Outdoing Yourself — Writing Is a Marathon, Not a Race

I did a thing back in May, where I decided to pull Jaeth’s Eye from World Tree Publishing and republish it myself in order to join Mark Lawrence’s SPFBO 3. The decision was made in hours, and it took me within the span of two days, working around the clock, to get the manuscript in better …

The Ikessar Falcon — The 2nd Draft

September is here, which means the start of our homeschooling year (my daughter is in 3rd grade! HOW IS SHE IN 3RD GRADE ALREADY?!). I’m also starting my second pass through The Ikessar Falcon in all 180,000 words of its glorious mess. I do my second drafts with an extremely critical eye–I normally do the developmental edits for a …

Ucluelet Trip, and Themes and Patterns in The Agartes Epilogues (Not Really Spoilers, Highly Recommended If You Want to Find Out What’s Happening Between Those Pages)

I hate full-on summer heat (there’s a reason I hid inside the house while growing up in a tropical country), so it was great that we received quite a bit of cloud mixed with the sun over the weekend. We had oysters, which were really fresh–so fresh you could taste the ocean in them. The last time …

The Importance of a Healthy State of Mind — On Writers and Envy, Part II

I talk a lot about the prevailing attitude of ego and self-esteem as I’ve observed in the past couple of decades of hanging out with other writers. Anger and envy run rampant, regardless of success levels. There’s always someone who’s doing better than you, always someone you want to be. Looking inside, as I’ve mentioned …

Trust Between the Writer and the Reader

One of the earliest lessons I’ve learned as a writer was to “trust the reader.” In the beginning, I didn’t know what this meant. How do you trust a reader? Isn’t the point of you writing is to guide your reader through an experience? Well, yes, the keyword here being guide. What I’ve learned this means …