These are a few of my favorite things...

Since I (accidentally) missed last month's FM MGR Blog post, I figured I better make this a good one , which is rather tough given the topic.  This is also my last FM MGR blog post as I've decided to do something different for 2014.  Continue reading...

Pinning Down Inspiration

One of my favorite writing quotes of all time:  "You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club." -- Jack London   Continue Reading on My Site

Thank Gods for the Interwebs

I remember being back in college. Research papers were always a pain. Research meant long hours sitting the library sifting through the card catalog and pulling books from shelves. It meant hours reading and taking notes.  Continue Reading...

Cultivating Motivation

So when I began writing this post I actually felt rather unmotivated to write about motivation. Motivation can be a fickle thing. Because, you see, when it occurred to me that I wasn't motivated to write about motivation, I found it so amusing that it motivated me to write about motivation. That's how motivation sometimes works.  Continue reading on my site...

Finding the Right Community

Online writing communities can be vast oceans difficult to navigate if you’re new to the scene. The wrong community can cause aspiring writers to give up, while the right community can help nurture a writer’s creativity, or boost them toward publication. Read More...

Character Sketch

This month we were supposed to either discuss our favorite character or draw up a character sketch, so I chose the latter. Mostly because I wanted to explore what kind of person this character was when he was alive, and how that translates to him as a character now that he’s dead. Leave it to me to choose an antagonist.  Read More

Progress

We had two choices for this month’s Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour topic. We could discuss current projects or progress. Since I already posted a current projects post just a week or so ago, progress it is!  READ MORE

Writing Routines

It appears many of the writers who covered this top this month are just as haphazard as me. Discipline is one of those things I still struggle with and work at. I may spend an entire writing day and only get 1K out, but then on a day I’m working the day job, I’ll end up pushing out over 3K between eight and eleven at night.   Read More....

Breaking the Block

One of the most common questions I get is how to break writer’s block. I suppose I get this question a lot because I’m one of those writers who’s rather prolific. My other writer friends watch me produce book after book and wonder how the heck I do it. Truthfully, I wasn’t always this way.  I labored over my first novel for fourteen years before I finally finished it and sold it. I actually re-wrote it three times during those fourteen years. It took me a few years to get to the point where I’m writing several books a year.  Click here to continue...

Anticipation Of...

So while I am never short of book, novel and story projects, sometimes I lack for blogging topics. I don’t want to be trite and lament on the same things over and over again. That’s why I signed up for another year with the Merry Go Round Blog Tour! This month I would like to talk about anticipation.
Not anticipation with regard to getting a book published or holding the final product in my hands. No. While I look forward to those things, they no longer excite me like they once did. Once I’m finished with a book, I must dutifully move on to the next because there’s no rest for the wicked. Readers want more and I have so much more to write. Continue Reading...

The State of the Industry

When I saw this topic at the beginning of the year I was sure I'd know exactly what to write. However, now that it's time to write it I find myself overwhelmed. The state of the industry is in such flux that it would be impossible to cover everything in one blog entry.

We've gone from the big six to the big five, and now there are talks of two more of the big publishers merging, which means we could be down to the big four soon. Read more HERE...

When You've Gone Pro

Being a professional writer means different things to different people.  In the writing world, some writers have come to define professional as qualifying for membership in a professional writing organization. This often means you have to have been published by an approved publisher or magazine paying professional rates.

I'm going to be up front for a moment. I  do not believe you can solely judge professionalism based on who someone's publisher is or what magazine they were published in. How many of you, for example, consider Snooki a professional author? She would absolutely qualify for membership in one of those professional writing organizations.

Continue reading HERE.

I Could Carry About 20 Books + My Kindle

Sorry for the title (which would make sense if this was about reading), but I didn't want to title it, "My Strengths As A Writer" because it sounds like one of those back-to-school reports we used to have to write in elementary school. "What I Did During Summer Vacation."

Continue reading on my blog.

On the *To-Be-Read* Pile

Like many of you, I have an ever growing list of books I want to read. It's so bad, in fact, that not only do I have a bunch of books on my Kindle, but I have a list of books I want to read that I keep on my phone.  Continue Reading at The Quadrant

All of the Beautiful Horses

I was four-years-old when I fell in love with books. I have fond memories of my parents reading to me and me reading to them. I was sitting on the couch with a book the day my older brother and his friend started the field across the street on fire.  When I had to change schools in third grade, it was books that were my constant companions and friends.  By age eight I was reading the likes of Piers Anthony and Walter Farley.  By age nine I had already penned a series of  stories about horses. At age eleven I wrote my first novel, also a horse story, in pencil on lined notebook paper. By age 14 I’d read almost every book in the middle school library. By age seventeen I declared I would be a journalist and have my own column by the time I was thirty (which came true, incidentally) and by the time I was nineteen, I was in college for creative writing, penning more stories and articles and submitting to professional markets. READ MORE

Balancing the Writing Life

Balancing the writing life means different things to different people. A lot of writers have children to look after, so not only are they trying to balance a day job and family life, but also writing. Truth be known, I have a profound respect for those folks who juggle all of that. Me – I can’t really complain. The writing life has always been easy for me to balance. Long story short — I don’t have children so ever since I was nineteen, if I wasn’t working, reading, or spending time with friends or family, I was writing. Read more...

Line of the Dead!

I’ve always loved a deadline. I’m one of those people who thrives on deadlines. I do some of my best work under pressure. When I decided, at the tender age of seventeen, that I was going to be a professional journalist, it was the adrenaline rush of the deadline that made me think I’d love working for a newspaper. Read more on my site...

I Gotta Be Me...

So in this month’s Merry-Go-Round blog post we were asked to talk about who influenced us as a writer. Next to that, in parenthesis, it said: (i.e. who would you like to be compared to?) When I was a teenager back in the late 80′s the answer would have been, hands down, David Eddings. I idolized David Eddings. But that’s not who I ended up being compared to. Nope. Continue reading on my site...

Finding the Write Place

I used to sit at the kitchen island and type my little eyes off, but as I got older that became somewhat uncomfortable. Bar stool chairs hurt my rear and I often found my feet falling asleep. Since I have a laptop I thought to myself, It goes on your lap, silly. That’s why they call it a laptop.  So I started leaning back in my favorite living room chair to write. It was after several months of this that I began to notice a slight problem. Continue reading on my blog.

Procrastin…. Squirrel!

Many years ago I heard someone say that procrastination is not the cause, but rather the symptom of something else. I tend to agree. Think about it – when you’ve procrastinated there was probably something more pressing requiring your attention. Or perhaps some truth you were trying to avoid. Let me explain.  Continue reading on my blog.