E.B. Dawson's Blog, page 15
January 23, 2017
New Covers!
So you can tell I’ve got my life back together because I’m actually posting things on social media! It got pretty busy there and I had a lot of change going on in my life including graduating from college and moving to a new state. But I’m back. And while I’m always re-evaluating my branding, […]
October 3, 2016
A Review of Starship Troopers (the book)
A friend recommended this book years ago (8 or 9). But for some reason I never picked it up. He recommended it because I love “Ender’s Game.” But he also made some reserved comments about it that made me hesitate. I don’t remember exactly what he said, but he clearly didn’t sell it very well. […]
September 10, 2016
Breaking the Silence…
I have not posted in forever because life has been a little bit crazy. What with school, work, and plenty of family I have been taking a break from posting on here. I have been so mentally tired that in my free time all I want to do is consume (reading and watching) rather than […]
July 8, 2016
Who Are You Writing For?
One of my best friends just finished “Into the Void.” She texted me saying, “Never stop writing, even if you are just writing for me.” She got it. That validated hundreds (maybe thousands?) of hours of work. It’s a huge accomplishment just to finish a novel. It is. But the market can be deadly. For […]
June 20, 2016
Alice Through the Looking Glass
I loved the first one. It was simple, straightforward, and heroic. It communicated its themes without a heavy hand. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for the sequel. Although it was penned by the same screenwriter, it was handled by a different director. The entire tone was different. Now, I haven’t read the book, but I […]
June 17, 2016
Fiction Validation
Thank you Joanna Penn for validating me. In my last brief post on the “Self-Publishing Success Summit” I talked about how I seem to take much longer writing then these non-fiction writers. And Joanna Penn just agreed with me. According to her, fiction takes more executive willpower, more research, and more patience. She also pointed […]
June 15, 2016
Self-Publishing Success Summit: Initial Thoughts
So, I am currently attending the “Self-Publishing Success Summit” through Self-Publishing School and hosted by Chandler Bolt. There are something like 40 speakers over ten days and it is all online and completely free, so I thought: what’s there to lose? I like to learn new things. (By the way, there’s still to jump in […]
June 9, 2016
Why Your Setting is Not Made Up of Adjectives
Gasp. What?! What about all of those writing workshops where we stuffed one hundred adjectives into every sentence? I am not saying there is no value in learning how to be descriptive and expand your vocabulary. But describe every single detail of a scene and still lose your reader. Why is that? Settings are made […]
June 3, 2016
Popularized Emotional Dysfunction
Like most lies, its chief danger lies in its subtlety. What am I talking about? I am talking about how popular media propagates the message that emotional dysfunctional people are more interesting (among other things). Now, for the purpose of this short post I am defining emotionally dysfunctional people as people who express their emotions […]
June 1, 2016
Stupid Decisions vs. Bad Decisions
There is a difference. And let me tell you a secret…there may be a few readers out there who enjoy watching the protagonist make stupid decisions and have to face the consequences, but most of us do not. It will drive your smart readers crazy! Now, this doesn’t mean your protagonist has to make good […]
