Pete and Dorothea talk about participating in the recent Facebook Event: March to a Bestseller 2, genres, validation and the coming release of the first novel, Kneel & Prey. Mobile Users: Click here to listen to the episode. Topics Covered: Facebook Event Defining a New Genre First Novel Kneel & Prey Beta Reader Feedback Marketing […]
I’m relieved. The first novel, Kneel & Prey, has been sent out to our first group of Beta Readers. These readers will read the book and let us know of any outstanding issues with the plot, character or grammar that we missed. Sending it off to Beta Readers is an important step. It means you’re […]
Readers love reading. That’s something I have to remind myself. I know what you’re saying. I’m an idiot for not knowing that already. I do know it. I promise. As I mentioned before, coming from a screenwriting background, I am an impatient writer (and reader). I want to get through the story and figure out […]
We talked about how best to introduce characters in your story. Now let’s talk about how stories should end. Some writers are called pantsers and some are plotters. Pantsers don’t know the end of the story before they begin. They discover the story as it goes along. Plotters plot out their story, knowing how it […]
As I mentioned in my last post, Kneel & Prey is the third time I’ve had to introduce the character of Gabby Wells in the series. The first attempt was in Water & Blood, the second was The Homecoming Incident and the third is Kneel & Prey. Each time I spent a lot of time […]
The first draft of Kneel & Prey has been completed. If you’ve been following along, this isn’t so much a first novel, as a reboot. 🙂 The first novel, Water & Blood, became the fifth novel. The second first novel, The Homecoming Incident, was scrapped and will be offered later as a bonus. So the […]
I hate political correctness for many, many reasons. One of them is that it’s social pressure limits creativity. Right now, the only person that can be the butt of jokes is an average white guy, usually a dad. Watch commercials on TV. How many of them show a white guy/dad being stupid? A lot. Too […]
This happens to me a lot. When I outline my book where the climax takes place at a certain place/time, I backtrack and plot when the things leading up to it should happen. Invariably, as I write the actual story, things that I sketched out would take three weeks in the novel occur in a […]
For a business owner, one of the hardest goals to achieve is to duplicate your income. For brick and mortar stores, like fast food restaurants or furniture stores, the only way to double your income is to duplicate your location somewhere else. Like franchising. The great thing about being a writer is every book you […]
Independent publishing is substantially cheaper than its ever been. With Amazon and other distributors offering to distribute your ebook for a small fee and print your print book on-demand with nearly zero up front costs, publishing your book on your own has never been easier. However, to be taken seriously in the market and compete […]
I finished the first draft of Lost & Found this week and the writing process for this novel allowed me to finally find the correct voice and tone for all of the Gabby Wells novels. It was weird to me that it took two novels (that have since been trashed) and three novellas to find […]
Whether you are independently published or traditionally published, the majority of the ownership for your success falls on your shoulders. It is up to the author to write good stuff, build a fan base, establish beta readers and street teams and marketing plans. It’s why real writers treat writing as a business. It’s where the […]
The completion of the Gabby Wells storyline will take me some time. A couple of years. Not including the time it took to convert screenplays into novels that have since been tossed, just getting the novellas written, edited and published will probably take a year in total. We’ll release the novellas, one at at time, […]
Been very efficient this past week, typing out over 12,000 words. I’m nearing the end of the first draft of Lost & Found and I must say I’ve really enjoyed putting Gabby through hell. Writers have an odd relationship with the characters they love. They create them, cherish them, give them hopes, dreams, goals, loves […]
Writing is a lot like golf. It only takes one good swing to keep you hacking away for another 18 holes. While working on the first draft of Lost & Found I inadvertently setup a really awesome situation. The options were limitless. With that came pressure not to screw it up. So, I tentatively started […]
Plotting out Lost & Found has really come in handy. In a week I’ve written nearly 8,000 words. The story is humming along. I’m about half-way through, so it should end up in the 30,000 – 40,000 range, like the rest. I have been amazed how changes in the market, or new information I have […]
I’ve been chugging along slowly, but surely. Mostly slowly. I was able to draft almost 7500 words on the Lost & Found novella before I slowed things down. I realized that I knew the end of the story, but some of the middle parts were fuzzy. And, since I was diving head first into writing […]
Something important occurred to me this weekend. Something that placed a crap ton of pressure on me. As I fleshed out the plot for the second novella, Lost & Found, I realized it is the single most important book in the entire series. Why? Because, we intend to give the first novella The Homecoming Incident […]
One of my continuing challenges I have is my impatience. I am impatient with my career. I am impatient when I read. And I am impatient when I write. One of the things I have tried to temper when I began writing novels were my expectations. Ignorance is a bad guide and I have learned […]
I hate wasting my time. It’s a pet peeve. Just ask my kids. The two main lines they knew not to cross were: don’t disrespect my wife (their mother) don’t waste my time. I’m not saying all of the time with my kids had to be focused and serious. Of course not. Spending an hour […]
