Archive for the 'learning to write' Category
July 22nd 2008
The Dreaded Synopsis
No matter how many times I sit down to write synopses, I always end up screaming: “If I could distill the story into clever sound bytes, I’d be an advertising mogul, not a novelist!”
At least the project on my hardrive is for a novel yet to be written.
I find it slightly easier to imagine the main […]
July 17th 2008
Write in spurts
Ask a handful of writers what works for them and you’ll get a handful of different answers. SFNovelist Diana Pharaoh Francis just posted about writing every day, and here I am to tell you that I’ve never done any such thing.
When I’m working on a novel and facing a deadline you can bet your boots […]
July 17th 2008
Write Every Day
One of the pieces of advice that writers often give is to write every day. I gave that very piece of advice only a week or two ago and the response was a sort of nod that said, yeah, heard that one before, what else have you got? Actually, the context was more like this–I […]
July 1st 2008
The Novel is Done, Long Live the Novel
Around a week ago, I finished up The Turning Tide, the third in my Crosspointe series. Finishing a book is always rather a strange thing for me. There’s a certain amount of jubilation and awe at myself–I finished a whole, entire book! And then there’s this period where my body starts to completely freak out–apparently […]
June 18th 2008
The Process of Finishing Up a Book
As I write this post, I am in the process of trying to finish up a draft of a book. There have been some potholes and speedbumps in the process involving health and life issues, but it’s almost done and I’m feeling relatively good about it (relatively because usually at the end of a book […]
June 15th 2008
Getting Things Write
I’m primarily a writer of what’s referred to “hard sf,” which of course means what I write is really difficult science fiction.
That’s baloney. Ok, something a little harder than baloney. Salami, or a nice summer sausage.
What I write is science fiction with plausible science. I try to get all the science right, and while I […]
June 3rd 2008
The end is nigh
The end, however, is not nearly nigh enough. My deadline is in a couple of short weeks, and so I’ll keep this relatively short. I’m working through the end of the draft (leaving myself precious little time to revise before zooming the manuscript off to my editor–but we’ll discuss poor planning another day). The […]
May 27th 2008
Are you inspired?
It was back at Windycon, in the Green Room before a panel, that I ran into Kerrie Hughes. Kerrie mentioned that she was going to edit a theme anthology called GAMER FANTASTIC which DAW Books was publishing, and gee, had I ever been a gamer? Of course I had, I told her. Heck, I’d run […]
May 24th 2008
The Publishing Lottery
One of the things guaranteed to annoy me is watching unpublished writers complain about how getting published is all a matter of connections and luck and timing. None of those things hurt, but I prefer to believe it’s mostly a matter of writing really good stories.
This leads to a related debate about how certain people […]
May 17th 2008
What I write.
The first title of this post was: I write crap. I changed it though and the rest of this post is about why and why I would call my writing crap.
A little while ago (could be months or weeks) I read a blog somewhere about how writers will sometimes talk about their writing and confess […]
Author Information
Tate Hallaway
Tate Hallaway is the best-selling paranormal romance alter-ego for an award-winning science fiction author. Her most recent novel is ROMANCING THE DEAD, the third installment in the Garnet Lacey vampire chick-lit series. Visit site.
Simon Haynes
Simon is the author of the Hal Spacejock series, featuring intergalactic loser Hal and his junky sidekick, Clunk. His website contains a number of articles on writing and publishing, and he's also the programmer of several freeware apps including yBook, BookDB and yWriter. In his spare time(!) he helps to run Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. Visit site.
Diana Pharaoh Francis
Diana Pharaoh Francis has written the fantasy novel trilogy that includes Path of Fate, Path of Honor and Path of Blood. Path of Fate was nominated for the Mary Roberts Rinehart Award. Recently released was The Cipher, first of The Crosspointe Chronicles, which will be followed by The Black Ship in November 2008. Diana teaches in the English Department at the University of Montana Western, and is an avid lover of all things chocolate. Visit site.
Diana Pharaoh Francis
Diana Pharaoh Francis has written the fantasy novel trilogy that includes Path of Fate, Path of Honor and Path of Blood. Path of Fate was nominated for the Mary Roberts Rinehart Award. Recently released was The Cipher, first of The Crosspointe Chronicles, which will be followed by The Black Ship in November 2008. Diana teaches in the English Department at the University of Montana Western, and is an avid lover of all things chocolate. Visit site.
Diana Pharaoh Francis
Diana Pharaoh Francis has written the fantasy novel trilogy that includes Path of Fate, Path of Honor and Path of Blood. Path of Fate was nominated for the Mary Roberts Rinehart Award. Recently released was The Cipher, first of The Crosspointe Chronicles, which will be followed by The Black Ship in November 2008. Diana teaches in the English Department at the University of Montana Western, and is an avid lover of all things chocolate. Visit site.
Mike Brotherton
Professional astronomer, science fiction novelist (Star Dragon, Spider Star). Visit site.
Diana Pharaoh Francis
Diana Pharaoh Francis has written the fantasy novel trilogy that includes Path of Fate, Path of Honor and Path of Blood. Path of Fate was nominated for the Mary Roberts Rinehart Award. Recently released was The Cipher, first of The Crosspointe Chronicles, which will be followed by The Black Ship in November 2008. Diana teaches in the English Department at the University of Montana Western, and is an avid lover of all things chocolate. Visit site.
S.L. Farrell
S.L. Farrell is a Cincinnati author with 21 novels and several dozen short stories published. Booklist called his latest book "Good enough to cast in gold." He teaches creative writing at Northern Kentucky University, and is a frequent speaker to writers groups. Visit site.
Jim C. Hines
Jim C. Hines is the author of the goblin trilogy from DAW Books. The third book, GOBLIN WAR, came out in March, 2008. THE STEPSISTER SCHEME will begin a new series in January of 2009. He made his first professional fiction sale in 1998 with "Blade of the Bunny," an award-winning story that appeared in Writers of the Future XV. His short fiction has since appeared in over 30 magazines and anthologies, including Realms of Fantasy, Turn the Other Chick, and Sword & Sorceress XXI. Jim lives in Michigan with his wife and two children. He's currently hard at work on a sequel to THE STEPSISTER SCHEME. Visit site.
Diana Pharaoh Francis
Diana Pharaoh Francis has written the fantasy novel trilogy that includes Path of Fate, Path of Honor and Path of Blood. Path of Fate was nominated for the Mary Roberts Rinehart Award. Recently released was The Cipher, first of The Crosspointe Chronicles, which will be followed by The Black Ship in November 2008. Diana teaches in the English Department at the University of Montana Western, and is an avid lover of all things chocolate. Visit site.
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