….YOU CANNOT ACHIEVE SUCCESS. This is the lesson that Steve McCraw, head of the Texas Department of Public Safety, needs to learn. He made the statement that although the DPS “made some mistakes” the agency as a whole “did not fail” the parents of children killed at Robb Elementary school in Uvalde. “Did not fail” Read More…
Month: October 2022
Agent Response
Great relief of writer to find that yes, the whole package is back…my agent called Friday and we had a good long talk. The book IS a book. It is a reasonably good book. It could use some work, but he enjoyed it, stayed up late to read it. Also, all the things he talked Read More…
Sometimes the Brain Surprises…
I wrote about this the other day (and then forgot to post it until the day after I wrote it, DUH) over on Paksworld, but it’s a general enough “How WriterBrains Work” story that some of you may be interested, too. As mentioned, I’ve started Book II of the Horngard group, and am presently just Read More…
And the Beat Goes On
The final buffing and polishing (final is an indefinite word since there’s always One More Tyop to find) is now done. So yesterday morning, bright and early, Book II poked its head up out of the debris left over from Book I and said “So let’s get started.” And I said “I need to clean Read More…
Of Purple Paint & Short Stories
Yesterday and today were spent, in part, with cans of Krylon ™ spray paint in the color designated by TX Parks & Wildlife as “NO HUNTING PURPLE”. The idea is that instead of posting “No Hunting” signs (where they inevitably get stolen, shot up, mysteriously blown away) , you simply paint the top of your Read More…
Done-de-done-done
NewBook is done. Three rounds of revision, wrestled to the mat on space, time, person, place, etc. issues. From here on out it’s nitpicking time because it’s DONE. 172,125 words, counting chapter titles, datelines (actually places, mostly), 31 chapters (may need some chapters numbered differently, that’s an editorial decision I’d take advice on.) It’s a Read More…
Stage Three Revision
Stage Three overlaps Stage Two, because–especially this time–there’s no reason to ignore 3rd level problems while reading aloud to someone from the computer screen (there is no print-out yet.) So if I find an entire paragraph that’s now redundant (a Stage Two problem) I just delete it, or a temporal-sequence problem, I mark that section Read More…