Writing a novel based, even in part, on true events or real people is a very tricky affair.  If a novel is based on facts, the facts are never good enough as they stand, simply because the motives behind the acts that made the facts rarely make sense, at least to rational people. And the [...]

Well, much as I don’t particularly care for the title “independent author,” I’m tired of playing blind man’s bluff with literary agents. A look at publishers accepting unagented manuscript submissions and queries shows that I would be spending about 2 years waiting around for an answer for them, too. After a couple of high end agents read the book and said, “clean, excellent plot, excellent characters, but I just don’t know how to market this,” I’m done. If it’s that good, and it’s a break-out book, what’s the problem? I’ll tell you the problem. It isn’t something that would appeal to Twilight-swooning teens.

So I’m done. I’ve quit the game. No more Blind Man’s Bluff with literary agents anymore. Now I’ll simply write and publish, write and publish.

I’m also pretty much done with magazine submissions of short stories, as well. The only reason I write a short story is when one “pops” into existence on its own, so to speak — the creative Muse dictates, in other words. Submitting them, though, is always a pain…because it requires I steal time away from other things…like novel writing.

I’m tired of all of it. I’m just not interested in literary blind man’s bluff with me the blinded and them twittering as they evade me finding “the right niche:, be that an agent or publishing venture. You want to read me, come and get it. My stories and novels will be availabe through The Deepening, from me here, or from various other websites around the Net.

If you want it from the library or a book store, ask at the desk. If you want it from Amazon.com, you’ll have to wait till the hard copy releases.

Someone proudly announced their short story publication along with the periodical and a link to read.  Dutifully, I clicked.  And began to read. And quickly became bored.  I shook off my boredom, chiding myself.  ”Give it a chance,” I muttered, and forced my eyes onward even as my brain tried balking.
I made it into Part [...]

At this rate, we’re not going to have a whole lot left in the way of substantial publishers and imprints.

Free of the onus of having to battle the conscious will of its host person and resident body’s demands, the novelist’s brain takes sleep’s opportunity to…WRITE, PLOT, PLAN, OUTLINE, LIVE, REINVENT, MANUFACTURE, and EXPLORE the stories it insists on spawning into tangible reality whenever it can coerce and induce the person it owns and the body which owns it to sit down and type.

What’s especially fun is to watch a complete sceptic turn white, eyes bulging, hair on the arms erect, lips quivering, when you take them to visit a friend’s house known to be “haunted.”

when I write, I write with an eye to being able to change the details while holding the story so that, when an editor asks for an update to “present day two years from now,” I can easily do it without having the story fall to pieces. What doesn’t change are the characters or the plot. Just the elements of the setting.

Humorous, sad, terrifying, or poignant, writing lies from truth becomes less that of invention and more of an exercise in skillfully adjusting truth so it’s palatable as fiction.

I take a lot of my story and novel ideas from real life. For example:

Suffering bad writing and patently predictable stories is something I don’t do well. Now, I admit, what is bad writing and “same ol’ story” to me might be something that others find laudable. I also admit that I don’t read everything that’s published, not by half (not even a quarter of it), so I can’t [...]