When I was a child, Christmas holidays were magic. It was New Year rather than Christmas in USSR, but everything about it was the same. Snow would start falling in the second half of December, and my Dad would bring home a Christmas tree, and I would be so excited. I was also born on
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Things!
We have fun news. If all goes well, we should have some free fiction available for you on the blog soon, hopefully before the month’s end. We’ve received edits for Ruby Fever. They are extensive, as we expected, so Ruby Fever will be ready for the beta read in late January/ early February. We also
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Earning Out and Other Questions
Mod R has sent over November blog prompts. We will be starting with some industry questions. Why do they pay celebrities these giant book advances? They can’t earn out. You don’t have to earn out to be profitable for the publisher. We’ve covered this before, but a quick refresher, so you don’t have to flip
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Writers After Finishing a Draft
This will only be funny if you a gamer. We are trying to get some leisure in after finishing Ruby Fever with mixed results. We are very fuzzy right now. That would be a neat trick Gordon is playing Might and Magic VI, an old remastered RPG. He is stuck in the Mire of the
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Talent
I promised Mod R this post. Talent, what is it, why is it, how much does it matter in writing? Short answer: I don’t know. Longer answer: I think talent exists. The exact definition of it is harder to nail down. When I wrote my first novel in Russian – I was 14 and I
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That Sonovabitch at Piggly Wiggly
We’ve received several questions regarding translations and whether or not we feel they accurately present our work. I don’t know. We’ve been translated to… 18? I think it’s more now – countries and obviously we do not speak the languages of all 18 countries. We are not the best judges of the quality of translation.
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Favorite Moments
If you happened to walk by our office last Thursday, you might have thought that we had gone insane. Here we are, sitting in front of the computer cackling, cursing, and then cackling some more. In this scene one of the most composed characters in Hidden Legacy loses it. The scene called for a torrent
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NFT Me, Baby
Have you thought of offering NFTs of your work? This question keeps coming up for some reason. To understand what NFT is, you have to first learn about etherium and blockchains. Etherium is a cryptocurrency, like bitcoin. You know how you go to an arcade and you buy tokens? Same principle, but digital. To really
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Erin’s NanoWrimo Part 2
We are back to Erin’s NanoWrimo. Much thanks to Mod R for chatting a bit more with Erin to gather background info. Worldbuilding Erin’s world is a place where magic is relatively mundane. Some people have the ability to sense the energy or the patterns within the world and can manipulate it in minor ways,
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Was it Pretty?
This is your pick me up, in case you are struggling with writing or something else today. Number of times Gordon and I looked at the manuscript: 6. Number of professional editors who also looked at it: 4. Number of beta readers who looked at it: 6. Around them the forest breathed. Swarms of purple
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Erin’s NanoWrimo, Part 1
One of our longtime readers would like to participate in NanoWrimo. What is NanoWrimo? NanoWrimo is a way to accomplish something most people will never do in their lifetime – to complete a novel. People do this for different reasons. Some want to try writing, others are attracted to the challenge, or want to be
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Edits and More Edits
Would you be willing to share what sort of things constitute editorial changes? I am a beta reader for a couple of authors, but I’d love to be able to do more. Editorial changes come in different varieties. Content editorial changes. These are the changes made by the primary editor on the first pas through
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