Tag: books

Over the past few weeks I’ve been working to put a large project to bed. What started when a potential client contacted me about producing an ebook ended with the development of a combined ebook and PDF build system that saved a bunch of time when last minute changes were needed.

This project built on what I learned from a previous project where I paired an overly-complicated makefile with Pandoc to generate an ebook in French. This time, the project was in English which made it much easier to tailor my build system to the project. Since final page count of the PDF (6″×9″ trim size) came to just over 400 pages, I needed every shortcut and hack I could come up with to keep the ePub and PDF versions in sync.

Now you know the reason why I’ve been mostly radio silent for the last month or so. I’ve been working on this little thing called a book!

Stop Typing & Start Writing: Analog Productivity for Digital Writers is my attempt to slow down our frantic online “content production” pace and bring a touch of civility back to the art of writing.

I’ve been neglecting this blog lately and I sincerly apologzie to my loyal readers. But I haven’t beem slacking off. Quite the opposite.

The short version is that I’ve been doing most of my writing in longhand and staying away from the keyboard. This also means I haven’t had much to share. Mostly it’s just been me and the cat fighting over desk space (she’s pushy and likes to play with my pens). With nothing new to report, blogging becomes an easy task to ignore.

In theory, writing is easy. You type one word after another until the story is finished. But somehow it doesn’t work out that way in practice.

At least for me, as someone who’s never had any significant writing instruction, the scope of a large project can be daunting.

All the writing classed I’ve ever taken have been focused on short works. From high school creative writing, the classes it took to get junior college requirements out of the way, a few online college classes in short stories and non-fiction articles, and none were focused on work over 1500 words.

This finally became available at the library. It’s been on my to read list for while now.  

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Writing advuce to King, from his first editor.[/caption] 

Sometimes I run across an older book that’s usually out-of-print, but has exceptional wisdom locked up in its pages. I found this one at my local Half Priced Books.

The very nature of this book—20 essays about writing by the best SFF authors—makes it hard to review as a whole. I think a better strategy is to look at each chapter in detail.

Sometimes I run across an older book that’s usually out-of-print, but has exceptional wisdom locked up in its pages. I found this one at my local Half Priced Books.

The very nature of this book—20 essays about writing by the best SFF authors—makes it hard to review as a whole. I think a better strategy is to look at each chapter in detail.

Sometimes I run across an older book that’s usually out-of-print, but has exceptional wisdom locked up in its pages. I found this one at my local Half Priced Books.

See all of my WSF&F chapter reviews.

Connie Willis, who has won of eleven Hugo Awards and seven Nebula Awards for her comedic science fiction, writes about what makes comedy tick in chapter 8.

Sometimes I run across an older book that’s usually out-of-print, but has exceptional wisdom locked up in its pages. I found this one at my local Half Priced Books.

See all of my WSF&F chapter reviews.

This chapter is by Jane Yolen, a prolific writer who has authored and/or edited over 300 books. It is also a break from the preceding chapters focused on science fiction. She dives head-first into what it takes to create a believable fantasy world. Just as the other chapters have used science fiction to deliver lessons on plot, dialog, and characters, this one uses fantasy to teach world building.

On May 27, 2015, The Poisoned Pen, a local bookshop here in the Phoenix area is having a book signing with 17 authors attending. There will also be snacks and giveaway prizes.

Authors attending: Stephen Blackmoore, Beth Cato, Wes Chu, Myke Cole, Delilah S. Dawson, Kevin Hearne, Jason Hough, Richard Kadrey, Michael Martinez, Brian McClellan, Naomi Novik, Andrea Phillips, Cherie Priest, Brian Staveley, Sam Sykes, Chuck Wendig, & Django Wexler