— For those patiently awaiting Starborn, book 6 of Stealing the Sun, I’m relieved to say the wait is nearly over. I’ve gotten feedback from my beta readers (very positive, yay!), and am in the last stages of getting the manuscript ready for copy editing. I’ll wait a bit before giving a solid publication date, […]
Read More ...Category Archives: Daily Writing
Stupid Question #37
Recently another writer asked me (via email) how do I know my stuff is good enough for anyone to publish? She labeled the email “Stupid Question #37.” Rather than being a stupid question, it’s one that cuts to the heart of what it means to write. No one wants to pour your heart onto the […]
Read More ...Writing vs. Typing, Hallelujah!
It’s the season for conflict. No, not Trump vs. Clinton. I’m talking Nanowrimo fans and their opposition, a group that for the lack of a better term I’ll call the, anti-rimos. On one hand, you’ve got something like 29.394 billion writers of various skill levels pounding out words at a 50,000 word pace for the […]
Read More ...Wherein Space Opera science catches up to me …
I’m clearly going to have to write faster. I mean … seriously. It seems that science might be catching up to my fiction. Why do I say that, you ask? Well, I’m doing this science fiction series that’s an intergalactic thing based on three short stories I wrote for Analog some time back. Given that […]
Read More ...On closed loop systems in which the outputs become the inputs
I have been working on Starfall, which is book three of the Stealing the Sun series. The story is set on a distant planet and told through the eyes of aliens–which makes this a particularly fun book to write, though a bit more difficult than most. I’m finding the process interesting for several reasons, among […]
Read More ...Rules #3 and #5
Today I got to partake in Heinlein’s Rules #3 and #5. For those of you who read my little bloggy thing and are unfamiliar with Heinlein’s Rules, these are five simple but difficult pieces of advice given by (naturally) Robert A. Heinlein. They consist of: – – – – – – – 1.) You must […]
Read More ...Dare to Be Good
In the middle of everything else going on, Lisa Silverthorne and I have embarked on a short story dare. For the past six weeks, each Monday we’ve alternated giving ourselves a prompt, and written stories (due midnight Sunday). This process is modeled after Heinlein’s Rules, and was advocated by Dean Wesley Smith back in the […]
Read More ...“Really” “felt” the “was”
Wherein Ron shows you some of his not so tricky tricks on how he makes his prose “better” and proves it with (of course) data … ’cause, I’m a numbers nerd at heart, you know? — Today I’m going to use the 27K novella (*) I’ve recently finished to discuss a few “simple” things one […]
Read More ...Workload and the Writer
So, yeah … remember that thing about how quitting the day job to write full time will help with the work load? Not happening. This writing gig, it turns out, is just about the same as any project-oriented corporate job I’ve ever had—the multitude of projects overlap forever, and the base skillset for “surviving” is […]
Read More ...Sometimes you just never know
I sat down a couple weeks ago to write a story for the Uncollected Anthology project—which is a really cool publication process run by a collection (an “uncollection?”) of really great writers. When I sat down to write this story, I figured it was a 4,000 word short story. Then I did some research and […]
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