If you want the background for this post, check The Binge post for a description of my recent unintentional astronomical word count adventure. Short version: I wrote one hundred twenty three thousand words in fifty days. Yow. So, you may ask, what did I learn from writing 123k words in 50 days? Plenty. What do [...]
By the time I finish writing this article, I’ll have written 123,000 words in fifty days. The output constitutes two short-book-length works (one novel, one reference work), nine blog posts, two commissioned articles, and some odds and ends of work on another novel. For the first half of the duration, I did it by accident. [...]
A few months back, after grinding my eight-year-old generic ergo keyboard into the ground I found myself in need of a new ergonomic keyboard. The keyboard failed on a deadline, so I had little choice but to do that thing you’re not supposed to do: shop for computer equipment at Best Buy. I’ve been writing [...]
As a writer, like most writers, I have one giant terror point. For some people it’s the writing. For some people it’s showing your work to friends, or to strangers. For some people it’s marketing in general. For me, it’s marketing fiction to editors. I don’t have a problem with nonfiction (as my bibliography demonstrates), [...]
Last night I had occasion to send an email to Spider Robinson, thanking him for his recent book Variable Star, a posthumous collaboration with Robert A. Heinlein. If you are unfamiliar with Spider’s work, or have not read Variable Star, you owe it to yourself to take a gander. All royalties from the book go [...]
Download Subscribe Part three of three of the live call-in show that launched Down From Ten — this one plays almost like a Reprobates Hour episode on the history of the podcast novel. A change of pace from the previous episodes, and a very interesting one.
Download Subscribe Part two of the live call-in show we did for the launch of Down From Ten, in which we take your calls, talk about the craft of writing and podcasting, and argue about what makes for a good story. We also take more saucy calls from listeners.
by Gail Carriger [In honor of her new book Soulless, which impressed me with its groundedness in the Victorian world, I asked author Gail Carriger to blog about the art of finding good research sources for Steampunk writing. This is her contribution - thank you very much, Ms. Carriger! -JDS] I’ve said it before and [...]
I’m stopping in to give you all a quick digest on my recent activities, which have been many, prolific, and at hopefully somewhat scandalous. First, the appearances. You can find me on recent episodes of Podioracket, The Dead Robots Society, and doing voice work as the German Army in Philippa Ballantine’s Weather Child. You can [...]
I was interviewed this week on The Dead Robots Society, where we discussed Predestination, producing full cast audiobooks, and the glorious delirium of writing. Hear it all here
by J. Daniel Sawyer Thanks to Amy Gahran for sparking the idea Literacy is like heroin – it’s habit-forming. The more people try out the habit, the more likely they are to retain it. Exposure to books breeds consumption of books, which is good, because the act of reading requires deliberate commitment. This is important [...]
When writing a period piece, whether that period is past or present, getting your terminology right is essential to maintaining the illusion. It’s also one of the easiest things to miss on a revision. Lest you think the following rant is thoroughgoing self-righteousness, let me preemptively explain that it’s not. It’s actually hypocrisy. You see, [...]
The wordcount meter for Down From Ten is moving again. After several weeks of solid non-stop podcasting, I couldn’t take it anymore and have picked the project that’s second on my priority list to power through. The rest of Free Will will have to wait – there’s something about the world of Down From Ten [...]
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