Tag Archive: Writing

Pitched! Vol. 1 is now available via Lulu.com

If you were interested in that little comics anthology I wrote last year (with the help of a slew of talented artists) but still hadn’t gotten around to getting a copy, good news. It’s now available via lulu.com. I’ve gotten my copy and can vouch for its quality. Nice, glossy cover, strong binding, and decent paper quality. I’ll be up front: happy as I was with the quality of the work ComiXpress did (and I was), I got some complaints about slow order fulfillment. Excellent quality on the product, but it’s true. A few orders were slow to be fulfilled. The Lulu version takes a slight slight (slight!) hit on paper quality, but trades it for a glossy cover, printed spine, and very fast delivery….
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And the next plug-worthy project is…

… not something I can announce just yet, but I’ve been working hard on it for the last two weeks or so, it’s due in bookstores next August, I’m working with some extraordinary writers (I’m merely one small part of a team), including Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Award nominees, and it will be geeky as hell. The last part is the best part of all. So yeah, all you geeks out there? Watch out for a wickedly fun announcement

Want to be published? Learn to query

Every now and then someone mistakes me for a person with a clue and asks how to approach a publisher about a book. There are no grand secrets — by now everyone knows that — just some basics on how to get started. In a series of posts last year I outlined how my first book landed on shelves, but skip all that for now, because I want to get to probably the most important part of the process aside from the writing itself: Your query letter. A query letter is simple, in theory. It’s you saying to an agent or publisher, “Hey, want to see my book?” Not so simple in practice, though. I won’t get into the details because other people have done…
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50-word fiction: The Machines

My Jersey journalist-in-arms John Saccenti put together a little 50-word fiction contest on Facebook. Had a few moments to spare and thought, why not? So, at exactly 50 words, here is my entry: THE MACHINES We forgot to unplug them. And so the Machines fell upon us while we slept, a storm of metal and gears filling the sky like so much angry cloud. With scraping and thunder and screaming and wheels, wheels, wheels, the Machines tore into us, and all were turned to meat. Fin

Idea Overload

So here’s a problem I still haven’t learned to cope with: Idea overload. Whatever I happen to be working on at any given moment, well, I’d rather be working on the next thing instead. Sometimes even the thing after that thing. There are always too many projects that appeal to me; too many stories I want to write; too many things I want to try. At times it’s a little overwhelming. It’s overwhelming RIGHT NOW because there are a solid half-dozen big writing projects I’d like to be working on … but I don’t, because attempting that juggling act is a Bad Idea. I handle it by doing my best to stay focused on just one or two major projects at once. Otherwise, I’d be…
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