Go Read Something Scary!

 

Short Film Friday: Dedalo

Images that Inspire

 

Quotes of the Week

Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.

—Louis L'Amour

It takes courage to make a fool of yourself. 

—Charlie Chaplin

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

—Maya Angelou

A wounded deer leaps the highest.

—Emily Dickinson

Any form of human creativity is a process of doing it and getting better at it. You become a writer by writing. There is no other way. 

—Margaret Atwood

Never use three words when one will do. Be concise. Don’t fall in love with the gentle trilling of your mellifluous sentences. Learn how to “kill your darlings,” as they say.

—Colson Whitehead

A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit.

—Richard Bach

The purpose of writing is to make your mother and father drop dead with shame.

—J. P. Donleavy

Tuesday Tips: From Zadie Smith

Every author has a set of rules. Some don't even know it yet. 

My Rule #1: Don't Panic

--I like her Rule #5 the best.

Freebies and more!

 Lots of good stuff happening this week:

• Shadows of the Sentinel is now on sale! (Audio edition is half price!)
• Still Falling is on super-sale for $0.99
• Virtues of the Vicious is on super-sale for $0.99
• The Solstice 31 Saga, 36-hour Audio edition is available for one Audible Credit!

Twelve FREE Audio Short Stories!

Writing Antagonists...

 

Short Film Friday: Beyond Us

Sountrack: Welcome to the Machine by Pink Floyd 

Images that Inspire

 

Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.

—Stephen King

Read, read, read. Read everything - trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. 

—William Faulkner

The highest duty of the writer, the composer, the artist, is to remain true to himself and let the chips fall where they may.

—John F. Kennedy

You can’t just write and write and put things in a drawer. They wither without the warm sun of someone else’s appreciation.

—Anne Morrow Lindbergh

The terrible thing about being a writer is that you don’t decide to become one, you discover that you are one.

—James Baldwin

I can shake off everything if I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn. 

—Anne Frank

You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

—Eleanor Roosevelt

Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer.

—Barbara Kingsolver 

Tuesday Tip: First Drafts

This is a lesson I have learned and was a real breakthrough for me.

Tip: Give yourself permission to write a crappy first draft.

For decades I was in a trap of my own making. I tried to make my first draft as perfect as possible as I wrote it. It was a productivity killer. It was a creativity killer. It was a focus killer.

Once I began to understand this lesson, I ran with it.

There are a lot of good sayings associated with this concept:

• The perfect is the enemy of the good.
• First, fill the sandbox, then build the castle.
• Don't be afraid to write crap because crap makes good fertilizer.
• Just shut up and write the fucking thing.

The better my outline, the better my crappy first draft, the easier editing will be, the better the final will be.

Giving myself permission to make mistakes was key. It freed my mind. The stories got better.

--Give yourself permission.

Get the new Audio Edition now for half price!

 

--The Audio Edition is amazing.

Time Machine?

 

Short Film Friday: Ling Cage

Images that Inspire

 

--Night Photography by Pierre Putman

Quotes of the Week

 

You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

—Eleanor Roosevelt

Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer.

—Barbara Kingsolver

It is the greatest shot of adrenaline to be doing what you have wanted to do so badly. You almost feel like you could fly without the plane.

—Charles Lindbergh

Remember, you’re as good as the best thing you’ve ever done.

—Billy Wilder

Be willing and unafraid to write badly, because often the bad stuff clears the way for good, or forms a base on which to build something better.

—Jennifer Egan

Writing a book is like having an empty pool in the yard and every day going out and throwing in a cup of water to fill it.

—Bethany Ball

aybe the hardest thing in writing is simply to tell the truth about things as we see them.

—John Steinbeck

Whenever you write, whatever you write, never make the mistake of assuming the audience is any less intelligent than you are.

—Rod Serling

Don't be seduced into thinking that that which does not make a profit is without value.

—Arthur Miller

If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.

—Katherine Hepburn

So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say.

—Virginia Woolf

Now on Audible!

 

Tuesday Tips: 10 Rules from Elmore Leonard

 

Cover by Rotwang Studio. Narrated by David McCord

 

Alexa, how do you spell...

 

Short Film Friday: Golden Shot

Images that Inspire

 

Quotes of the Week

If you want to be a rock star or just be famous, then run down the street naked, you'll make the news or something. But if you want music to be your livelihood, then play, play, play and play! And eventually you'll get to where you want to be.

—Eddie Van Halen

Repeat the mantra: Writing is when I make the words. Editing is when I make them not shitty.

—Chuck Wendig

Books are no more threatened by Kindle than stairs by elevators.

—Stephen Fry

Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should’ve behaved better.

—Anne Lamott

Life is short, Break the Rules.

Forgive quickly, Kiss SLOWLY.

Love truly. Laugh uncontrollably

And never regret ANYTHING that makes you smile.

—Mark Twain

It is a delicious thing to write, whether well or badly — to be no longer yourself but to move in an entire universe of your own creating.

—Gustave Flaubert

A book should serve as the ax for the frozen sea within us.

—Franz Kafka

I have found that a story leaves a deeper impression when it is impossible to tell which side the author is on.

—Leo Tolstoy

Quantity produces quality. If you only write a few things, you're doomed.

—Ray Bradbury

 

Audio Edition Coming on October 16th!

 -Kindle, Paperback, Hardcover, and Soon Audio Editions!!

It's Good to have Goals...

 

Space Ship Sizes

Images that Inspire

 Time is the Fire in which we burn...