As the saying goes, "hindsight is 20/20." This year has been a bit challenging and different from past years due to the pandemic. I didn't have nearly as many opportunities to go to conventions since they were all canceled or delayed to future years. While staying at home would have provided me with plenty of opportunities to write, I have also learned that having an infant daughter is a challenge that I had not accounted for in my plans. Regardless of these challenges, I managed to complete at least a few things in 2020, based on the goals I set forth at the beginning of the year. Let's see how I did in this year's...
2020 YEAR IN REVIEW
The Ascent of the Writer (Ironed Man / The Last Immortal)
In part due to the "hindsight" saying, I decided this year to go back and collect together all the little bits of writing I had written over the last 20 years. The result...
If 2020 has taught me anything, it's how to be flexible. It's quite difficult to predict what will happen in a year, let alone one with such a massive global event like COVID-19. Fortunately, writing is a solitary activity, so writing new stories isn't terribly difficult when I'm forced to stay home. Unfortunately, this pandemic has been such a historical moment that it's difficult to ignore it in anything written in the present day.
While I had plans to write a rather dramatic story set in the real world and in present times, I'm now considering moving it out a few years to gain some distance from COVID. Hopefully, this whole mess will be done by the time I start writing this book, and I'll have a bit of hindsight to help mold the characters and plot. So far, I've already gained a few key points that I want to integrate into the story that will certainly be familiar to anyone...
Writing is my hobby. I have a full-time job, so there is no need for me to make a living on my writing. Since I do it mostly for fun, I’m not too concerned about making money. Most importantly, for tax purposes, writing is my hobby. Sure, I try to run it like a business by keeping track of expenses and sales, but overall I’m not doing much more than breaking even. This is fine. After all, a hobby is usually considered a “money pit” where you don’t expect to get a return on investment other than the pure enjoyment it brings you (think about other hobbies like restoring cars, reading books, or gardening as examples).
A few years ago, I received a review request from someone who had written a book. They were self-publishing and admitted that they were currently homeless and that this book (that they had taken over a decade to write) was their only ticket out of...
Nobody is born proficient in anything. We all have to start somewhere when it comes to learning new skills. Sure, there might be a prodigy or two out there, but instances of individuals with extreme natural talent are rare. Writing is just like any other skill. Nobody starts out knowing everything about it or how to do it. Consequently, I’ve seen a lot of the same questions pop up in online forums from new writers who are just trying to get a handle on this skill. Some are trying to improve, but many don’t know what they don’t know and seem to ask some fairly basic questions. Since I’ve recently realized I’ve been a published writer for over a decade, I thought I could shed some light on some frequently asked questions (FAQs) that I’ve seen from numerous new writers.
Q: I want to write X. Should I write it?
The addendum to this question is usually, “It’s already been done before.”...
It’s always nice to see everything I accomplished, and December was a good time for that. However, with resolutions hot in my mind, here’s what I have planned for 2020. There are plenty of projects that I want to see coming to fruition, so this post is to help keep me accountable this year.
Buried Colony
Despite no agents having an interest in the hard science fiction manuscript I wrote for 2017’s NaNoWriMo, I still plan to self-publish this book in the coming months. As I see the advancements in technology happening right now, I know I need to get this book out as soon as possible. I need to show how viable it can be to get humans out of our solar system with current technology (and slightly refined advanced technology) in the next 15 years or so. Since there are some final edits that need to take place, I haven’t picked a release date quite yet. Just know that it...
At the beginning of 2019, I set forth all the goals I had for this year, so now it’s time to reflect and see if I did everything I wanted to. If you’re following any of the posts I’ve made over the year, this might look familiar. If you’ve missed some of these announcements, this post is a handy recap of the content I released in 2019. So, without further ado, here’s the . . .
2019 YEAR IN REVIEW
Cinema Connections
Having re-released my first trilogy in 2017 and my memoir in 2018, I kept the streak alive this year by publishing my fifth book, Cinema Connections: a never-ending “6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon” at the end of September. Here’s an unboxing video for the paperback and hardcover versions:
A passion project of mine that’s lasted almost seven whole years, Cinema Connections is the collection of the 400 posts I wrote for my blog of the same name that finished at the end...
About three years ago, I decided that I wanted to take my writing seriously. In 2016, I had a bit of a gap in my self-publishing schedule, having published the Fluxion Trilogy omnibus two years prior. I learned a lot in publishing my first three novels, so this was part of the reason I was taking some time to ensure the future products I published would be of the necessary quality. I was still writing drafts of the books I wanted to write; I just realized it would take longer to get them into polished shape for publication.
Since I still wanted to publish the stories I had backlogged, I needed to figure out a schedule where I would release one book a year for the foreseeable future—much like I had done with my first trilogy. This was my definition of taking my writing seriously. Expanding my bibliography of published works every year seemed like an achievable goal, so I started...
As a self-published author, one of the most frequent questions I get is, “Are your books on Amazon?” While some other questions like, “Is it an audiobook?” or, “Can I buy it at my local Barnes and Noble?” are increasing in frequency, the basic fact of the matter is that Amazon rules the online retail platform. Look, I get that people want to get free shipping on a copy of my book and I can’t offer that via any other sales avenue. I understand there’s an amount of trust that goes into buying books on Amazon. After all, that’s how they got their start: selling books.
Unfortunately, because Amazon is the ubiquitous place to buy practically everything, some people won’t bother to head to other retailers or online sites to buy a book by a self-published author. For those independent authors who only want to do print-on-demand (POD) paperbacks and/or Kindle eBooks, this is great! I’ll admit that I can purchase...
While December was a good time to look back on all that I accomplished in 2018, now that it's January, it's time to look forward to the future. I have a lot of plates spinning right now, and a lot of manuscripts still waiting for me to edit them. Fortunately, I have plenty of projects that are wrapping up in 2019.
Buried Colony
2017's NaNoWriMo novel, Buried Colony (originally titled as Frozen Planet) has gone through three editing passes in 2018 in preparations for one of the most terrifying things I have yet to do with my writing: submitting a manuscript to an agent. That's right! I'm going to spend 2019 pitching this hard sci-fi story to agents in the hope that I can have it be traditionally published in 2020. Since The Martian has helped make hard sci-fi a more viable genre in recent years, I hope that my exploration of how to potentially send humans outside the solar system is met with at...
It's incredible to think that 2018 is almost over. This year, completed quite a few projects and started many more. In case you've missed some of these announcements, this post is a handy recap of all the content that I released in 2018. So, without further ado, here's the . . .
2018 YEAR IN REVIEW
Fourteener Father
While 2017 saw the re-release of my first three books in the form of the 2nd Editions of The Fluxion Trilogy, this year I released my fourth book, Fourteener Father: a memoir of life above 14,000 ft. Here's an unboxing video for the paperback and hardcover versions:
This book was a labor of love and the first non-fiction book I've written. Over the last 20+ years, my father and I climbed all of Colorado's 14,000-foot mountains, and I wanted to share that experience and journey with everyone. I released this book on Father's Day of this year and have been getting pretty good reviews on it on Amazon. It's...
