August 27th, 2007 — writing
Last week, I discovered to my dismay that I can no longer attend the American Christian Fiction Writer’s conference in Dallas. It’s my own fault, but I’m not real happy about it.
At any rate, for that reason and several others, I’m taking the week off on Good Word Editing. I need to get recentered and refocused. Love you guys. See you in September.
[Marcus unplugs.]
August 22nd, 2007 — CSFF, blogging, editing, fantasy
Here it is Wednesday, and I’m just now getting to the Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy blog tour! My apologies to everyone for the weak showing this round. All that to say George Bryan Polivka’s The Legend of the Firefish looks awesome. He’s got a new blog, too.
I thought it would be fun to play acquisitions editor based on the first page. What if I got this first page as an unsolicited manuscript? What works? What questions does it raise?
August 20th, 2007 — interviews, thehighcalling.org
On Friday, I spent an hour on the phone with one of my personal heroes, Parker Palmer. I was interviewing him for TheHighCalling.org.
To be honest, the experience left me feeling a little shaken. Much of Palmer’s writing has been very influential to me, but none more so than The Courage to Teach. In the mid point of my ten years of teaching, this book helped me find hope again.
August 17th, 2007 — grammar, sentence tips
Style problems getting the way of your prose? Pick up the pace! Break through bad style and you’ll find yourself zipping along the autobahn feeling spunky and free.
A billion years ago, I started this series and forgot to post the rest of it! Bad blogger, bad! You may have forgotten, the first trick:
1) Avoid unnecessary adjective clauses.
Trick two has the same catchy grammatical joy:
August 15th, 2007 — print on demand, publishing, writing
Michael Hyatt posted some interesting ideas about print on demand. It could be arriving at a book store near you, though I’m not sure what that will mean for readers, consumers, writers, publishers, agents.
I can tell you who won’t be effected by such machines: editors.
August 13th, 2007 — fantasy, meme, reading
Spaghettipie tagged me for this meme. It’s a little bit like an interview with myself. I have some questions for all of you readers at the end, so skip down if you don’t care about my answers.
1. What’s the one book or writing project you haven’t yet written but still hope to?
August 10th, 2007 — writing
My brother-in-law picked up Spin at the grocery store in paperback. He thought it would be healthier than a King Sized Snickers, I guess.
Or maybe he just liked the premise. One night the stars disappear.
Robert Charles Wilson’s book won a Hugo for best novel in 2006, and it deserved the honor. As most Hugo winners do. If you’ve read it, you know what I mean.
Haven’t read it? You should. Primarily because it is a well-written book, and (as L. L. knows well) I happen to agree with Keats:
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases, it will never
Pass into nothingness.
You can read the rest of this essay at Speculative Faith.
August 9th, 2007 — blogtour, writing
A few weeks ago, I joined Mary DeMuth’s Authentic Parenting blog tour. I’ve posted about the book’s powerful stories and its practical tips. I even posted a quick “hard sell” post just to see what would happen. (You can read more about Mary’s book on her site RelevantBlog.)
Today I want to think about what the book does theologically. Continue reading →
August 6th, 2007 — networking, publishing
This weekend while I was mowing my jungle lawn between the final performances of Midsummer Night’s Dream, I listened to a MarketingExperiements podcast called “Harnessing Social Media - Web 2.0 Grows Up - Free Internet Traffic.”
Yes, I am a supergeek. And I thought I should share some things I learned.
August 2nd, 2007 — faith and work
I’m regretting what I posted this morning. Too whiny. This is not the person I want to be, you know?
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