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, orContinue 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'sContinue reading "Robert A. Heinlein’s 5 Rules of Writing"

Weighing the Value of Writing Short Fiction

Why write short fiction? Traditionally, the advice has been that you should write short fiction to get writing credits, which will open the doors for you to get a literary agent and write long-form fiction. I have certainly been given this advice, and I have heard it spoken from luminaries such as George R. R.Continue reading "Weighing the Value of Writing Short Fiction"

Year In Review 2022

As we close out 2022 I thought I would write a short blog on my writing journey this year. Both achievements and set-backs. And while there certainly have been a few of the latter, I will say I am quite proud of all I have done, even if it has not yet produced the desiredContinue reading "Year In Review 2022"

Guest Post: Writing for the SFWA Blog

As I stated in my last post - you may have noticed I have been a little slower with blog posts here lately as I have been fortunate to write guest blog posts elsewhere and that has kept me busy. The second of these has just come out on the Science Fiction and Fantasy WritersContinue reading "Guest Post: Writing for the SFWA Blog"

Guest Post: Dan Koboldt’s Science in SciFi

So I have not posted a blog post here recently, but it is because I was fortunate enough to be invited to do guest blog posts a couple of places. The first of those to come out is a post on the Science of Skin in Fiction, which is a guest blog post on DanContinue reading "Guest Post: Dan Koboldt’s Science in SciFi"

Short Story or Novel: Smart Choices Help You Write What You Intended

At a recent writers workshop I was surprised to hear repeatedly the question, ‘How do you know how long a piece should be?” and almost as equally surprised to hear the answer “You just find out as you are writing.” Now, no doubt, the writers giving those answers were writers who are more experienced thanContinue reading "Short Story or Novel: Smart Choices Help You Write What You Intended"