Jordan Castillo Price's Blog, page 82

Packing Heat 101: Double Duty Detail

Packing Heat is a podcast I've been putting out since 2008. My goal is to help other writers stay motivated, and to encourage them to take their writing to the next level. You don't need special gadgets to listen; Packing Heat plays in your browser, like YouTube. These are this week's show notes:

Adding Detail I’ve noticed a lot of writers get stuck on how, when and which details to add to their stories. Some stories take place in a vague vacuum rather than a location. Some have detailed thing...

Packing Heat - YAYs

On my Packing Heat podcast, I give "YAYs" to my listeners so we can all celebrate when something awesome happens in our writing careers. I'm going to "YAY" on the show next week, but two of my regular listeners sent me YAYs this morning that I'm so happy about I want to give them a pre-show YAY on my LJ.

Nobilis Reed's first novel, Scouts, will be out at the end of May! YAY, NOBILIS! More on Scouts here, including Chapter 1

Heather Boyd says she wrote this novella because of the podcast and now...

SO sick of my links being stripped out

Just a wee rant to say I am SO SICK OF MY AMAZON LINKS BEING STRIPPED OUT when I cut and paste my podcast show notes into LJ. WTF!

I wanted to show the book I was talking about. I'm sure you all have enough google-fu to find it if you're interested. *sigh*

Packing Heat 100: Relearning Reading

Relearning Reading
10 Days to Faster Reading is the first book recommended at Personal MBA. Since I had tested my reading rate years ago (and come in at a third-grade level!!!) I decided it was in my best interest to see if I could improve my reading rate to enable myself to plow through all the business books I wanted to read.



10 Days challenged several of my basic assumptions about reading.


Reading rate is fixed
I won't enjoy reading if I go faster
I won't comprehend what I'm...

The Kindle cheapos aren't long for this world

All good things seem to come to an end (sooner than crappy things, anyhow.) Kindle doesn't allow small publishers like me to post free books. I thought I'd found a miraculous loophole through which I was able to offer Thaw and Stroke of Midnight for a penny. Sadly, I've had word from Amazon that they will no longer support these two promotional ebooks.

If you have a Kindle--or Kindle software on your computer or iPhone--I'd advise you to grab them now. They're coming down at the end of April.

I...

Pick a Plot

Holy cow, I'm delighted by the number of votes in the survey about which story I should serialize after Zero Hour is done in my newsletter. So far #1 has a good lead, but I there are a couple of other plots that could give it a run for its money.

(click to enlarge)

If you haven't read about the survey yet, you can find out more about it in this month's JCP News!

JCP News April 2010

This month's newsletter is live! Featured story: Pick A Plot. You've voted on the characters, now pick the plot.
View the newsletter here

Packing Heat 099: Educate Yourself

Back Up Your Stuff
Yes, I know, I keep saying it. Seriously, do it. What if you lost weeks' and months' worth of work?

Mozy - has a free tier for home use

Carbonite - this service just saved my butt

Time Machine - if you have a Mac, this comes with the operating system, you just need to tell it where to perform the backup

Personal MBA
How important is school? In some careers, you need those three letters after your name, but in others, you only need the knowledge. If what you need is the knowledge ...

Spec fic - your definition?

I've been noticing in m/m blogs lately, reviewers and authors are tending to use the term "Spec Fic" as if it's synonymous with fantasy or urban fantasy.

I've always taken it to mean any of the weirder genres--but usually more modern ones, as it was originally coined to apply to the type of SF that was popular in men's magazines.

Wikipedia's definition seems to jibe with the way I understood the phrase: Speculative fiction is a fiction genre speculating about worlds that are unlike the real wo...

If I'm the protagonist, who's the author?

Whew! I've been living the Victor Bayne experience the last few days. (Translation: even the most simple of things are sure to go wrong, just because they can.)

First, the hard drive on my art computer died, which means no typesetting, no podcasting, no ebook production, no uploading ebooks to distributors, and no newsletter layout.

So I went and bought a vodka cocktail drink. (You know how they have those pre-mixed mixed drinks nowadays? It was a good brand.) I sat down to finish the puzzle I'...