Author: Kevin Fraleigh
Mourning the OED
It has finally happened. The last great bastion of the English language has sequestered itself into elitism. The Holy OED, the Oxford English Dictionary on-line, is now available only by paid subscription. What was the ideal reference for writers has lowered itself into the abyss of filthy lucre and restricted…
Working through Writer’s Block
Writer’s block. We all get it. Writer’s groups on-line are full of posts seeking the magic cure. There is only one cure for writer’s block ― to write. Wow, that seems counterintuitive. How can I write if I’m blocked? How about this… Let’s say you’re writing a novel and you…
The Location Worksheet
In an earlier post I discussed the Character Worksheet I used to keep track of all the characters mentioned in my Any Tomorrow Trilogy. The worksheet simply lists the name and a basic description of each character. This tool is very handy to make sure names aren’t too similar or…
Finally in the Premium Catalog!
Today’s post is all about Smashwords.com because Any Tomorrow: The Calling has finally been accepted into the Smashwords Premium Catalog. This means that, besides being listed on the Smashwords website, it will be distributed to a range of other sellers also. The following schedule was provided for distribution. Channel Next…
Monday Update
What I am reading ― As a geographer, I find Peter Turchi’s Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer an absolute must read. His use of process of exploration as a metaphor for the discovery process we, as writers, use is apt and dead on. More than that it…
On Staying Organized
I was planning on writing a nice long article about how important organization is when writing an eBook of over 300k words, especially if the action takes place over a long timeline, several continents, and involves hundreds of major and minor characters. Just trying to not repeat names is difficult,…
Character Worksheet
In one of my first posts I mentioned that I developed a rather detailed worksheet to keep track of my characters, locations, and specialized language references. As I continued my editing of Any Tomorrow: The Curse and Any Tomorrow: The Culling, I thought I might update the worksheet. I have…
A Matter of Perspective
If you go to Amazon.com and search for books with keyword of “horror”, you’ll get 56,575 results, but only 9,202 are Kindle Editions. If you search for books with the keyword “speculative fiction”, only 745 results are returned, but only 320 are Kindle Editions. If you search for a book…
I Really Need a Checklist
You know, sometimes the most obvious things are the easiest to miss. Both Kindle and Smashwords provide the option to post a detailed description and keywords (tags) to help potential buyers discover your eBook. In the rush to get the eBook text loaded, it’s easy to miss those couple of…
eBook Description
In the latest news from Smashwords, Any Tomorrow: The Calling has passed the automated vetting process and is now up for review by the “vetting review team”. I suspect that passing the automated vetting had something to do with the updated file I submitted on Monday, although I was never…
