NaNoWriMo is coming up soon, which means a new crop of writers will be looking for the right software to help write their 50,000-word opus. Enter Novlr, a web-based writing platform that is simple, clean, and eager to motivate you to reach your goal. If you're doing NaNoWriMo for the first time, Novlr is a great choice. But what about the rest of us? What about the seasoned amateurs who haven't...
Nobody hung out in the break room of the tech shop on Level 3, mostly because it smelled like plastic. More accurately, it smelled like plastic after it had passed through the digestive system of an orange fungus for which the Biology books had no name but the other works had taken to calling the Stuff. The Stuff loved the break room because that’s where all the old equipment was stashed—routers...
Because there's always a WIP. People like you and I, we live for the WIP. We die for the WIP. Without the WIP, there would be no reason to get up in the morning, or eat nachos, or own a computer. At least, that has been my experience. I'm well aware there are people for whom writing is not a compulsion. They wake and sleep every day without the slightest inclination to write a story. While that...
Bippity boppity, hippity hoppity.
At first, Clyde thought it was just the weather, something about the barometric pressure dropping as a storm slid down over the mountains. The gray clouds brought only a fine mist, but they blanketed the land, cutting visibility down to almost nothing. Clyde was on the south edge of the ranch when his fingers began to tingle in his leather gloves. He’d been working on a section of fencing that...
Here's a thing: I've never written a novel from a single character's point of view. It has been twenty years, and despite my best efforts, I've never made it more than a half baker's dozen chapters into a project. It's not that I don't have ideas; obviously I have stories to fill novels. So it must be something else, some part of the writing that is just so difficult and enigmatic that at some...
I mentioned in a previous Thursday Roundup that I had started reading We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor but that after encountering the line the butthurt is strong with this one had completely given up. That's still true. Cringe is one of those things that's hard for me to get past, but after talking it over with a few friends, I was encouraged to give it another shot. I'm happy to...
In a year when everything is terrible (pandemic, Trump, white nationalists) and nothing is living up to expectations (Bill & Ted 3, Texas weather, book launches), it was surprising to stumble upon a movie that so deeply speaks to the core of who I am: disjointed, loquacious, and completely devoid of meaning. I'm talking, of course, about I'm Thinking of Ending Things, a newly available movie on...
In the midst of one of the most nightmarish years in my lifetime, I am releasing a new book. If I were a patient man, I would have waited, maybe a year or two (or four, depending), before interrupting stories of disease, racism, and autocracies with silly ads for a sillier book. But I'm not a patient man. And no matter how bad it gets out there, I will still be here, at my desk, writing stories...
I independently published my first book in 2004, and since then, I've tried all sorts of services and gimmicks to turn them into best sellers. BookBub, email lists, Facebook ads, Twitter ads, Goodreads ads (when they were still a thing), and after sixteen years, I can tell you that the only ad channel that ever produced meaningful results was Amazon Advertising. And that's why, for the launch of...
I'm a Science Fiction author, so I mostly post about my experiences with writing, publishing, marketing, and self-loathing.
Be sure to check out my books at Amazon!