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The Internet and Procrastination
I’ve tried a variety of strategies to keep myself on track (simple willpower, unfortunately, isn’t enough). I concentrate on email, blogging, etc. in the morning, and reserve the afternoon and evening for working on my fiction.
Message to New Writers: It’s Okay to Focus on Your Craft
Self-publishing is not the only ticket to winning the proverbial lottery. In some ways, I feel the accessibility of authors online coupled with the availability of publishing news hurts the craft because it’s taking the emphasis off the words on…
Quick Updates for 2011-06-16
Member News for John Arkwright, Geir Lanesskog, and Douglas Hulick.
Book Marketing Methods That Don’t Work
It’s no wonder that the Internet is bursting with promotional services, marketing companies, publicity gurus, and book promotion self-help advice from authors who’ve been there, done that.
Guest Post: Checking the Gender Balance
What is happening here is the creation of what we might call “his-story”. If the only books talked about, the only books that find their way into the historical record, are books by men, then anyone looking back over time…
Key Conditions for Suspense Part 26:
Patterns for Resolution Elements 1-3
Readers want their tension to build to a pitch. Then they want to feel a release. The resolution phase is where you deliver that delicious release.
Quick Updates for 2011-06-10
Member News for Robert J. Sawyer, Leah Cypess, and Anna D. Allen.
Guest Post: The No. 1 Habit of Highly Creative People
Creativity is a nebulous, murky topic that fascinates me endlessly — how does it work? What habits to creative people do that makes them so successful at creativity?
Clark, Mendelson, and Scott:
New Name for a Fee-Charging Agency
Every time I bemoan Writer Beware’s overpacked file drawers, and wonder whether I should get rid of files for agents and publishers that have gone out of business (or at least consign them to the basement), I’m reminded of why…
Key Conditions for Suspense:
Part 25 – Patterns for Struggle Elements 5 & 6
The stories that use insight and decision are usually those where the main obstacle is the character’s internal problem. For example, in stories where love and friendship is on the line and the obstacle is the main character’s values, it…
In Memoriam: Joel Rosenberg
Joel Rosenberg (b.1954) died on the evening of June 2, a day after suffering a respiratory depression that caused a heart attack, anoxic brain damage and major organ failure. Rosenberg’s first published short story was “Like the Gentle Rains” in…
Contract Red Flag: Net Profit Royalty Clauses
Publishers that pay on net profit often pay higher royalty percentages than average, and if the percentage is large enough–50% or more–it may offset the deductions. But be sure you know exactly what those deductions are.
Guest Post: Proprioception
Being paralyzed led me to becoming a writer. While in that incapacitated state, I began spinning stories in order to go to the places I physically could not. It was no surprise that those stories were science fiction and fantasy,…
Key Conditions for Suspense:
Part 24 – Patterns for Struggle Elements 3 – 5
Just as I need to know my hero’s goal, motives, and plan, I also need to know the same things about my antagonist. In fact, in some stories the antagonist’s plans are what drive the story.
PublishAmerica Will Be Your Literary Agent…For $199
Literary agencies becoming publishers? Screw that trend. PublishAmerica, always a trail blazer, is swinging the other way.
John E. Johnston, III, Awarded SFWA Service Award
John E. Johnston, III, was the recipient of this year’s SFWA Service Award, presented at the Nebula Awards ceremony in Washington, D.C. The SFWA Service Award is given at the discretion of the President and with Board approval to a…
Guest Post: The Watcher and the Weird
The Weird, as opposed to horror or dark fantasy, has a slippery quality of “you know it when you read it,” with an element of terror, perhaps, but more likely unease.
Quick Updates for 2011-05-25
Industry News and Member News for Jakob Drud, Patrick O’Sullivan, Matthew Sanborn Smith, Erin Hoffman, Dave Freer, Jon Armstrong, Brandon Sanderson, Anna D. Allen, David Levine, Allan Cole, Karen Azinger, and Ferrett Steinmetz.
Quick Updates for 2011-05-24
Industry News and Member News for Paul Celmer, Natania Barron, Thomas Mays, Mary G. Thompson, Barb Hendee, Rae Carson, Rachel Graves, Diane Whiteside, Dave Gross, Ferrett Steinmetz, Stina Leicht, Eugie Foster, James Treadwell, and Sunny Moraine.
Nebula Award Winners
And the Nebula goes to…
Key Conditions for Suspense:
Part 23 – Patterns for the Struggle : Element 2
Taking the readers to the point where it seems their worst fears will be realized and then turning it around only makes the victory sweeter. Giving the reader great hope, just before everything falls apart, makes the loss feel so…
Watch the Nebula Awards Ceremony live!
Tune in Saturday evening, May 21, 2010 at 8:15 P.M. EDT for the Nebula award ceremony. For the second year in a row, one of the premier awards in science fiction will be streamed live on the Web. This Saturday,…
Golden Duck Awards 2010
This year’s Golden Duck Awards have been announced. Designed to encourage science fiction literature for children, The Golden Duck Awards are presented every year at Worldcon.
Tidbits
How threatened do publishers feel by agencies’ aggressive moves into publishing? Well, according to a report today in The Bookseller, Random House UK has done an end run around prestigious literary agency Sheil Land, directly approaching author Tom Sharpe to…