago. This time is different, though, because I finished what was originally going to be the second novel, which means the full story is complete for the first time. There are caveats, of course. The last chapter is only in a first-and-a-half draft state, and the last two chapters haven’t faced the withering scrutiny of my critique partner, let alone my bank of awesome beta readers. Also, it’s sitting at 155,000 words. That means Continue Reading →

Inching Inexorably Closer

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It’s been a little more than two years now since I began working on my first novel. I started it two or three weeks after Black Friday. I thought I had finished it a year ago, only to realize that I needed write it differently last fall. It seems that I’m inching inexorably closer to that goal. I’ve rewritten the prologue and a completely new beginning to the novel. I’ve pored over the middle, cutting big chunks out of it out in the process, and am so near the end of the story I can taste it. In fact, I’m Continue Reading →

Something Goes Wrong

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Something Goes Wrong

In writing, sometimes you just have to get back to basics. I’ve been banging my head against the wall for some time. It turns out that the answer to my problem was pretty simple. In fact, I posted it to my Instagram feed: Courtesy of My New Dry Erase Board Something Goes Wrong! Of course! That’s just what I needed. It seems so obvious now, but the truth is it took my friend and fellow writer Dmitri Del Castillo to help ferret it out. He’s great at that sort of thing.

Scatter Shot: 12-12-12, Dobby, Two Rogers, & Instagram

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Dobby

Hey folks, it’s time for another scatter shot post. First up: The Stones OK, how did I miss this? When did Dobby sign with The Stones? To refresh your memory, here he is in one of the Potter films: And here is is playing guitar with Mick Jagger in the 12-12-12 Concert for Sandy Relief. It’s great to see that even a house elf can get a leg up in the world.

I Wrote the Book I Want to Read – What about a Book that Will Sell?

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Turtle Reading

I’ve been working on my first novel, a SciFi book about a PI who gets dragged into something much bigger than he thought. All he wants is to drink his strained-algae coffee, but it turns out he’s going to have to save the world. It’s called The Mason Truman Project, and I’ve blogged about it several times. I finished the book early last spring, and I’ve been working on refining it off an on since , while I also worked on the second book in the series. I started shopping it out in June, resulting in another raft of fine Continue Reading →

Work In Progress Blog Hop: The Next Big Thing!

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W.I.P. Blog Hop!

So there’s this thing called a blog hop, sort of an informal ring of unrelated sites posting on a related theme. In this case, the blog hop is for writers and the theme is our work-in-progress, meaning the book we’re writing. I found out about it from Diane Carlisle. As I understand it, the rules are simple: • Answer the ten questions (see below) about your current W.I.P. (Work In Progress) on your blog. • Tag five other writers/bloggers and add their links so we can hop over and meet them.

Civility & Discourse

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An actual email I received

It’s been a busy couple of weeks since my last post. The biggest thing has been the rollout of a new site design and engine at The Mac Observer. Dave Hamilton, Adam Christianson, and Eddie Machado of outside design firm Themble did an amazing job of bringing The Mac Observer into the present. We also brought back the TMO Spin, a vehicle for our news guys to add perspective, context, and opinion to our news coverage separate from writing up the straight new itself. In that the thing that most interests me in my day job is the analysis side Continue Reading →

Scatter Shot: Quadrophenia, Stormdancer, GoodReads

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I haven’t made a post in a few days, mainly because I didn’t have a lot to specifically say. As I was trying to think of what to write about, I realized I should rip off John Martellaro, my friend and colleague at The Mac Observer. He does something called Particle Debris, a weekly column where he throws in whatever he came across throughout the week that didn’t warrant a standalone article. I think I’ll call mine…Scatter Shot. That’ll do for now, at least. I can’t promise to do it weekly, but periodically seems doable. Quadrophenia on Blu-ray by Criterion Continue Reading →

Partially Stoked!

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The title is a lie, because I am totally stoked! On Monday morning, I got my first request for a partial! That’s publishing speak for when an author is asked to provide anything less than a full manuscript to an agent or publishing editor, and it’s the first possible step towards getting an agent. Here’s what I sent him: How can this not get me representation, right?! It’s illustrated! Here’s how it works. An aspiring author—that’s me—sends a query letter to an agent. As mentioned in previous posts, I began sending out query letters about six weeks ago. This is Continue Reading →

The Agony of the Synopsis, or How Not to Write a Synopsis

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The Mason Truman Project - Synopsis

I’ve been pretty busy for the last few weeks, starting with sending out a new round of query letters. I’ve found five really kick ass agents to start with, with four queries still out there. With any luck, one of them will request a partial or the full manuscript, and I am hopeful. Interestingly, the third agent I queried effectively wanted everything an agent might want: a query letter, a synopsis, the first three chapters, and a separate bio. Note that a query letter typically has a very short synopsis/description along with a short bio included, so there’s a little Continue Reading →