by mike | Jun 27, 2013 | Books, California, Horror, Native Americans, Publishing, Writers' Retreat, Writing |
Writing is, for the most part, a solitary avocation. I know that when I write my books I’m confined to my guy cave for endless hours at a time each day. So on those rare occasions when writers let themselves out into the real world and fill up a room or two at some...
by mike | Jun 5, 2013 | Adventure fantasy, Books, Editing, Mystery Novels, Publishing, Writing |
What? No, not me. Before I ever write word one of a new novel I must have a title. More on that in a moment. During my quarter-century or so as a writing coach and editor I’ve had many fiction—and even non-fiction—manuscripts come to me without titles…books that the...
by mike | Apr 23, 2013 | Books, Publishing, Science Fiction, Sword & Sorcery, Writing |
I’ve learned a lot in life through trial and error, or by accident. More specifically, this can be applied to writing. We could say, in paraphrasing a familiar adage: To err is divine. Case in point: in the ’90s, after a long run of writing and publishing sword &...
by mike | Apr 10, 2013 | Adventure fantasy, Books, Publishing, Writing |
Having been a teacher, coach, editor—and, of course, a novelist—for the past couple of centuries, I have heard it all from wanna-be writers about how difficult it is to make themselves sit down and begin writing a book, which at the least should be 70,000 words in...
by mike | Mar 26, 2013 | Books, Editing, Horror, Native Americans, Psychological Thrillers, Publishing, Research, Writing |
Last year, in a post titled, “Writing Novels For Fun And…Fun?” I made the following observation: When I made the commitment to start writing novels a long, long time ago I began by sticking to one of the basic tenets: Write what you know. I knew Edgar Rice Burroughs,...
by mike | Feb 20, 2013 | Books, Editing, Publishing, Writing |
Okay, one more post on how writers engage their readers with a strong opening hook, and then I’ll get back to other important matters, such as bad horror movies. Actually, this is the only topic about writing to which I’ve devoted three posts, illustrating just how...
