I’ve mentioned how I am reading The Baseball 100 by Joe Posnanski. It is a delight and treat to read these 100 essays on baseball players, that tell a fascinating history of the game. It has quickly jumped toward the top of the list of best baseball books I have ever read. I’ve learned (or…
Occasionally I am asked what my favorite story that I’ve written is. I assume this means my favorite story that I’ve sold and has been published. This is not an easy question for a writer. It is like asking a parent, which of your children is your favorite. A common response, and one that I’ve…
Today is the first day of my creative new year. It is also the first official day of an effort that I have calling “Project Sunrise” for short. Project Sunrise is a plan to transition to a full-time writer ten years from now when I retire. It involves three key elements: Improving my writing. Seriously…
When I started writing with the idea of selling stories, I was 20 years old, going on 21. When I sold my first story, fourteen years had passed. I wrote intermittently during those years. Sometimes pouring out stories, other times going months without writing a single word. Funny thing is, from the very start, I…
First admit you have a problem Of all of the stories I’ve written, my favorite thus far is “Gemma Barrows Comes to Cooperstown.” The story was published as the lead story in Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show in May 2015. I finished writing the final draft of the story on Friday, March 13, 2015, and submitted to…
I received two story rejections before noon today, and in some ways, they were oddly juxtaposed. The first one was from a professional market to which I have never submitted before. The rejection told me that the story made it past the first cut and went on to detail many of the good points of…
With the first two months of 2010 in the record books, here is a brief update of my progress so far this year: Jan Feb YTD Days worked 11 9 21 Words written 12,212 8,479 20,691 Stories completed 1 1 2 Stories submitted 2 1 3 Despite writing only 10 days in February, they…
For the last three days, I have been getting up early and writing, much like I did back in November for NaNoWriMo. It has been working well for me. I have averaged about 1,800 words each day, I spend a total of about 2 hours at the keyboard, and then I’m done for the day. For me, this…
I haven’t written at all this week. It’s not because I lack the ideas. I think there are 3 reasons for it: I am mentally reworking the story that I was writing. This comes from some of the workshopping I did two summers ago. I could see problems with the story as it was going,…
Yesterday, I wandered over to a friend’s house–we’ll call him "Todd"–to borrow shovel. While there, he told me he’d received his copy of DESCENDED FROM DARKNESS, the anthology of short fiction containing my story, "Hindsight, In Neon". He asked me to sign it. I think it was a fair trade, considering he was loaning me his shovel. (I managed…
Here’s the status of the progress I’ve made toward my writing goals for 2010 for week #3: Week YTD Total words written 3,159 12,212 # stories completed 0 1 # stories submitted 0 2 # stories sold 0 0 Summary: Not as good as I hoped this week. Busy with work and family stuff, but I…
Here’s the status of the progress I’ve made toward my writing goals for 2010 for week #3: Week YTD Total words written 4,202 9,053 # stories completed 1 1 # stories submitted 2 2 # stories sold 0 0 Summary: Well, the best week so far, out of the first three weeks of the year. I…