99 cents today only (Kindle version)
Science fiction deal seekers, today is your day. My debut, four-star-reviewed novel The Sky Woman is available on amazon and elsewhere for 99 cents. Yep, less than a buck. Grab it here (Kindle version). For you whale readers, it’s Book 1 of the Reclaimed Earth series (Book 2 is out next month, and I’m outlining Book 3).
Spencer Ellsworth generously volunteered his time as my SFWA mentor and taught me a thing or two about the publishing business. Like me, he’s a fan of Octavia Butler. Unlike me, he’s writing from 4:45am to 6:45am, hours in which I prefer to be soundly asleep.
Word Craft is a deep dive into writers’ methods and practices. Please welcome Spencer Ellsworth, author of The Great Faerie Strike (just released on Aug. 5th) as well as The Starfire Trilogy.
-J.D.
Tell us a little about yourself and what inspired you to become a writer.
A little bit… Well, I sometimes dream of climbing on a war mammoth and forging a path northward, where the sky lights up from the battles of the gods. That good?
Seriously, I’m one of those who always wrote. I made picture books before I could string sentences together. I have a vague memory of working on an Ewok story at age 5, sitting in church with my family penning an epic sequel to that unappreciated cinematic gem The Battle For Endor.
For the past few months I’ve used Duotrope to track my fiction submissions to various markets. Previously I was using Google Sheets, with different sections of one large spreadsheet to track stories and submissions, markets, and responses. The sheet worked great for a long time, but once I had over twenty stories, hundreds of responses from publishers, and dozens of markets to track, the spreadsheet solution became unwieldy. I started to miss things, and in one cases submitted a story twice to the same publisher. I also started to submit fewer stories, simply because of the difficulty in using the spreadsheet. Time for a new solution!
A 1970’s artist depiction of a ringstation (from https://settlement.arc.nasa.gov/70sArt/art.html).
Becoming a published science fiction author was a jubilant moment for me, and I coasted on that high for a long time.
But of course everything that goes up must come down. I’ve found my mood and attitude regarding my nascent writing career to be significantly less jubilant now that I’ve struggled with the problem of how to sell more books.
I’m fascinated by how one aspect of an author’s writing process can influence others. Brian Pinkerton writes first drafts by hand, which is probably why he doesn’t do any revisions until his first draft is complete. He maps out his novels using note cards, which is something I’ve always wanted to do but I never seem to have enough table space.
Word Craft is a deep dive into writer’s methods and practices. Please welcome Brian Pinkerton, author of The Gemini Experiment!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR – BRIAN PINKERTON
Brian Pinkerton deep in plotting mode.
Tell us a little about yourself and what inspired you to become a writer.
I’ve always been fascinated by stories and storytelling. My earliest aspirations were to be a cartoonist and book writer. I wrote my first novel when I was very young. I enacted the entire plot with the Fisher Price Little People Village and then wrote it all down as quickly as I could remember it. I still have that manuscript somewhere. It was written on lined, three-hole-punch paper. The pages were tied together with string.
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