Learning to Be A Master of the Universe
Sometime over the next month, I’ll post about where things are now and where they’re headed, with Sydney and my writing generally. In the meantime, I mentioned over the weekend to my Newsletter folks that I’m hard at work on the fourth Sydney Brennan book. In fact, I should have a rough draft finished within a week (emphasis on rough—there are a lot of yellow comments with things like “IS THIS RIGHT?,” “CHECK THIS,” or “FILL IN”). If you’ve read the most recent Sydney Brennan novel, The Perils of Panacea, the current novella takes place a short time after that Read more…
Even Dictionaries Love the South
Consider this a mini-post, something I ran across in my tippy-tapping way and just had to share. I do all of my fiction writing in Scrivener. The program doesn’t have the greatest spell-check, but it does have the requisite handy-dandy, built-in dictionary/thesaurus. Some entries have extra features, like a Word Spectrum to help you distinguish where your word falls in meaning relative to similar words. Others have a Choose the Right Word discussion box to help you–shockingly–choose the right word among a group of synonyms, or an Origins box discussing … well, it’s not super hero stories. You might recall that Read more…
Peeking at Process: The Mad Writer’s Laptop Exterior
I may have mentioned this before, but I am a sucker for office supplies. I walk into an office supply store, and I feel almost giddy with the possibilities. It’s a combination of 1) looking for the perfect product that will finally fix my organizational impairments and make me the efficient, fully optimized human I always knew I could be, and 2) making sure I have enough of anything I might need in case of office supply emergency. (Oddly enough, now that I live in Hawaii, when the boats get off schedule I see empty office supply shelves far less Read more…
The Audiobook Rabbithole, and Reader Poll: What do You Think Sydney Sounds Like?
You know those 10-minute limbos? The lulls when you’ve got something else scheduled soon so you don’t really have enough time to start a real project? Those times are dangerous. During a recent one I thought, eh, I’ll just check out ACX. ACX is an Amazon platform that distributes audiobooks, primarily through Amazon and Audible, but also through iTunes. Checking out audiobooks is one of the things on my list for this year. I love the idea of people listening to Sydney’s adventures on their commutes or while ironing or torturing themselves at the gym. (Maybe because I do none Read more…
My Kingdom for a Blurb
I’ve been working on a bunch of last-minute book launch things lately. As an indie publisher, I am responsible for everything that goes into my book’s production, but I don’t personally do everything. That’s one reason many indie publishers don’t like the term self-publishing. A responsible publisher does not do everything him- or herself. I have a cover designer who makes Sydney’s world come to life. For Panacea, a developmental editor helped me see structural and plot and even footwear issues. As I explained in my most recent post, my copy editor has a fine eye for details like spelling Read more…
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