April 11th, 2019

       I'm quite excited to announce my upcoming novel, LAPLACE'S DEMON. The launch date is yet to be announced but the editing is now complete, so I will post that when I have it.
       I've been meaning to blog about it for some time, but I've been working on the next in the series and it takes up most of my waking hours.  Besides, I tend to think in terms of word count, and I would much rather be putting that toward my writing.
      That said, since word has come out that I am being published, I've had many writers ask me questions. At the suggestion of my publisher,  I've decided it's time to blog about writing, to help those who are aspiring to get some recognition for their hard work. So, for this first blog entry, I am going to share the best advice I've ever gotten. I got this from someone quite famous and successful.  She said, "write." I may be paraphrasing here., but that was the gist of it.
         I've been part of many writer's groups, workshops, classes, critique meetings, etc and the most common situation that I have seen is the incomplete manuscript. The people with one or two chapters that they have been working on for three years but never get around to finishing.
         If you want to be a writer, keep writing until you are one. Keep writing until you're good at it. Keep writing until someone wants to pay you to do it. Don't work on your cover art.  Don't draw maps. Don't sketch your characters. Don't waste your word count on a complete bio of every character. Don't watch YOUTUBE videos on how to sell millions of books.
          Just write. It's easier to edit a crappy draft than a blank page. Now, no two people are alike and therefore there is no one way to do things. I like to set daily word count minimums. That works best for me. Mine is 2000. Stephan King said his is 6000. Some people like to set minimum  dedicated writing time. Whatever works for you. But if the way you are doing it does not result in words on a page in significant quantities in a reasonable amount of time, It's not working.
        SO that's it. Short and sweet and back to writing. Thanks for checking this out.  I'll blog more about the whole process soon. Leave me a message on the home page if you like and check back for updates.