gideonpsmith

Writing Choices: Quality vs Quantity

If you follow my blog you will know that on 5/1/23 I decided to try an experiment. I wanted to see if, by writing a blog entry every day, I could create a ‘writing habit’. It was intended as a 21 day straight series, but I have decided to end it early. Why? So inContinueContinue reading “Writing Choices: Quality vs Quantity”

Generating Durable Short Story Ideas

I know that for some it starts with a character. Stephen King, when writing novels, puts characters in situations and sees how they evolve. I don’t know if he does short stories that way, but I imagine some people do. For me, it usually starts with an idea or a question, or a destination (ending).ContinueContinue reading “Generating Durable Short Story Ideas”

Getting the Most out of Books on Writing

I recently splurged on books, specifically books about the craft of writing. Excited by my new purchases, and already two chapters deep into one of them, and thoroughly enjoying it, I gushed to one of my writer friends. I was a little surprised to hear from them therefore that they too had read this self-sameContinueContinue reading “Getting the Most out of Books on Writing”

Futurescapes: Workshopping the first 3000 Words

So on 5/2/23 I made a blog entry about the Futurescapes application and lead up to that workshop. Today I thought I would round out that with a post about my experience with the actual workshop. As a reminder I did the SFF 3000 word novel workshop. There are also KidLit, Horror, and longer 100ContinueContinue reading “Futurescapes: Workshopping the first 3000 Words”

Dream Agents, Editors, or Publishers

I think many of us would be lying if we did not say we had an idea of how we might want our writing career to go. I don’t just mean Hugo’s and Nebulas, though, why not? I mean down to what publisher you think matches you as your favorite author publishes with them, orContinueContinue reading “Dream Agents, Editors, or Publishers”

You Had me at Halo

So what on Earth is this blog and that title about? It’s about developing a one liner for your novel. Something that you can use as a hook that intrigues, but also informs people what your novel is about. You may never get to use it, but I will say at Chicon I ran intoContinueContinue reading “You Had me at Halo”

Futurescapes: Application and Pre-workshop

So in March this year I did the futurescapes writing workshop. Before I did it I had searched blogs for people’s experiences and I thought, given it had been of interest to me to get different people’s takes, I would write about my experience with it. Now futurescapes does a number of different workshops, soContinueContinue reading “Futurescapes: Application and Pre-workshop”

Developing a Writing Habit: Experiment – Increasing My Writing Output

When I started learning violin I found that it was hard to establish a practice habit, and without that, it was hard to make progress in my playing. In order to overcome that I made it a ‘rule’ that I did not have to practice violin 30 minutes or 60 minutes or 2 hours, orContinueContinue reading “Developing a Writing Habit: Experiment – Increasing My Writing Output”

Robert A. Heinlein’s 5 Rules of Writing

Back in December, I wrote a blog reviewing and giving my take on Vonnegut’s 8 rules of writing. Today, I thought I would cast a glance over Heinlein’s 5 rules and, as before, add a couple of my own thoughts on each. As a caveat, the distinction of the rules from Vonnegut is that Vonnegut’sContinueContinue reading “Robert A. Heinlein’s 5 Rules of Writing”

Dealing with Rejection

If you’ve come here looking for advice on your latest romantic disaster I’m afraid you’re in the wrong place – this is about rejection in writing! While I have experienced rejection in both, the only useful perspective I have is in the latter. So you just got an email from your dream agent or Clarkesworld,ContinueContinue reading “Dealing with Rejection”