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Carpe Diem
What a difference two nights can make. Spending them in a hospital, after undergoing extremely minor and totally successful surgery, has a way of sharpening your mortality awareness. This in turn can lead to all kinds of unexpected non-medical side effects. Less than a month ago, the plan was to submit Think-o-mat to three agents.…
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Three submissions
Writing fiction is tremendous fun, but by the last chapters long format projects tend to turn into a bit of a tedium, as described and tentatively analysed in a previous post. No problem, though, won’t happen again for at least a year, now is hurrah time: Think-o-mat has been defined completed. And another dreaded task, writing…
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Last stretch urge
Spent months loving, nurturing, developing, refining and generally never getting enough of my cast. Reach chapter 9 out of 10 and wham, change of mindset. I just want to get it over with. AFAP. Judging by what happened with the Pluggers, the last stretch of Think-o-mat will again consist of a fortnight of tedium. Writing fast and…
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Alt Left SciFi pitch
Some amazing advice kindly provided by Ariel Ayangwo: Eight Ways to Spark More Social Shares on Your Content Fast It’s targeted at bloggers, but Ariel’s 4U-rule can easily be applied to fiction writing. The corresponding Alt Left SciFi pitch reads: Useful: Feeling challenged? Your life no paradise? Regardless of whether you love or hate the changes…
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We are not alone
Really love a post by Elisabeth Giovani on LinkedIn, about the scares and doubts about not writing in our mother languages. Feels good not to be alone, shared scares are lighter scares! Funny, though, how we automatically refer to native speakers as arbiters who might grant or refuse us permission to write in English. As…
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The 2k challenge
Fascinating, the number of formats out there. Longshot Island does me the favor to define precise criteria: Usually stories with more characters work better than stories with fewer characters. Check. Lots of spiky characters, that’s the easy bit. We prefer shorter stories, 500 words to 2,500 in length. Wordcount feels kind of low, even for shorts. The…
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Genre malaise
Time for my very first call for help to the LinkedIn community. The more diligently I read, the more confused I get. Very basic basics are under reconsideration. I’m still convinced what I write should be called Science Fiction. Little science and lots of fiction = Science Fiction. Used to feel like a no-brainer. Looking at…
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Narrative beats
Amazing, the amount of terminology one needs to master to discuss book quality issues. Newest addition, courtesy of Ally Machate, owner of The Writer’s Ally via LinkedIn: ‘Beat’, as in narrative beats. Repetitive beats as one major cause of boredom, makes loads of sense. Even novice me experiences occasional rewriting urges associated with a feeling of ‘We’ve been…
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Target audience?
One more LinkedIn learning, and I once again lost track of the advice, meaning I can’t thank the author personally. Bad Troim. Anyway, I do recall the advice: “Know your target audience. ” Well, this is either very easy or borderline impossible. At first glance it’s a no-brainer: I’m the target audience. I’m first and foremost…
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Obsessed with visuals
In principle, Think-o-mat doesn’t progress too badly, on the plot and character side of issues. Chapter 6 will be available by the end of the week. But style remains a huge concern… The third language issue is solved by having been declared a feature. Rewriting after a gap of at least one day is both…