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How to Decide What to Read

Even though I read way too many books, I can’t read them all. So every new book I take on involves a selection process. For me, that selection process is pretty straightforward; at least for novels. At the beginning, there is discovery: I have to know about a book in order to consider reading it. Recommendations are usually my prime discovery tool. I get few recommendations from friends and family because our tastes are too different. So it’s usually through blogs I follow, through random folks on Twitter, or through Amazon’s algorithm that I discover new (to me) books. I Read More …

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Of Special Snowflakes

Whenever I talk to other writers, my first impulse is to be extremely impressed. They lay out their ideas, they talk about the stories they’re outlining, and my immediate assumption is that they’ve got a winner, that they’ll be published long before I ever will, and that they’re amazing. Sure, they probably are amazing. But in many cases they haven’t even written word one of that novel. All they’ve done is to set down a bunch of ideas on (real or virtual) paper, and to wax eloquent about it. And I automatically assume that they’re about to pen the next Read More …

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The Query Trenches

So I’m back in the query trenches. Isn’t it funny how querying a book somehow seems to make everything more real? Your book, your ambition, and your self-perception as a writer/author. I can see how people dread the query process and the disappointments it almost invariably brings, but it’s not something that personally fazes me. Actually I welcome querying because it means that my manuscript is done and as polished as my current skills allow. I’m neither afraid nor resentful of rejection. Sure, there’s a brief flash of disappointment, but my self-worth isn’t tied to other people’s approval. My own Read More …

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Whose Character Development Is It Anyway?

Reading fiction is about a lot more than just entertainment. And writing fiction is about a lot more than just story. It’s about putting imaginary people in imaginary situations and letting them figure out how to deal. Which really means that it’s you figuring it out while inhabiting the character. It’s not an easy thing to do, and more often than not you’ll default to your own gut reaction, and then you catch yourself. Wait a minute – this character would never do that. So you start over and come up with a different solution. Sometimes it takes many iterations Read More …

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The Ghost of Opportunities Lost

This past week was another powerful reminder of the transience of opportunity, and the dangers of procrastination. Several years ago I heard about a course that David Wolverton, a.k.a. David Farland, was teaching at BYU. Basically a full semester of instruction on how to write marketable books and make a career out of writing fiction, taught by a master of the Science Fiction and Fantasy genre. It sounded interesting, and I told myself that some day I might want to take that course. Then I forgot about it. When it came to my attention again in 2021, I had missed Read More …