Tag: Writing Life
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Dear Mrs. V
Dear Mrs. V, After 40+ years, this thank you letter is long overdue. I recently started writing fiction and was chatting about it with a good friend at happy hour. When I mentioned your name as a major influence, he interrupted me. “Have you told her?” I just stared at him — the only answer…
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The Flannel at Superstars 2026
Superstars Writing 2026 is an excellent writer’s conference. I learn a lot and make great contacts. The Flannel made an appearance.
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“That” Hunting
I’m finishing up the editing of my next novel and realized that (ha!) I use the word “that” far too often. Now I am “that” hunting, in many cases just removing the word. It feels satisfying, but it takes longer than I wanted it to. That sucks.
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Franklin, I (truly) hardly knew you…
Franklin,I can’t really start this out “Dear Franklin” because I didn’t know you that well. I put you in the first scene of my next book (first in a series), but I didn’t know who you were. Sure, you were the main character’s boss and you got to deliver some good news, and you were…
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A casual conversation while bleeding
I went in for a blood draw for one of my meds today and was chatting with the person doing the draw. Those folks have an impressive sounding title but I can’t remember it. She was nice and it was painless. It was the middle of the day so she asked if I was heading…
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An Unexpected Smile
One of the benefits of a writing career is that you hear from complete strangers that something you wrote made an impact. As I am relatively new to this career, this hasn’t happened much. One of the books I wrote is called Writing Into The Sunset. I mainly wrote it to help myself think about…
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Selling Books at In-Person Events
I’m not doing these yet, but I’m sure I will in the future. This is an interesting article, written by someone who consults for selling products at trade shows, that applies easily to selling books at a book fair or book convention. 5 Steps to Turn Cold Conversations into Sales Opportunities: https://kokoroinc.com/trade-show-staff-training/
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Finishing Your Writing
Finishing is a life skill. It is something that benefits us our entire lives. What does finished mean when we are a writer? Generally one of two things: (1) we have finished writing the piece, or (2) we have published the book and people can buy it. Or submitted it. Or whatever we do to…
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Future Search
In the future, AI will drive search algorithms, making genres and keywords less relevant for authors.
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Leadership Gone Right Now Available
One of my short stories is coming out in a new anthology, Leadership Gone Right. See the link below for more details. https://www.fartheststarpublishing.com/post/leadership-gone-right-anthology-now-available
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I have a story in a new anthology
One of my short stories is appearing in a new anthology. The “Leadership Gone Right” anthology is now available for pre-order. Paperback now and ebook soon. Go here for details: https://www.fartheststarpublishing.com/product-page/leadership-gone-right-2024-anthology “Farthest Star Publishing proudly announces the pre-order of “Leadership Gone Right,” a captivating anthology featuring 18 tales of unconventional leadership and unexpected twists from…
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Do what you believe…
Geddy Lee, CBS Sunday Morning, December 3, 2023, “What’s Next for Rush?” “Do what you believe. Because if you do what someone else believes, and you fail, you got nothing. If you what you believe and you fail, you still have hope.” Geddy Lee, CBS Sunday Morning, December 3, 2023, “What’s Next for Rush?” https://www.cbsnews.com/news/geddy-lee-and-alex-lifeson-of-rush/
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“It’s how good you are going to be that really matters.”
Surgeon and author Atul Gawande’s Ted Talk on coaching highlights constant improvement. What does that mean for my writing?
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20Books: Kanban for Writers
There was a session at the conference that talked about setting up a Kanban for a writer’s life. As someone who worked in manufacturing for my career, I am familiar with kanbans and had even come across the concept for elsewhere in life. This was a decent session, though, in that it assumed you knew…
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20Books Conference & Cake
In Vegas for the 20Books conference. Got a lot out of it last year and the sessions look good again this year. I’ll meet a lot of fellow authors and have my brain explode from all the information. There are more vendors this year for today’s vendor day. One of the more amusing things in…
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Death to Genre Fiction, Long live Genre Fiction
The more genres there are, the less useful genre categories become for readers.
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Fear of Copying
Seth Godin makes a great point here about florists and photos. I think it also applies to the writer’s fear of stolen ideas. The bigger threats to new writers are not finishing and anonymity after publishing. Most writers never finish and there are many that finish but never get discovered by readers. Very few (relatively…
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Short Story Dispenser Kiosks
When my dad and his wife visited last month, they came across a cool thing. A printed short story or poem dispenser. You pick genre and length and it prints out a poem or short story on thermal paper (like cash register receipts). Below are some pictures. From the website above, it appears that the…
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Amazon Books Make on Demand Virtual Tour
This is impressive. A 9 minute tour of one of the Amazon MOD (make on demand) sites. It is all about books, so I presume the “make” refers to future. Imagine a 3D print shop at this scale. Everything is barcoded and you can see that each book is different coming down the line.
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Detailed Analysis vs Just Do It
How much craft does a writer need to learn before they start to write? Should you learn deep craft techniques or just write? One Saturday afternoon when I should have been doing chores, I fell down the rabbit hole of reaction videos. Various experts (see below) play a music video, supposedly for the first time,…
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Writing when Retired: More Experiences
One advantage of getting older is that we are not dead yet. Not being dead means we continue to accumulate experiences. The quantity and variety of these experiences become a resource for our creativity. We have more experiences, and therefore more creative resources, than we did yesterday, last year, or twenty years ago.
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Crossing the Rubicon
https://characterlab.org/tips-of-the-week/all-in/ Character Lab is co-lead by Angela Duckworth, author of Grit (a highly recommended book). This articles talks about the being “all in” on a decision, even though there will (will!) setbacks on any major decisions. That doesn’t mean it is the wrong decision. Here is a quote from the article that explains the “crossing…
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New Book! Writing into the Sunset
I made the decision to become a writer after I retired in 2019. My style is to learn a lot from those that have gone before me. This book has a bit of my writing story and a lot of what I have learned in my writing journey. This is my third published book, so…
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Only compare yourself to yourself
https://characterlab.org/tips-of-the-week/me-to-me/ This is a great article on the importance of comparing yourself to yourself, not to others. We do not have an objective view of our own capabilities. Also we only see the public view of others. Trying to compare ourselves to others is like looking at two paintings across the room when you have…
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Quantum Typos
Fact: if you have n readers check you work for typos, the n+1 reader will find a previously undiscovered typo with 42/n seconds of looking at the work. Fact: If you open your book and successfully fix a typo, you will introduce (6.5x-y)/3 new typos, where x is the number of keystrokes used to fix…
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Yeah, I suck, but I’ll get better…
I subscribe to the Havard Business Review (HBR) Management Tip Of The Day. About half the time, it is something that is applicable to my situation. This particular one hits both my work and my writing. The underlining below is mine. HBR Management Tip Of The Day When You’re Learning, You Should Feel Uncomfortable Being…
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Medical Product Outsourcing – An article I wrote back in 2005
This article was published back in the June 2005 edition of Medical Product Outsourcing magazine. As the article title says, it covers how a company’s IT infrastructure can help with its medical device design process.