Newsy Bits

I've just started pulling together the short stories I've written that I don't look back on with scorn. I'm planning to publish them as a Smashwords book and link it from the main page of this blog.

Smashwords is a free platform for publishing e-books to multiple platforms (including Kindle and Barnes and Noble's Nook).

It should be a fun exercise, and it will give any readers of this blog a chance to figure out if they'd be smart to ignore every piece of advice I have about writing. I'm planning to have this book together in the next few weeks. It will be woefully short, but, on the bright side, free.

I've also started working on a series that I wish I'd had when I was a true neophyte writer. It's a bunch of short posts about the mechanics of writing and possible solutions to story-telling problems. I'll cover things like, How do I decide how much physical description to give in a scene?, How do I deal with the attribution of dialog to characters?, and How do I figure out where to begin and end a scene?

I don't pretend to have the 'right' answer to any of these questions. But I do have an answer. And when you're new to story-telling--and you're struggling--any help seems . . . well . . . helpful.

These articles will start trickling in by the end of the week.