The September Silence begins tomorrow. Each year, for all of September, I take a month-long social media break. I treat it like my writing new year -- despite the heat of Texas still making summer drag into late October or early November. When … [Continue reading]
I've been a fan of Lilah Sturges's writing since a friend (Mark Finn) joined a shared world fiction anthology called Clockwork Storybook in the late 90s. In a Twitter thread this morning, Lilah talked about a concept I hate: Wanting/Not Wanting … [Continue reading]
The last entry, here, was about the first week of the 2021 1000 Words of Summer writing challenge. (To be fair, for some reason, calling it a challenge always seems a bit...not right. It is a challenge -- you're shooting for a daily word count. But … [Continue reading]
I mentioned last week that I'm taking part in the 1000 Words of Summer writing challenge. So...how did the first week go? Week One I wrote 5,315 words in the first week. (Some years I blow past daily word counts, and other years I don't even … [Continue reading]
There's the backstory most of us are familiar with: characters or narrators calling back to a time prior to what's currently happening in a story. But there are often behind-the-scenes histories and other mechanics readers never see -- a different … [Continue reading]
I've never taken part in NaNoWriMo, and I don't see a day I ever do. It's not that I'm against it, but...it always seems I have other writing projects moving along when November rolls around. (I'm not willing to set those things aside to take on a … [Continue reading]
Three days ago, my wife and I visited my mom for a little birthday celebration in my honor (today is my actual birthday). We have all come to an agreement over the years that while we are all willing to put time into preparing meals and making the … [Continue reading]
For some time, people have asked me why I've not set up a Patreon account for Not About Lumberjacks. It's always been a simple answer: "I created Not About Lumberjacks, in part, as a place to share my short stories. I wanted agents and others to … [Continue reading]
I've thought quite a bit in recent weeks about the submission process with the latest novel. Without name dropping, some impressive agents requested partial and full copies of the manuscript. Even when they passed, they let me know they were … [Continue reading]
[The short version: I'm done submitting novels to agents and publishers. The current novel seems to have run its course. Because it's the first book of three and I want to finish the series, I will. (Many writers set a series aside at this point … [Continue reading]
In 2013, a friend and I decided to take a long weekend, get a cabin in East Texas, and focus on writing for a few days. It became an annual thing until last year, when -- like so many other events -- we canceled because of the COVID-19 … [Continue reading]
A month and a half ago, I wrote this entry, about how this time of the year usually means the annual writing retreat becomes quite a focus for me. At the time of that last entry, I wasn't sure if a retreat would happen this year. But...the friend … [Continue reading]
This time of year is usually when a friend and I plan our annual writing retreat. We didn't go anywhere last spring because...well...a worldwide pandemic kinda got in the way. And while my friend (who quit corporate life to become a nurse) is … [Continue reading]