Authors, Kai Strand & LA Dragoni

Many beginner writers fall into the habit of what I like to refer to as “robot writing.” It’s when you basically write your scenes like a grocery list. Ex: Marcy stood and walked across the room. Then she picked up the candle stick to inspect it. She blinked when she noticed the spot of dried blood. Marcy dropped the candlestick and ran from the room. I call it robot writing because when I'm reading it I tend to fall into a robotic pattern and start to sound like the robot from the old Lost In Space series. "Danger. Danger. Will Robinson." You may as well put numbers in front of each sentence: First Marcy stood and walked across the room. Second she picked up the candlestick to inspect it. Third she blinked when she noticed the spot of dried blood. Fourth she dropped the candlestick and ran from the room. Don’t get me wrong, robot writing is absolutely acceptable in your first draft, no matter your writing experience. Your first p...

First and foremost, happy 91 st birthday to my dad. I love you so much, Dad! *** Back in 2012 Muse It Up Publishing published my middle grade novel, Beware of the White. They are an ebook publisher out of Canada. A great publisher to work with, but my book never did much of anything there. I suspect middle grade isn’t really a good audience for ebook only (unless you already have a great following, which wasn’t and still isn’t me J ) I asked for my rights back (ages ago, really) with the intention of republishing. Guess what? Though I’m not really ready to do that yet, I’m finally a heck of a lot closer than I was. I just finished revising it, I’m considering a new title, I’ve reached out to a cover artist (fingers crossed), I’m talking to a narrator about an audiobook, AND…I’m writing the prequel novella, which I hope to release at the same time. Whaaa…? That’s right. A prequel novella titled, The Making of a Master (Frank’s story). I always wante...

street cred   Commanding  a level  of respect in an  urban   environment  due to experience in or knowledge of issues affecting those environments When you make a plan and stick to it – or at least show concentrated effort to accomplish it - you’ll gain street cred among those hoping to achieve their own goals. Last week I observed my 2019 goals from a far. Determined that to achieve the writing goals, I will have to write 51,000 words this year. But how on earth does that fit into my very tight schedule? I’m going to break it into weekly bites so that I can have an idea of how many words per week I should be throwing down in order to complete my goal. There are 52 weeks in a year, but it’s already February 1 st , so let’s subtract four of those. 51k words divided by the 48 weeks I have left in the year equals 1,062 ½ words per week. That kind of stinks. Especially since I work full time, manage some social media pages, write copy for a loca...

Plan - verb (used with object),   planned,   plan·ning. to arrange a method or scheme beforehand for (any work, enterprise, or proceeding): to plan a new recreation center. to make plans for: to plan one's vacation. Last week we examined what I call drone view planning, where you do your high level planning for the year. Now we are going to take those ideas and move a little closer to them. Don’t worry, nothing too scary. I’m not going to make you work too hard. Goal #1: Get book one in my Trickstering series ready for the next step in life. How on earth do I do that? First I have to determine where I am with it and what kind of work needs to be done to get it ‘ready’ for the next step. I’ve recently received a critique back from my very amazing crit partner. Crit partners are heroes. They look at your crap and spend their ver...