Tag: writing

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.1 First Edition cover, 1991. 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. See all of my WSF&F chapter reviews.

No, I just got through it. Stories are always really, really hard. I think it’s totally rational for a writer, no matter how much experience he has, to go right down in confidence to almost zero when you sit down to start something. Why not? Your last piece is never going to write your next one for you. § An old photo editor of mine always said you’re only as good as your last shot.

Those who try to master perfection will always fall to those who iterate, and reiterate, and create, and recreate. Art is better than philosophy. Creation, however clumsy, is always better than sitting on your hands and fearing what damage they can do. Kill the perfect. Slay the angels. Fuck the gods. You’re human. You’ll get it wrong. Everybody gets it wrong. But getting it wrong is the only way you get close to getting it right.

Sometimes the writing isn’t the most time-consuming part of “writing.” There’s quite a bit of housekeeping involved. The one question that’s came up repeatedly, is where to submit fiction? Being a gal with a speculative/futurist outlook, I tend towards science fiction. So a good place to start is the list of SFWA Qualifying Markets. This is an important list to be on. The magazines1 must meet the current SFWA “minimum wage” to qualify.

It’s time for my weekly word count check-in. At the end of every week, I post a screen shot from my writing results spreadsheet. This shows the current week and the three before. My week starts on Monday. The numbers are current through Sunday night. I also only average over six days. This allows me one day of no writing that doesn’t impact the weekly totals. This week the number look about average, but I feel I didn’t do much.

One thing that’s taken a few days to sink is how Apple managed to improve the keyboard on the new MacBook model. During the announcement Tim Cook mentioned that the key tops were 17% larger than the current MacBook keyboards. I noted it in my live blog on Monday, but didn’t think too much about it. This evening I thought about going to an Apple Store to see it in person, but decided to do a virtual comparison first.

It’s time for my weekly word count check-in. At the end of every week, I post a screen shot from my writing results spreadsheet. This shows the current week and the three before. My week starts on Monday. The numbers are current through Sunday night. I also only average over six days. This allows me one day of no writing that doesn’t impact the weekly totals. I was shooting for more, but a bug in the Pogo software left me spending my time troubleshooting instead of writing.

It’s time for my weekly word count check-in. At the end of every week, I post a screen shot from my writing results spreadsheet. This shows the current week and the three before. My week starts on Monday. The numbers are current through Sunday night. I also only average over six days. This allows me one day of no writing that doesn’t impact the weekly totals. The goal for this week was to push out 1000 words per day.

Ally tugged at the stethoscope around her neck and smoothed the stolen lab coat. The gray industrial carpet was hard under her feet. The tile floor of the crossing hallway was a few yards ahead. She looked at James. “Which way?” In the hallway a few people walked by with morning coffee. The lingering caffeine in the air taunted them. James glanced at the emergency exit sign on the wall. The blue scrubs hung loosely on his shoulders as he pulled on a surgical cap.

It’s time for my weekly word count check-in. At the end of every week, I post a screen shot from my writing results spreadsheet. This shows the current week and the three before. My week starts on Monday. The numbers are current through Sunday night. I also only average over six days. This allows me one day of no writing that doesn’t impact the weekly totals. I spent the first part of the week learning about how to make eBooks.