I’ve been a fan of Lilah Sturges’s writing since a friend (Mark Finn) joined a shared world fiction anthology called Clockwork Storybook in the late 90s. In a Twitter thread this morning, Lilah talked about a concept I hate: Wanting/Not Wanting something enough. And then she said something that really hit me: …maybe I don’t […]

The last entry, here, was about the first week of the 2021 1000 Words of Summer writing challenge. (To be fair, for some reason, calling it a challenge always seems a bit…not right. It is a challenge — you’re shooting for a daily word count. But it’s never felt like other challenges in the way […]

I mentioned last week that I’m taking part in the 1000 Words of Summer writing challenge. So…how did the first week go? Week One I wrote 5,315 words in the first week. (Some years I blow past daily word counts, and other years I don’t even hit 3,000.) A friend is curious about how the […]

There’s the backstory most of us are familiar with: characters or narrators calling back to a time prior to what’s currently happening in a story. But there are often behind-the-scenes histories and other mechanics readers never see — a different kind of backstory only the writer may know. Maybe it’s bits of considered information culled […]

I’ve never taken part in NaNoWriMo, and I don’t see a day I ever do. It’s not that I’m against it, but…it always seems I have other writing projects moving along when November rolls around. (I’m not willing to set those things aside to take on a new challenge.) Still, I think it’s cool that […]

Three days ago, my wife and I visited my mom for a little birthday celebration in my honor (today is my actual birthday). We have all come to an agreement over the years that while we are all willing to put time into preparing meals and making the day seem a bit bigger for any […]

I’ve thought quite a bit in recent weeks about the submission process with the latest novel. Without name dropping, some impressive agents requested partial and full copies of the manuscript. Even when they passed, they let me know they were impressed by my writing and what I was attempting to do with the story. Mentioning […]

[The short version: I’m done submitting novels to agents and publishers. The current novel seems to have run its course. Because it’s the first book of three and I want to finish the series, I will. (Many writers set a series aside at this point because you don’t get to sell a series on a […]

A month and a half ago, I wrote this entry, about how this time of the year usually means the annual writing retreat becomes quite a focus for me. At the time of that last entry, I wasn’t sure if a retreat would happen this year. But…the friend I go to East Texas with each […]

This time of year is usually when a friend and I plan our annual writing retreat. We didn’t go anywhere last spring because…well…a worldwide pandemic kinda got in the way. And while my friend (who quit corporate life to become a nurse) is vaccinated and I get the first round tomorrow, it’s still not likely […]

And so we come to the end of not just another year, but one of the years! It’s not a year I’d hope to repeat, but it was not without its moments. Obviously, the big thing was the pandemic and just…all that out there! (You know what I mean.) For me, it was a year […]

The other morning, I read this essay by Hilary Mantel about writers learning to trust themselves. It’s full of gems like this: You must recognize, though, that once you enter this life, you are at the disposal of your book around the clock. And there are no holidays. And this: Writing is a long game […]