For our latest exercise, each member of my local writing group created a montage. The goal was to clip anything that appealed to you from the available magazines and then paste the images onto a sheet of construction paper in whatever manner you wanted. Some of our writers were amazingly artistic with their blend of […]
Write the Book You Want to Read (Beta Lessons 7)
February 6, 2015 by
I’m currently going through the beta reader comments I got back for First Moon. I’m happy to say that I have a great crew of beta readers who have done a lot to help me make my books better. The feedback for First Moon also helped me clarify some things about what I’m trying to […]
The Winding Road of Story Development
February 5, 2014 by
I reached a major milestone on Vaetra Unleashed this week: I surpassed 50,000 words on the first draft. I’m still less than half done (about 40%), but I’m on a writing roll and the story is developing nicely. The 50,000 word point is important to me because I’ve laid the groundwork for everything that will […]
Revision is my best writing teacher (Beta Lessons 6)
June 5, 2013 by
Power Of Light by Nat Sakunworarat Revision is a path of illumination for the story as well as for the writer within. Before I started writing fiction, I picked up a few books on the subject to learn what was involved. The books were inspirational, but I quickly understood that the only way I was […]
Scrivener: My New Writing Tool
April 15, 2013 by
Since about 2006 I’ve been putting all of my writing projects into a software program called IdeaWeaver. I used IdeaWeaver as a note repository, personal knowledge base, and first drafting tool. It helped my wife and me write many articles and several non-fiction books. I loved working in IdeaWeaver rather than a word processor like […]
The Final Paragraph
November 30, 2012 by
Today, I typed out the final paragraph of my work-in-progress, Vaetra Untrained. My wife knew it too, because heard me exclaim from across the house. I don’t know how other authors feel about the final paragraph, but for me it is a moment of big excitement. I feel my nerves start to tingle as I […]
Book Character Trading Cards
October 13, 2012 by
First, I’d like to say congratulations to the two winners of my first Goodreads giveaway for Vaetra Unveiled! The books have been shipped and are on their way as I type this. Now, on to my title subject… I recently joined an online conversation about book character trading cards. Yep, it’s just what it sounds […]
Sharing my writing makes it real
September 14, 2012 by
This morning at breakfast, I was unreasonably pleased to see a thin stack of stapled paper across the table from me. The top sheet was titled “Vaetra Untrained, Part 1.” My wife’s thin scribbles decorated the margin down the page with her reactions and comments. You see, my wife is my “alpha” reader. Not even […]
