Until recently, I lived in a one-hundred-and-five-year-old house my dad inherited from his father’s youngest sister. The house was built by my great-grandfather, on land near where the family had resided for several generations. Dad talked about selling it off and on the entire time I lived there, and I knew he would try to sell it when President Biden started pushing to raise capital gains taxes. Still, when Dad told me he’d signed a contract with a real estate…
I recently changed up my schedule so that I’d have more time to read. Because I figured y’all weren’t content with the four to eight books or so that I detail here each month. Ok, honestly, I just enjoy reading, though it is necessary to my job, i.e. being a writer. Reading fiction is a pleasurable activity, but it’s also market research in a lot of ways. Which is probably more than you wanted to know. Over the past few…
I released the first edition of my first novel, The Prophecy, a little more than three years ago today. Since then, I’ve worked hard to refine my writing process, increase my writing and story crafting skills, and fulfill my ultimate long-term goal as a writer: To earn a full-time living writing fiction. About a year and a half ago, a series of events interrupted what had previously been a well-oiled writing process. I’ve spoken about those before in other places,…
This past year has been an exciting one for me and my family in many ways. My son is officially an adult and also a licensed driver, which opens up many, many opportunities for both of us, not least of which is that on our random road trips, he can drive while I work. My sister won her 200th game as head coach, a huge milestone we all celebrated. And life is pretty good all the way around, in spite…
Note: This post was first published on my blog for authors. I just finished constructing a business plan for my writing. This month is the second anniversary of when I began writing the first draft of The Prophecy, my first novel, so the business plan was well overdue. Although I’d done quite a bit of research on publishing a novel before then, particularly self-publishing, it took a long time for me to understand all the various aspects of writing as…