This one is going to be real brief because I kind of forgot about it, and I leave for FenCon shortly.

Appearances

I will be signing books tomorrow night in Dallas

Then I will be the Guest of Honor at FenCon. There is a fan meet up. The whole WriterDojo crew will be there and we will plan on recording a few episodes with other guests. I’ll also be running another Gritty Cop Show game where they auction off seats for the con’s charity.

The next weekend I will be at Salt Lake City FanX and you can find me at the Bards Tower booth which will be selling my books.

Writing Stuff!

I am finishing up Tower of Silence, book 4 in the Saga of the Forgotten Warrior. It comes out in April. I’m behind on this one because I made a plotting mistake earlier on and had to go back and rearrange a bunch of stuff. Those are the breaks. Sometimes when you are writing a fantasy series, you just walk up the wrong hill and then once you realize it you can either walk back down and go the right way, or you can plow ahead stupidly and then get stuck in the mud and never finish the series… Not that I’m thinking of any particular fantasy authors as I say that.

Up next I’ll be working on Monster Hunter Memoirs: Fever, with Jason Cordova. I believe it is planned to come out toward the end of 2023.

There’s a bunch more stuff coming that I don’t have time to talk about right now, that I’ve mentioned before. Don’t worry. Still working on it!

There are also several short stories I owe people between now and the end of the year.

Release Dates

No Game For Knights came out earlier this month, and it rocks. Check it out. That’s an anthology of noir sci-fi and fantasy stories edited by me and Kacey Ezell. It’s filled with fantastic authors.

In Defense of the Second Amendment is out January.

Tower of Silence is out April. I’ll be doing a big preorder push like I did for the gun book when I get back from FenCon.

Lost Planet Homicide 2 for Audible is done, and I think it’ll be out in January, but I’m not sure on that.

Other Stuff!

The Kickstarter for the MHI Miniatures Game from Everything Epic is over, but you can still get in late on the Backerkit. It is moving along. They’ve been working on art and models and sending me updates. Once I’m done with these two cons I’ll get more of the artwork posted for you guys.

Grimnoir leather bound. After a couple years of nut kicks and people going out of business, Spellbound is up shortly at the new printers. I should hopefully have some really happy announcements on that within 6 weeks or so.

“Wanting to be a writer and not wanting to be rejected is like wanting to be a boxer and not wanting to get punched.” (-David Barr Kirtley) So how do you handle rejection? How do you handle criticism?  Hosts/Authors Steve Diamond and Larry Correia return once again to discuss the best methods for dealing with both.  

If you would like to join our supporters, you can support this podcast with a small monthly donation to help sustain future episodes at: https://anchor.fm/writerdojo

“Word Mercenaries” (the WriterDojo theme) is by Craig Nybo https://craignybo.com

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This week’s episode is sponsored by Stephanie Osborn’s Division One: the Bounty Game

In Agent Omega’s worldview, certain things simply were not possible.

And the claim of this tall, imposing alien woman calling herself Myclestra, that she came from another universe, was impossible. Worse yet, Myclestra claimed to be a bounty hunter tracking an evil shape-shifting perpetrator who wielded real, powerful, world-shattering…magic. Not simple cantrips, but wizardry that could destroy a world…or a galaxy.

But as terrible as her perp was, it was the gigantic sword slung over Myclestra’s back that was the true threat to everything Echo and Omega strove to protect. A five-foot-long blade, forged from the heart of a neutron star, crowned with a hilt of fabulous gems and precious metals. A sword literally haunted by a spirit that could be the end of Galactic civilization in the entire Milky Way…and more.

Available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3BAhNY1 (affiliate link)

Where do they get such wonderful questions?

From our lovely supporters, of course! This week, Hosts/Authors Steve Diamond and Larry Correia return to answer even more questions submitted by our beloved supporters.

If you would like to join our supporters, you can support this podcast with a small monthly donation to help sustain future episodes at: https://anchor.fm/writerdojo

“Word Mercenaries” (the WriterDojo theme) is by Craig Nybo https://craignybo.com/

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(Copied from the Book of Faces -Jack)

Some writerly advice about production goals.

In the Tower of Silence post somebody asked me what my record word count was for one day.
16,000.

However, that was brutal and I do not recommend it. That was to wrap of Son of the Black Sword, which I though I had more time to work on, but the deadline got moved up because we had a wonderful opportunity for it to be on the cover of a major wholesale catalog. Which was an opportunity we’d be dumb to pass up, but which meant we needed eARCs by a much earlier date. That ended up being like a 26 hour day.

If you work like that very often you will burn out and get stupid.
A normal week while writing a book my ideal goal is 10k.
Which means averaging 2k per week day, assuming I’m taking weekends off, which I usually do now.

It’s never actually 2k though, because editing is slower than writing. So it’s usually more like 3k, 1k, 4k , 2k, 0 because that’s just how life is sometimes, 2k, etc.

And don’t get worked up about it, because then you just get into your head and screw yourself up. If you didn’t produce yesterday like you wanted it does no good to fixate on that today. Just get back to work.

A fantastic day for me is when I get in the zone and write like 5k.
When you are in that zone, where the words are just flowing, just run with it as long as you can.

Don’t do that thing where you stay up doing the all nighter (unless you’ve got no choice!) and keep writing after your brain is toast, because usually what happens the next day when you are coherent is you end up throwing that away no matter what.
As a rule of thumb I almost never write after midnight or 1 AM, because at the time it’ll make sense and the next day it’s going to look like trash.

My record for a book is 1 month, but that was 60k for the non-fiction gun book, which is a topic I’ve been pondering on for three decades, and I also had a bunch of blog posts that got cannibalized to serve as starting points for different chapters.

Normally books take me between 3 and 6 months. Sometimes life kicks you in the balls and that turns to 9 months or a year. Whatever. Don’t cry about it in public, that just makes you look piteous and pity doesn’t sell books. Just get back to work.

I’m comfy at 2k a day, but I also have to edit far less than when I was inexperienced. Back then I’d write more in a day, but then spend twice as long editing. So find that comfy pace that maximizes your good productivity.

Day jobs suck. If you’ve still got one all the same principles apply, just adjust the times and word counts according to what you do have available. When I started writing I owned my own business and was working crazy stupid hours. Just take the time you do have and make the best of it and keep grinding until its done. Most of us don’t quit the day job until we’ve written a bunch of books and have a sufficiently selling backlist to pay the bills. That’s normal.

If you can only write one day a week, do that. Get the most out of it. If you write a mere 1000 words a week you can write a pretty big novel in 2 years. If you write shorter stuff like YA you can do a novel in a year at that, and 1k a week is nothing. You can hit that at lunch breaks.

Don’t get all worked up over stuff like NaNoWriMo. That’s great that it shows people what they can do, but don’t get upset if you can’t write 50k in a month. I do this full time, have 12 years experience, and I don’t usually hit that. It’s great if you do. But really, for working professionals every month is NaNo.

Production goals will vary depending on what market you write for. Indy guys who are doing the 6 short books a year thing are going to set different production goals than a trad guy like me who knows his release dates a year in advance.

Also don’t beat yourself up over perfection. You are writing the best thing that you can in the time allotted. Writers fall into that eternal turd polishing trap, and spend 8 years working on their first book, sell it, then panic and crash because the market/publisher wants the  second book tomorrow and they don’t know how to do that.

Recently we were having a discussion on the WriterDojo Facebook group and the question of these came up, so this week, Hosts/Authors Steve Diamond and Larry Correia discuss the pros & cons of writer groups; what to look for in a beta reader, and if a group is what you need.

If you would like to join our supporters, you can support this podcast with a small monthly donation to help sustain future episodes at: https://anchor.fm/writerdojo

“Word Mercenaries” (the WriterDojo theme) is by Craig Nybo https://craignybo.com/

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This week’s episode is sponsored by Joseph L. Kellogg’s Life Support: Secret Operations

Father Tanner treats the sick and injured on a dusty backwater planet. Desperate for supplies, he takes a job to treat a visiting alien official, teaming up with Damien Rogers, an out-of-work smuggler, to get him there. The problem? They’re on the wrong side of enemy lines in the middle of a cold war.

Forced to hide their identities, Father Tanner and his team are stumped by the bizarre patient, whose condition steadily worsens. To make matters worse, the alien crew catches onto the ruse, and the missionary is forced to turn to kidnapping. Can they find the diagnosis before their only bargaining chip dies on the operating table?

Life Support: Secret Operations is available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3pX7rdW (affiliate link)