My wife was headed to Target the other day and asked me if I needed more Coke Zero. When I told her no, she asked if I was trying to cut down. I had to explain that the only reason I needed soda was to mix it with alcohol so I could Heming my Way through Draft 1 of Book Seven. Now that the first draft is finally done, so too is the drinking. Now begins the era of editing sober and ostensibly, the...
Do you remember a time when there wasn't a crisis every single minute of every single day? Me neither. It seems like the universe is stacked against writers who have a full time job and a precocious, iPad obsessed toddler. And yet, we find a way to persevere, because writing is life, and to not write is to let the next great American novel wither on the vine. It may take a little longer, we may...
I like to try a different marketing approach with every book I publish, mostly because none of the previous ones seem to work very well. I would love to do the same thing twice, as it would save me time and probably money. From giveaways to paid promotions to chucking books at cars from an I-35 overpass, I've tried it all. And yet, I've still got a few (probably dumb) ideas up my sleeve. With...
We're here. The midpoint. 31 chapters down. 29 chapters to go. Progress has been good, but the difficulty factor of this WIP has varied wildly in the past month. There are times when the plot barrels ahead, propelled by its own momentum, and others where I actually have to put my feet up and think about where a chapter is going. Can you believe that? Thinking? At my age? That's just one of the...
Numbers don't lie. I lie. I lie a lot. But generally speaking, you can always count on numbers to tell you the truth. And when you're working on the zero draft of a new novel, those numbers can tell you how far you've come and how far you still need to go. More than that, there are statistics I just made up that say: if you pass this point, you are likely to finish this novel. As someone who...
