[A]s a counterpoint to my earlier post on low word count days, let me take a moment to discuss high word count days. And specifically, in the context of yesterday’s writing, where I managed to blow away my previous one-day record of 5,300 words by writing nearly 7,200 words. If you are not a writer,…

[O]nce upon a time, when I first started to write with the idea to sell stories, I used to have these wild daydreams of being published. I’d finish writing a terrible short story and then sit back in my chair and imagine what it would be like just to be published, to have written something…

[Y]esterday, I managed to write only 112 words on the story that I am currently working on. It is the lowest word count I’ve had since April 11, 2014. I thought I should mention it here since I often talk about my writing streak and my daily averages, to show that sometimes, even the best…

[F]rom time-to-time, I get asked how I find the time to write. I supposed this is, in part, because of my consecutive-day writing streak (which now stands at 576 days). But I think part of it comes from the fact that I manage to write while working a full time job, while blogging, and while…

[T]here is one question I dread in interviews, and even casual conversations when people find out I am a writer. And no, it is not “where do you get your ideas?” Take casual conversations as an example, especially with people who I haven’t spoken with before, or who have heard I am a writer. They…

[S]ince I have been working on the second draft of a novella off-and-on over the last couple of week1 it occurred to me, at some point, that the novella was my favorite form of fiction-writing. What is a novella? Officially (for the purposes of award categories), according to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of…

[O]kay, I have a treat for all of you who have been so patient with my absences here lately. This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, and now seems as good a time as any. I’m going to occasionally post a very old story that I wrote. When I say “old”…

[I] used to be a hardcore Scrivener user. Over the last 2 years, however, I’ve used Google Docs almost exclusively for everything but my submissions drafts. In the last 2 years, I’ve put nearly 600,000 words through Google Docs. Because of this, I am often asked why I use Google Docs for writing instead of…

[I]t has taken me almost a week to catch up on various things, but I finally have some time to jot down thoughts on my writing goals for 2015. Good thing, too, since tomorrow evening at the writers group, we are discussing–writing goals for 2015. Keep in mind these goals apply to paid writing, and…

[Y]esterday, I posted a heat-map infographic of my writing in 2014. Here is a more traditional view of what it looked like to write every single day of the year. I averaged 853 words/day in 2014. That’s the equivalent of about 34 minutes per day spent writing. And since I wrote every day in 2014,…