What a month of content looks like

by benmweilertNo Comments
Back in June, I wrote a post about what it takes to “do it all” as an independent author. While one of the many tasks of the independent author is marketing, nobody will buy your books if you’re always promoting them on social media. There needs to be a balance of promotion and what’s known as “web content.” Web content doesn’t need to be much, especially for social media, but the fact that you’re continually posting about something shows that you’re actively engaged with people who could potentially become your audience. There are plenty of debates about which social networks to post to, how often to post, and when to post during the day (or during the week), but this post won’t go into the details of that. I still haven’t figured out the “sweet spot” for social media, but I have accumulated a regular schedule of web content that helps me to be active on these platforms. When it comes...
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So you want to be a writer . . .

by benmweilertNo Comments
Congratulations! Admitting that you want to be a writer is the first step in achieving that goal. “But . . .” I hear you hesitate, “what does being a ‘writer’ even mean?” Plenty of people have their definitions for the term, but in its simplest form, being a writer means that you write. Simple, no? Some of the complexity of the term “writer” comes when people make the transition to “author,” since being an author usually means you’ve published something (be it self-published or traditionally published). I consider myself an author because I have written books and published them. Others might disagree, since the process of being traditionally published is a lot more involved (and complicated). Either way, we’re getting ahead of ourselves a bit. Let’s start on the ground floor: being a writer. Being a writer simply means that you write. If all it takes to be a writer is to write something, then you could be a writer just by writing...
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How Not Tetris explains my planning process

by benmweilertNo Comments
I’m a planner. Ever since I wrote my first novel in 2010, I’ve usually had many different story ideas tucked away in their own Word documents. Each time a new idea comes to me that would apply to one of these stories, I open up the document and jot it down so I won’t forget about it. Even though I plan my writing projects out years in advance, there are usually plenty of ideas I never use in the finished manuscript. Either the flow of the story prevents their use, or I find they aren’t as strong as I initially thought they were. While I’m not nearly as fastidious about collecting ideas together before starting a project as I used to be (First Name Basis had 35 pages of notes), I do continue to plan and research well ahead of when I finally sit down and write the first draft. There are plenty of ideas I never use. Recently, I’ve re-discovered a free...
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What it takes to do it all

by benmweilertNo Comments
There are days I see the benefits of going with the traditional publishing route. When you are signed on with a publisher, they provide some of the hard work it takes to make a manuscript into a polished and publishable product. From editors to formatters to cover artists to distribution, these publishers have the resources to help an author be successful. But what about the self-published author? One of the common misconceptions about being an author (especially a self-published one) is that we only have to write. In reality, a self-published author needs to perform the entirety of the publishing process by themselves. Now, you may be asking yourself, “OK, you have to do it all, but what does that even mean?” Let’s start at the beginning of the process, and I’ll walk you through it. If you want to self-publish, you have many jobs to do. Many of the most famous authors have a research department (or person). These are the people...
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How traveling improves your writing

by benmweilertNo Comments
With the invention of the internet and the ease of access to an endless supply of research materials, practically every aspect of the writing process can occur on a home computer. We all know the cliché of the writer who holes themselves up in their house and spends days upon days in a disheveled state writing their book. While I always encourage writers to get out of their house and write somewhere else once in a while (especially when they have writer’s block), many successful writers have found what works for them, and it often involves a routine centered on making themselves the most productive they can be. Depending on their home situation, they could very well spend most of their time writing from the comfort of their favorite desk or table. Unfortunately, a limitation of spending so much of the writing process indoors is that some of the best research needs to happen in the field. One of the best...
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Why exoplanets aren’t as reachable as you think

by benmweilertNo Comments
One of the tenets of science fiction is that of inter-planetary travel. The dream of boarding a spacecraft and launching out to the far reaches of the universe is an exciting idea, but the reality of this happening anytime soon is slim to none. Despite NASA’s Kepler mission identifying almost 3,000 exoplanets in its mere three years of research, there are limitations to reaching any of these newly-discovered planets. Through some research I’ve done for my science fiction novel, Buried Colony, four boundaries are keeping us from traveling to the thousands of planets in the known universe: Habitable Zone Distance Gravity Slings Escape Velocity The first problem with many of these planets is that they aren’t the right distance from their respective star for us. Too close and we’d burn up, too far and we’d freeze to death. The zone right in the middle is known as the “Goldilocks Zone” for being just right to sustain life. Fortunately, because the research...
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10 years of journaling (and what it has taught me)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Earlier this year, I started polishing up the first draft of Fourteener Father, which I wrote last November. Because the time span this memoir covers was so vast (20+ years), one of the details I needed to flesh out had escaped my memory. It did not, however, escape my journal. Knowing the date I climbed the mountain in question; I used my journal entries of the nearby dates to nail down the detail I had forgotten. However, I was surprised to learn an interesting fact when flipping through my old journals. I have been journaling for over ten years now. That's a decade of my life written down and kept for posterity. Now, there's been plenty of changes in my life since I began writing to myself on January 1, 2007. I've graduated college with a Bachelors and a Masters degree in Engineering, moved to Alabama, written numerous novels, moved back to Colorado, dated and eventually married my wife. These simple, daily...
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When a short story is no longer a short story

by benmweilertNo Comments
Over the years, I've usually planned out my writing pretty well. I always felt that each element of the plot had a purpose and a place that added to the cohesive whole of the story. Consequently, I've really struggled with the concept of "killing your darlings." For those of you who haven't heard about this writing tactic, it essentially boils down to being able to let go of certain aspects of your story, especially when they don't add anything to the plot. Part of the reason I've been unable to remove some of these sections from my writing is because I find they're usually quite intertwined with the rest of the story and to remove them would require massive restructuring of the whole plot. To kill your darlings, you must be able to recognize them for what they are. In writing my short story for the next Midnight Writers' Anthology, I suddenly found the story I wanted to tell was much longer...
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What you need to know about your fandom

by benmweilertNo Comments
I don’t have a fandom like J.K. Rowling or J.R.R. Tolkien (maybe I don’t have enough initials in my pen name). In fact, I don’t really have a fandom at all. However, I am certainly a fan of certain franchises. Sometimes I find myself cringing when these franchises are either rebooted or remade. Sure, there is always some hope that the new material can successfully capture the elements that made the original the hit that it was. However, this is rarely the case. Before we give our fans what they want, we need to understand what it is. For example’s sake, let’s look at two famous sci-fi franchises that have some very die-hard followers: Star Wars and Star Trek. Everyone agrees that these two franchises are similar in that they are both in the science fiction genre, but that’s essentially where the similarities end. In fact, these fandoms are almost so vehemently adamant on the superiority of their source material that you...
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3 Simple Tips when submitting to an Anthology

by benmweilertNo Comments
Despite the almost ubiquitous availability of affordable self-publishing these days, sometimes it can be difficult to make your mark as an author. In fact, I would almost argue that the proliferation of self-published works has made it much harder to reach an audience of readers, as they now have a multitude of options when it comes to reading material. With this challenge in mind, one of the ways you can boost your name recognition is through anthologies. While you won’t have as much control over your written work as you would if you self-published a series of your own short stories yourself, the benefit of an anthology is being included in a book with a number of other authors who have fanbases who might be similar to the people you are trying to reach. In fact, someone might buy an anthology because they know one of the authors, only to find that they really like your story as well, thus increasing...
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