Apex managing editor Leslie Conner gives the basics of submitting to short story markets, including all the jargon. If you’re the least bit unsure about how to submit, or what, this is the thing to read. Read More
How do you write? Not now and then. Not because someone forces you to. How do you write, as often, and as productively, as you would like?
Fun, plain and simple.
Removing the “must” part from “I must write,” turning it into a simple “I write.”
For me, fun is what made that happen. No pressure, no self-recrimination, no “the world should be this way, and I should be that way with it.” Just plain fun. Read More
Some people are visual, others aural, and a minor portion kinesthetic. Meaning that we tend to learn and experience the world through sight, hearing, or feeling/moving. In order to reach them, we need to understand how to write in a way that touches all types of readers. Which Patricia C Wrede explains. Read More
So I’ve written a million words.
That’s 1 000 000 words.
It’s a big number. If I wrote a word per second, every second, without breaks for eating, sleeping, or watching Netflix, it would take me 11 days, 13 hours, and 35 minutes to write it.
If I did take breaks, it would take me 6 years. Which is what I did.
I’m going to tell you exactly how it went, what I earned, and where I got Kicked in the Shin by Life, Universe, and SFF legend Jay Lake’s Tub. Also, exactly how many rejections I’ve gotten.
Read on. Read More
Yearghttoon. Wintrufeil. Yeah, we should all make better place names when we’re world building. This will give you the how and why of place name etymology. Also, it’s aimed at young roleplayers. Meaning lots of rapid transitions and some cursing. But the underlying content is quite interesting. Just remember to pause to write down the lists on a separate piece of paper. Read More
Once upon a time in the dark ages of economic history, the human being was a rational agent.
We evaluated what we want, and found the cheapest way to get it. This, of course, had nothing to do with how humans act in reality. Instead, there came the much simplified theory of behavioral rewards.
It said that the brain creates neural pathways, using dopamine to reinforce or suppress them based on the rewards it’s received. This, too, proved wrong. Read More
The startlingly profitable business of scientific publishing – or – how to make staggering amounts of money by selling an audience to itself. Seriously, if you’ve ever wondered where all that research overhead goes, this is it. Read More
There is an element of chance in everything we do. Call it chance, fortune, Lady Luck. Call it whatever you want. But it means that if you did great today, you’re doing worse tomorrow. Here’s why.
Imagine that you have an amazing writing day. Let’s say that you managed to type in 4000 beautiful words in a single afternoon, producing four times as much as you normally do. Everything is great. You’re totally on a roll. Read More
It rains. Streets overflow. Get rid of it as fast as possible, before everything floods, right?
Not so fast. Getting rid of rain isn’t quite that easy, and there’s an entire tech infrastructure dedicated to doing just that. Also, why you should never cross running water in your car… Read More
For years I’ve been hearing other authors say that there is no great difference between their worst work, and their best work. I’ve always thought this was a load of crud.
Of course there is a difference between my best work and my worst work. When I do my best writing everything flows. It is pure, pristine, shoals of wonderful ideas that weave together into a complete whole. It is living in flow with the Muse looking over my shoulder. The words flow out of me in a never-ending stream.
Except that all of that really is a load of crud.
Last year, after reading Chris Fox’s “5000 Words An Hour,” I started keeping track of my work. When I start to write. Whether I’m writing or editing. How many words I achieve. And it’s really opened up my eyes. Read More