Blog
This Writing Life 18 – Holi-Whats?
(Note: Wow, did I ever lie to myself about how long it would take to finish editing True Magics. But it's done! And now, a blog post!) It’s the time when income slows down to a trickle and expenses are blooming like dandelions in a Kentucky Bluegrass lawn in spring...
This Writing Life 17: When is a Project Dead?
Sometimes we have pieces that just don’t work. At all. I’ve got at least a half-dozen short stories and one novel that will never, ever see the light of day. Ever. But how do you know when you’ve gotten to that point? How do you know when your labour of love/hate...
Marketing True Magics 15: 10,000 Twitter Followers! Now What?
I now have 10,000 twitter followers! Joy! Excitement! Thrills! Sort of… Why 10,000? Because it’s big shiny number and it looks impressive! No, seriously. I wrote here why I used follow-backs to gain followers. In short, it allows me to find people with similar...
This Writer’s Life 16: There’s no such thing as writer’s block (and how I deal with it)
I was hoping to make a joke about how I was trying to write about writer’s block and got writer’s block from attempting to write, and be all meta or something. (Is that meta? What is meta anyway? Is it meta to reference meta, or is it only meta when I reference myself...
Marketing True Magics 14: What is a Marketing Plan?
(Also called "Building a Marketing Plan, part 1." I thought I should change the title to reflect what we’re talking about. I hear that helps people to know what they’re reading and, you know, find stuff on the internet.) Meanwhile: It’s Planning Time! This is the fun...
This Writing Life 15: Getting Through The Bad Days
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER This article does not deal with mental health issues. Mental health issues are a whole other kettle of fish. If you think you suffer from a mental health issue, the Health Information Page on the CAMH website has good information. Read it and...
Marketing True Magics 13: How’s that Marketing Plan Going?
Uhhh… good. Really good. Yeah. Things are going great right now. I have 8,972 Twitter followers. No problem. Excellent. Amazing in fact… Did I mention the 8,972 Twitter followers? All right, I’m not where I want to be, which brings us to the real point of this post:...
This Writing Life 14: Why I Hate Writing Groups (and why you might want to join one)
Many writers like writing groups. They find them helpful, useful, and companionable. They find people with common goals, common interests and a common desire to help each other succeed. I don’t. My Writing Group Experiences The first writing group I joined was led by...
Marketing True Magics 12: Why Facebook Rocks (no, really)
Some posts are harder to write than others and this was one of them. I said last week, Facebook sucks for marketing, but that it was still worth it. And then I spent a week struggling to figure out why. Because, I was thinking about it wrong. It’s like this:...
This Writing Life 13: Finding Supportive People (because we need them)
(Lucky 13th post of This Writing Life! Yay!) So, substitute job for “baby” and this pretty much sums up some days: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4euyTDhFnk So how do you find supportive people when you’re a work at home type? Networking You are not the only...