http://scottwilliamcarter.com The Official Website Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:47:56 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I recently received news that my second collection, The Dinosaur Diaries And Other Tales Across Space And Time, will soon be available for purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and all your other major bookstore outlets.   This means that my other collection,  A Web of Black Widows, which is already ... http://scottwilliamcarter.com/2010/03/14/story-of-the-month-shatterboy-free/ Here's a technique I've used a few times to get the creative juices flowing.  You've read an illustrated book, right?  Usually, the writer writes a story and then the illustrator reads the story (hopefully) and creates an illustration based on it.  Some illustrations become so wedded to the original work ... http://scottwilliamcarter.com/2010/03/09/games-writers-play-8-literate-an-illustration/ I personally believe that setting word or page quotas is much more effective than time quotas. This is mostly because if you tell yourself you're going to sit in the chair until you've written a thousand words, you'll find your fingers leaping into action much faster than if your fingers ... http://scottwilliamcarter.com/2010/03/02/games-writers-play-7-write-as-much-as-you-can-in-an-hour/ I'm about to run out to the Oregon coast for a three-day writing workshop -- a fun opportunity to talk shop with lots of other writers, something I don't get to do nearly often enough -- but I wanted to share this link before I go. On Monday, Fantasy Magazine, published ... http://scottwilliamcarter.com/2010/02/25/some-thoughts-on-collaborating/ If you've followed my blog, you know I've written about the Pages Before Play principle before, but it's so effective that it deserves a mention here. The basic idea is this: You withhold all activities you enjoy until you've met your page quota for the day. It's simple, isn't it? ... http://scottwilliamcarter.com/2010/02/23/games-writers-play-6-pages-before-play/ It's not often that a magazine that pays professional rates makes one of your stories available for free.  It's even less often that the story is a collaboration with a writer you've long admired, Ray Vukcevich. But in this case it's true.  "A Stray," a tale of a man who's slowly ... http://scottwilliamcarter.com/2010/02/22/a-stray-my-collaboration-with-ray-vukcevich/ So far, I've been focusing mostly on ways to boost your productivity.  Well, all that productivity begs the question:  How do you keep coming up with ideas?  Most serious writers learn very quickly that story ideas are a dime a dozen -- they can literally come from anywhere.  It's what ... http://scottwilliamcarter.com/2010/02/16/games-writers-play-5-title-mash-up/ One of my big efforts this year is getting all of my short stories online, available for purchase.  With the increasing popularity of the Kindle, and with Apple's big foray into the world of electronic reading with the iPad,  I don't think it's a market that any writer can afford ... http://scottwilliamcarter.com/2010/02/13/story-of-the-month-the-liberators/ Me: All right, Kat, this time when you play I want you to count the notes. Out loud. Kat: But I hate that! Me: I need to know you've got the rhythm down. Kat: No! It's embarrassing! Me: Why is it embarrassing? Kat: Because Calvin's listening! Me: Calvin? He's four years old. He doesn't care about you ... http://scottwilliamcarter.com/2010/02/10/dispatches-from-the-frontlines-of-fatherhood-being-embarrassed/ Everybody knows that old Nike slogan, right?  Just do it.  For the sake of writing, I've taken the liberty of modifying it slightly to "Just Finish It." In practice, it translates this way:  No matter how you feel about the project at hand, you must finish it. A lot of writers, especially ... http://scottwilliamcarter.com/2010/02/09/games-writers-play-4-just-finish-it/