Eric James Stone is a successful short story writer. You can read my review of his excellent “Like Diamond Tears From Emerald Eyes” here. Now, in Tips on Keeping Short Stories from Becoming Long Stories he shares excellent insights on how to keep those short stories from growing out of control. As someone whose stories always tend to go long, let me say that I know from experience that these tips work.
Brandon asked me to come in and teach about indie writing. Here are the slides of my lecture and a document for notes.
I know a lot of authors who are trying indie publishing. Some are doing fabulously well. Most are not. I’ve talked to a lot of folks wanting to indie publish. Very often they have stars in their eyes, even though the vast majority of books don’t sell well. But does that mean indie publishing is a pipe dream?
Here’ is a perspective I agree with from Hugh Howey.
The fact that self-publishing provides better chances doesn’t mean great chances. The fact that self-publishing can be less frustrating than the query-go-round and the delays inherent with traditional publishing doesn’t mean that self-publishing is frustration-free.
Read more on Howey’s site. And here’s another by Dylan Hearn. With the Hearn post, I don’t know where he’s getting the “average book sells 100 copies” data. I don’t think that’s accurate. But his intent is to tell authors to have modest expectations, and I think having modest, realistic expectations is the most helpful way to approach this.
“When you are really and seriously stuck and you hate everything you’ve written, BINGE READ.”
That’s from super author Maya Lassiter. If you recall, she did a great guest post here on her creative process. I love this technique for getting unstuck. When you binge read (or watch), not only do you see other options that you might take and adapt for your purposes, but those other options also spark whole new ideas.
I just used this with the battle I’m writing for Curse. I wasn’t to the hate stage; I actually liked what I had. But I didn’t quite know how to get it to where I wanted it to be. So I decided to read some books by one of the masters of historical battle.
I binge read and listened.
And enjoyed the heck out of both the reading and the ideas I gleaned for my sequence.
Binge read.
It’s an awesome creative technique.
LTUE has posted its schedule for the upcoming conference Thursday – Saturady, Feb 12-14. I’m, of course, stoked to present and participate on the panels. But I’m also looking forward to attending some of the sessions.
Look at this one: How a Military Unit Works in Real Life: Zachary Hill, Brook West, Robert J Defendi, C. R. Asay, Mike Kupari (m)
Or this one: All about armor: Zachary Hill, J. D. Raisor, Kay Mildenhall, Charles B. Stanford (m)
Or what about this one: Law Enforcement: James Ganiere, Zach Hill, Robin Ambrose (m), which conflicts with one of mine, dang it!
Or this: Making Creatures Realistic to their Environment: Keliana Tayler, Brian Hailes, Jessica Douglas, Bryan Beus (m)
This: Applied Biotechnology: Derrick William Dalton, Mikki Kells, Charlie Pulsipher, Chersti Nieveen, Ali Cross (m)
This: How to Create a Language: Maxwell Alexander Drake, Dirk Elzinga, Valerie Mechling, Samuel Stubbs, Bryce Moore (m)
And tons of others.
Oh, and what about the keynote address on Saturday by Toni Weisskopf?
It’s going to be a great conference. I’ll be giving these presentations.
I’ll also be moderating or participating on these panels:
Hope to see you there!
Here’s the third episode I recorded with the Writing Excuses guys.
In the first podcast we talked about putting and not putting ourselves in our writing and making characters who don’t all sound like the author. In the second, we talked about how to not repeat yourself as an author. In this one, I shared some basics about generating emotion in readers and dealing with negative emotions writers face when they encounter rejection, compare their career with others, hit writer’s block, or hear someone didn’t like their story.
As usual, the guys had some great insights. Check it out: Emotion in Fiction.
Larry Correia lays it all out. Plus he talks about research.
http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2010/12/21/ask-correia-11-time-management-for-writers/
