Friday Morning FYI – 12/11/2015

Welcome to your Friday Morning FYI – my chance to share observations/wisdom/rants in short, easily consumed form.

This week’s (long’ish-and-hastily-written-before-a-five-hour-drive) FYI is about daring:

Last week I wrote about a friend launching a book. I provided a few hints about the novel’s contents, and recommended you check it out. What I didn’t note was the book is self-published. I’m bringing that up because it’s important to understand how daring a thing that is – or more accurately, how daring my friend is for doing it the way she did. She hired a team, invested her time and money, and has done (and is doing) everything right to position herself for success. It’s not what I would have done, but while attending her launch event last night, I saw it was the right choice for her at this point in her evolution as a professional writer.

Where am I going with this? Just to note that in a world (profession, industry, sport, etc.) where everyone wants to tell you how things are done, you have to decide for yourself the best way to go. If you forget that, look to the people around you for a reminder.

 

Thanks for reading,

{RDj}

Friday Morning FYI – 12/4/2015

Welcome to your Friday Morning FYI – my chance to share observations/wisdom/rants in short, easily consumed form.

This week’s FYI is neither observation nor rant nor wisdom, but instead a celebration:

A friend has launched a book! It’s all space-opera-y and genocide-y and romance-y and pew!-pew!-y. You should check it out 🙂

CLICK ME!!!

 

Thanks for reading,

{RDj}

Beta Reader Archetypes

I love my beta readers. All of them. If I could, I’d buy them Lexuses, just like artificial rich people do in those obnoxious say-I-love-you-at-Christmas-by-giving-them-a-car-with-a-bigass-bow-on-it commercials. Yes, that much.

If you’re not familiar, a beta reader is someone to whom you show your polished novel (not an early draft–that would be an alpha reader), and ask for feedback. In working with many of the same beta readers for my second novel I used for my first, I noticed things I hadn’t anticipated or previously spotted.

And when I notice stuff I think might be helpful, I stick in on here. You’re welcome, interwebz.

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#NaNoWriMo sucks, and you should do it

If you’re not familiar, NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) takes place in November (because screw turkey and family arguments), and is an occasion for you to do your darn’dest to crank out a 50,000 word novel between Halloween and December 1. I completed my first attempt in 2014, motivated by insanity and a desire to have the stupid badge on my blog. Thinking back on it, I get the shakes. It was awful. Torturous. Physical and mental anguish.

And you should do it.

Continue reading “#NaNoWriMo sucks, and you should do it”