Scott Sigler, one of my favorite authors, has announced his tailgate tour. You can check it out right here. The tour is to promote his book The Rookie. What’s The Rookie? It’s American Football with aliens, humans and what can only be described as a very loose set of safety regulations.

Sticking to his tradition of general awesomeness, Sigler has posted a free podcast of The Rookie in its entirety on his site.

* With apologies to Jay Z

“I can’t possibly work on my novel today; I’ve just had a great new idea for a book!”

My name is Andrew and I suffer from New Idea Disease (NID). My life has become unmanageable.

I am not alone.

Most writers suffer from this to one degree or another but among the seething mass formed by unpublished writers it’s practically an epidemic. It’s so easy to just put down what you’re doing and start something new, and hey, what you’re starting may well be a better idea than your current project.

Don’t do it. Until you (and by “you”…I mean “me too”) get over this you will never, ever, finish anything.

I have a drawer full of half started projects that fell apart as soon as I hit the BSM (Big Swampy Middle*). Some of them were okay ideas too; but not one of them could compete with the new idea I had floating around in my head. Of course as soon as I started that idea a new shiny idea popped into my head.

Even now that I have a completed rough draft I’m still suffering. Rather than do the necessary edits to make a full first draft, I desperately want to start a new story.

Fortunately there’s a cure**. A spiral bound notebook. Get a new idea? Write it down. You can come back to it later. This helps with the anxiety that an unused idea will be somehow lost forever.

When you revisit these ideas later, some of them will have lost their allure. When the lightning bolt strikes, there will be nothing anyone can say that will convince you that your idea for a story about a SWAT team composed entirely of badgers is anything but 100% gold***. It may well be, but your enthusiasm could be getting the better of you. Once those honeymoon chemicals have stopped sloshing around in your brain have another look at your notebook. Now you can take the pick of the ideas and start work on that…once you’ve finished the project you’re on now.

I hope that helps. I certainly wish someone had told me that a year ago.

* I stole the idea of the Big Swampy Middle from Jim Butcher, author of the Dresden Files.

** There are actually two cures. The other involves a huge guy holding a pickle and a hammer. Don’t ask.

*** I stole the idea for a SWAT team of badgers too. In this case it was from a friend of mine that helps edit my stuff. I’m a horrible person.

Carrie Heim Binas, author of one of my favorite blogs Heim Binas Fiction, saw fit to give me a Superior Scribbler award.

That’s made my whole day, thanks Carrie!

There are some rules to getting one of these…

1. Each Superior Scribbler must in turn pass The Award on to 5 most-deserving Bloggy Friends.
2. Each Superior Scribbler must link to the author & the name of the blog from whom he/she has received The Award.
3. Each Superior Scribbler must display The Award on his/her blog, and link to This Post, which explains The Award.
4. Each Blogger who wins The Superior Scribbler Award must visit This Post and add his/her name to the Mr. Linky List. That way, we’ll be able to keep up-to-date on everyone who receives This Prestigious Honor!
5. Each Superior Scribbler must post these rules on his/her blog.

Now, time to give some deserving others the award:

Skyla Dawn Cameron: Author, publishing ninja and the creator of “How NOT To Be A Douchebag Writer 101″

Mur Lafferty: If you aren’t reading “I Should Be Writing”…you should be. This site is the ultimate writing inspiration blog. Plus you can pick up some of Mur’s writing for free. What are you still doing here?

Pip Ballantine: Fellow Kiwi, writer and podcaster. Pip is the obscenely talented writer of Weather Child and Chasing The Bard (among many other things).

Andy Shackcloth: Not only does Andy give out great advice himself, he trawls the web to bring you the best writing advice from all over.

Girls With Slingshots by Danielle Corsetto Not a writing blog, but a webcomic. It’s not really work safe, but you should go anyway to see some of the best art AND writing on the web. Concise, clever and hilarious.

Tags: awards, News, superior scribbler, suprises

I’ve finally got the short stories page up and running righthere. If you like stories, and you like them short, then this could be the place for you.

The story that’s on there at the moment, Jack’s Echo (nothing to do with my last name, it just happens to be the main characters first name), was written for a one day story competition with a 1500 word limit. We had to include four random elements given to us on the day. I got mine in early, only to realize I’d missed one of the fairly vital instructions on the entry form.

Let this be a lesson to everyone, don’t spend six hours writing and two seconds reading the entry form.

Tags: advice, News, Short Stories

I got it done. Just.

At midnight I got my draft done. It’s a shame about all those places in the book where I’ve typed <INSERT EPIC BATTLE HERE> but it’s done. So now what? What do you do with a first draft once it’s finished?

I’m going to ignore it for a week.

My internal editor in snarling and snapping at its bindings, trying to get to the many mistakes I know for a fact are in there, but right now I’m far to close to what I’ve written to look at it objectively.

In the mean time I’m going to enter a short story contest, tap out a plan for a zombie story I had an idea for and generally laze about. There might be beer too.

I’m not going to slack off on the blogging though, I have two posts and a review ready to go as soon as I’ve done the necessary edits.

I might even do some actual work, you never know…

By the way, if you’d like to read the first two (edited!) chapters of my book, you can find them right here.

Tags: advice, edit, editing, Idiot things I'm doing, The Shadow Library