Authors Electric

  I'd have had a different headline--one loved by my friend Stupid--if I'd placed a comma after the word 'friend'. But Savvy, my other friend, came to the rescue. The two are seldom far apart. Savvy has his moments and has served me well through the years.  A few of Savvy's strengths and achievements: --A small rainbow of belts in martial arts, Hapkido and Aikido, before my back retired me, gave me physical confidence and serve as a motherlode for fight scenes in my books. --Street smarts acquired through life in a half-dozen big cities and retail acquaintance with scoundrels and thieves of all sorts. --Copywriting and journalistic experience --Stoker Award for best first novel. --Moving experience gained from a half-dozen cross-country moves. --Writing, proofreading, and editing experience gained from a dozen published novels and an advertising background --From my classical studies, a passion for complex structure, brevity, and word play. --From my close study of ...

Hello! I’m drafting this on November 1st and am currently up to my eyes in what can optimistically be described as ‘preparing for publication’. If you saw my office, you’d be more likely to think of the aftermath of a violent storm. Almost every writing manual and self-help book I own (and that’s a lot) lies open on my desk, or on the blanket chest next to my desk, or on the bunk beds behind it. In pride of place, I have to say, is Chris Longmuir’s Nuts & Bolts of Self-Publishing , which has so far proved invaluable in negotiating Microsoft Word-whatever-version-I-now-have – the one with the ribbon, anyway. Thank you enormously, Chris, for writing this and for going into so much helpful detail – enough, it seems, even for me. My computer desktop is cluttered too, with so many files open that I’ve lost count. Got into a panic yesterday when I discovered I had the same file open twice – which one contained my painstakingly added latest revisions and which didn’t? Major pani...

Sorry, but I’m going to have a little boast here. I just wrote a book in a week.   (You’ll see the relevance of the delightful piglet if you read the book I talk about below. Pictures of pigs are much better than pictures of copy editors – I hope you agree.) I don’t know about you but I’ve never read one of those books that tell you how to write a book in a week, or in a day, or in five minutes or whatever ridiculously tiny amount of time the authors claim it can be done. Since I haven’t actually read one of these books, let’s just say that I remain to be convinced. My last few attempts at novels remain unfinished, despite my having put hundreds and probably thousands of hours already into both, with drafts and redrafts by the dozen, or so it feels. Both are still ‘alive’, I’m glad to say, and I return to them from time to time, but it does seem a long while since I had the pleasure of writing The End under a final draft. Except that I’ve now done ...