Nothing like getting your eyeballs poked and puffed while having each iris large enough to drop a nickel through. Ah, the wonders of type-2 diabetes. Keep on top of your health, folks. Ended up getting two stories written and submitted. First short went to Shock Totem magazine. It’s a tough market to crack, hopefully they’ll […] 
1. I’m selling X books This is probably the biggest lie that self-published authors tell. Everyone wants to be successful, and the more successful an author is, the more they sell. It’s almost a self-fulfilling prophesy. Average readers want to read something that everyone else likes — think Harry Potter or Twilight. I’ve seen […] If you’re actively writing, someone is going to need to see your pretty mug. It may be for a book jacket (congrats!), or perhaps for a convention website (congrats again!) That picture from 20 years ago, taken with a Kodak Disc camera (you’re old if you remember those) will not do. Even if it is […] While sitting on several panels at conventions, a common theme for new authors is they don’t know how to format a manuscript. To make things easy, here are a couple of blank pre-formatted manuscript templates for you to use. These are in Rich Text Format (.RTF), and can be imported into Word, Open Office, and […] I’ve seen this type of question pop up several times in the last few weeks: Is the vampire genre dead? Are zombie markets dying? Is the horror market in decline? The answer is actually simple: it doesn’t particularly matter in 2013. Yes, there are thousands of vampire/Twilight books available in the marketplace, particularly ebooks. With […] Welcome to the first entry in a new, ongoing series. I will be posting about authors I personally admire. Authors with wit, skill, a dazzling way with words, and who are just wonderful people in Real Life®. Some will be from the Golden Ages of Science Fiction, some will be from my formative years of […] One of the Facebook Groups I hang out on posts writing exercises. Sometimes they’re geared towards Bizarro, but most of the time they’re just fun practice to improve your craft. One was to generate a scene that had the characters conveying their thoughts and emotions without any dialogue. In ten minutes, I popped something out […] 