For those who don’t know, this is National Novel Writing Month. Known affectionately to the initiated as NaNoWriMo. The goal of this venture is the writing of 50,000 words in one month, specifically, the month of November. As I furiously pound out words for the fifth Firmament book, I can’t help thinking back to my previous involvement (or lack thereof)…
It was during the research for Firmament: Machiavellian that I first realized that there was a difference between a godly character and a biblical character. The research in question was reading The Prince by Machiavelli himself. While reading, I had the epiphany that the reason Machiavelli’s ideas were so powerful was his extraordinarily accurate understanding of human nature. Yes, the…
A couple years ago, I started a project called October for National Novel Writing Month. It was a novel, and a very personal one. Really more of a personal exploration than a story to actually publish. I still don’t know whether I’ll ever finish it or do anything with it, but I decided to share a snippet in honor of…
(And yes, I had to Google the proper way to address an ambassador. I’m not as cultured as I like to think.) We are all ambassadors. Every single one of us. At the most basic level, we represent ourselves. How we dress, act, speak, and carry ourselves tells other people what to think of us. Right now, somebody reading this…
The following is a guest thought by Jason McIntire, who wanted to make a quick stop here as he promotes his new novel, Flight School. He believes in trying to say a lot in a short space – which is probably one reason it took him a year and six months, working more or less consistently, to write a novel…
Last weekend, I went out to dinner with some friends after an hour of kayaking. It just so happened that all the other girls had decided to head home, so dinner turned out to be me and five young single guys from my church. The most fun part of this was sitting in on “guy talk,” during which I might…
With my first three books, I felt a bit sad at the thought that my special thanks section might not come to the attention of some of the people mentioned in it. So with Firmament: Machiavellian I had the brilliant (If I do say so myself) idea to post the special thanks on my blog, so that even those who…
As I wrap up the publication of Implant, I am finding that this whole process never gets easier. This is my fourth time around, and people still miss deadlines, and there are still technical difficulties all the way along the line, and I still miss hundreds of typos on my first few editing passes. The problem is, no two times…
…I don’t even know what I’ll do. Go crazy. Delete the entire thing. Maybe even swear off writing for ever. As I rush through the very final stages of editing Implant I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve gone over this book. I enjoy a good re-read as much as the next bibliophile, but the same work five…
I’m not doing a very good job of blogging, am I? I could offer several excuses, but I won’t–I’ll just say I have every intention improving. In the meantime, I have something very exciting to share with you–the Implant cover! My sister from over at The Brightness Project came to me once I started talking about publishing and begged me…