Writing

General posts about writing (sometimes my own, but not always)

Stuff Every Husband Should Know manuscript = complete

Stuff Every Husband Should Know

Headline says it all. The manuscript for my next book, a pocket book called Stuff Every Husband Should Know and scheduled for publication next spring by Quirk Books, has been finished and turned in to my awesome editor, Stephen Segal. This doesn’t mean my work is finished, of course. There will be more to do on the project. But the tough stuff is done. And that’s good. Now I set my sights on scripting my next comic anthology, which I have mentioned a few times before. Some great stuff is coming in from the artists involved, really exciting images that are bringing these stories to life in ways I hadn’t imagined. Can’t wait for people to see more. Further preview pages will be coming soon….
Read more

On Writing: Good Days, Bad Days

Sometimes writing sucks. On some days every stroke of your pen or clack of your keyboard results in what can only charitably be described as crap. Crap. It happens. And on other days magic spills out of your keyboard, and even the roughest of rough drafts are close to final. Again, it happens. After a week or more of the former, today I am enjoying the latter. That’s not to say that every word I’m spinning is gold — it’s up to my editor on my current project to make that call — it’s to say that decent words are coming easily and without struggle. The process has been painless. The last week, though? Horrid. I had to drag every last phrase out of me,…
Read more

Sound advice for aspiring writers

A fellow Eric brought these links to my attention and I thought they were well worth sharing. There is a wealth of advice here, and while not all of it will be applicable to you, if your aim is to write you’ll want to read these and take 90 percent of ’em to heart. The Guardian first gives us Ten Rules For Writing Fiction, as offered by noteworthies like Neil Gaiman and Elmore Leonard. They followed it up with Ten More Rules, bringing folks like Michael Moorcock and ian Rankin into the fray. The vast majority of this advice is good, sound, reasonable, and damned difficult to learn. Take this stuff to heart NOW rather than learn it after years and years of slogging through…
Read more

Whoooaaa, we’re halfway there

Stuff Every Husband Should Know

A little more than halfway, actually. Stuff Every Husband Should Know is chugging along nicely. We are past the halfway mark. The last few evenings have seen chapters such as How to Grocery Shop in Less Than 30 Minutes and How to Make Family Time (Even If You Work A Lot) submitted to my editor. He has yet to curse my name and call me a fool, so I guess it’s going okay. To give you a sense of what this book will be like, check out Stuff Every Man Should Know, also by Quirk Books. Husband will be part of the same pocket books series, in roughly the same format. As you can see, it’s fun and awesome — two things I hope to…
Read more

One-third down on “Stuff Every Husband…”

So, Stuff Every Husband Should Know. As I write this, I have dropped 25 chapters/sections/entries/whatever into my editor’s inbox. Our target is roughly 75, which puts us about 1/3 of the way to the finish line. So that’s good. Of course, we’re still developing ideas and topics, so a big challenge remains before us. Maybe I’ll put out the call for suggestions tomorrow.