Tag: writing process

Genre Writing is Like Playing Jazz

JAZZ BOOKS (002)You have to try a new genre in order to find out what genre writing is all about. I did that recently, and here are some thoughts that resulted.

My Story

I have been a Sci-Fi fan since I was about 10 years old. I cut my teeth on Andre Norton, Robert Heinlein, and Isaac Asimov, so the genre runs deep in my subconscious. But I have never written a Science Fiction novel.

So in the depths of the winter of 2018, when we had no snow and no sun and I was heavily submerged in Seasonal Affective Disorder, I decided to make a change. I would write some Sci-Fi. Nothing fancy. Just a fun Space Opera, with spaceships and artificial intelligence and…well, I decided to keep it simple and have no aliens. I was just starting out, after all.

A Warning from Another Art Form Continue reading “Genre Writing is Like Playing Jazz”

Do You Go All the Way (for your readers)?

CinnamonKicks by Nuttycake Photography used with permission
CinnamonKicks by Nuttycake Photography used with permission

I go all the way. When I’m writing, I live it, breathe it, and feel it. It’s the only way I know how.

I’m in the latter stages of completing a new novel. This will be the first novel I’ve released since 2012. In the last three years I’ve written and published – a collection of short stories, a romance novella, and my self-publishing guidebook, but I haven’t put out any new, novel-length work. For me, climbing into the writing cave and coming out the other side is an emotional experience. It’s like nothing I’ve ever done. Each time, after I’ve made it back to dry land, I feel as though something inside me changed during the process. Either I’m becoming a little more off balance with each book I write or I’m learning something about myself. I’m still not sure which it is. Continue reading “Do You Go All the Way (for your readers)?”

The Writer’s Mind: Laser vs. Soup

Soup - the mind of an authorI would guess most non-writers think that the minds of writers pretty much operate all the same way: you get an idea, you write it down, expanding as you go. Years ago, I might have thought that myself, but my last few books over the last couple of years have completely disabused me of that notion. Every project has illustrated to me in ever-greater detail that my mind can work in vastly different ways when doing this singular yet very complex thing – writing. Continue reading “The Writer’s Mind: Laser vs. Soup”

Keep Writing, Keep Improving

iStock_000009700656XSmallLike a number of my author friends, I took a good long inventory of my publications when Kindle Unlimited went live. There are, and probably will be, so many variables to the success of this program, and I’m leaving those for the other minions to write about. In fact, Lynne Cantwell wrote a really good article about KU recently. But I needed to make some calls about my own participation. Did I want to move any stories back into KDP Select? Move any out? Write a couple new ones for the program? A tough call, because recently I’d spent some time and energy prepping three titles for Smashwords and their online distributors. Continue reading “Keep Writing, Keep Improving”