Archive for the 'learning to write' Category

Carving Out Time to Write

In a recent post, I talked about writing every day. Thanks to everyone who responded. But one person followed up with this question:
You know, I would love to write every day, I really would. But real life just keeps getting in the way!
Help. What can I do?
I thought that was a question worth pursuing […]

is it morning already?

So, here I am. I’ve missed my last two posting dates, one because I was at a con and the second because life was in the process of going pear-shaped, a situation that continued for most of July.
But things have settled down, and I hope ohdoIhope they stay settled. I’ll be heading out to Denver […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Author Information

Diana Pharaoh Francis
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.

Kristine Smith
Kristine Smith

I'm a scientist by day, spec fic writer by nights and weekends. Author of the Jani Kilian SF series. Owned by two overgrown puppies. Visit site.

Tate Hallaway
Tate Hallaway

Tate Hallaway is the best-selling paranormal romance alter-ego for an award-winning science fiction author. Her most recent novel is DEAD IF I DO is forthcoming from Berkley Trade in May of 2009. Visit site.

Simon Haynes
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

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

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

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
Mike Brotherton

Professional astronomer, science fiction novelist (Star Dragon, Spider Star). Visit site.

Diana Pharaoh Francis
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

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.

Topics

Archives

Browse our archives:

Member's Writings

You can browse our authors' books out this month, or check out free samples of their work:

...check out more books by us