So I’m not going to be around much. As soon as I’m done I’ll return to regale you with tales of my heroic success or gruesome failure.

Hi folks, I found this post on Qureyfest agent’s advice. It all seems good to me. I have to get back to writing again today but I thought I’d share this…

http://fictiongroupie.blogspot.com/2010/08/lessons-from-queryfest.html

This could be the author’s law… it trumps all other laws/tips/tricks I can give you.

Simply put Wheaton’s Law is this:

“Don’t be a dick!”

       Wil Wheaton 2007 PAX (Penny Arcade Expo) Keynote Speech

This applies to everything you do in your professional and online life. Tempted to moan about all the rejections you’re getting? See Wheaton’s Law.

Want to cuss out the agent that said no to your manuscript? Once agin, take a look at Wheaton’s Law. Not only will this save you some embarresment, it will make your chances of getting published that much better.

Why?

Do you want to work with someone who breaks Wheaton’s Law?

No?

Neither do agents or editors.

Tags: wheatons law

One of the things that bugs me about a lot of the writing advice that’s out there is that at some point, just about everyone says something like: “You gotta do it for the love”…

Well… yes of course.

Writing is so hard, with no garuntee of sucess, that not enjoying the process of creation is sure recipe for disaster. But I have to say, I’m not only doing this for the love…

I want to get paid.

I can live with not being paid like Stephen King, but I want to be able to say that writing pays all of the bills with a little left over to spend on the thinkgeek catalouge.

If you just want to do this for the love, that’s cool…you can wrote however you like, take a shotgun approach to editing and never actually have to finish anything.

On the other hand if you want to write for a living you need to plan for that and learn how to approach writing as the profession you want to be a part of.

Is it still a statistical long shot? Sure, so is playing professional sports, but you don’t see posters in gym locker rooms telling people “hey, you’ll probably never make it”.

If this is what you want, if you want a career as an author you owe it to yourself to try for that prize.

Hi folks, I haven’t been updating much because I’ve…well I’ve been writing.  I realized if I actually want to make my deadline of having something of good quality to take with me (metaphorically speaking) to World Fantasy Con next year, I’m going to need to be writing it now.

I’m also dealing with a life that went a little mad in the last little while, but its coming back online (sort of) now.

In the mean time I thought I’d leave you with an interesting link from the New York Times that tells of E-Books outselling hardcovers.

This isn’t a sign of the apocalypse though, at least not according to ninja agent Nathan Bransford. I fully recommend going and reading his article about it here.

Until next time, keep writing everyone, and I’ll talk again soon.

To bastardize one of Dana White’s quotes: “Do you wanna be a %&^*&^*ing writer?” Well, do you?

I’m going to assume the answer is yes.

If you do then you need to b able to set aside time each day to write. It almost doesn’t matter how much, as long as there is some time each day to get into your story and block out the outside world.  Prioritize writing over TV, aimlessly surfing the web and scratching yourself*.

By this I don’t mean abandon your family, or your job, or even neglect them.  Just cut out one of the little thins that takes up your time and write instead.

* Cut out picking your nose too. Seriously.

Sorry this is so late. i have no (good) excuse.

The principle of getting out early applies as much to entire books as it does to scenes and chapters.  Get out of a scene before it gets boring. get out of your book before you have to tie everything up in a nice neat bow. Leave your readers with somewhere to go. Of course, as always, there are exceptions to this rule, but if you find yourself bored while writing a scene or a story consider that you might have stayed in it for too long.

It’s an old writing adage “In late, Out Early”.

What it means is that you need to start your story as things are already happening. It doesn’t necessarily you have to begin in the middle of a firefight, but something has to already be in motion when your story starts.  It doesn’t even have to be related to your main plot. if there’s nothing going on, your reader has no reason to keep reading.

This goes double for whole chapter scene descriptions. There are writers that can get away with this, but they are masters of the art, otherwise…it’s just dull.

A classic example of a great opening is in Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series. The very first line hooks you into the action:  “The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed.”

It drops you into the middle of something you don’t understand yet, but it doesn’t matter because you are immediately drawn into the action.

I’ll cover the the out late part tomorrow.

This is one of the nest bits of writing advice I’ve every been given (you can thank my Dad, Michael Brown for this one). Can you fit your story idea into a few sentences? It used to be one sentence, but I found that sometimes that just isn’t enough, so I’ve given myself a limit of three sentences.

At the moment, I’ve got it down to two sentences:  “A man who can’t die works as an occult salvage expert, keeping the supernatural hidden from the every day world. When the two worlds cross, he learns that even someone who can’t die has a lot to lose.”

Why is it so important? Two reasons…

First off, you will need a guide while you are writing. not an outline, but a central theme, a mission statement for your novel. If something you write doesn’t fit the mission, it’s out. I;ve had to throw out more than 100,000 words because I didn’t learn this early on.

Secondly, people are going to ask you “What’s your story about?” If you can’t tell them in a few seconds, you’ve lost them. If someone asked me this question now they’d get just the first sentence: “A man who can’t die works as an occult salvage expert, keeping the supernatural hidden from the every day world.”

I’ve made the mistake of trying to give people a blow by blow description of the plot as I have it planned out. Please learn from my idiocy. No one wants to hear your story like this. If it’s good, then they’ll want to read about it when your book comes out. until then, unless they are someone you bounce idas off, keep the plot to yourself.