Mike Jastrzebski's Blog, page 109

Getting it down

There is an art to anchoring.  Or docking.  Or picking up a mooring.  I took my son dinghy sailing recently out on a lake in an nice little 18-foot open boat.  I was going to show him how to do it.  Late in the afternoon, a squall rolled in fast and we tried to pick up the mooring.  Quickly, it turned into a scene as the 25-knot gusts hit and the knots in the ends of the jib sheets let go.  The sail's flapping sounded like automatic weapons fire as the sky opened up and I hung my head over...

From Rags to Riches on the Kindle? The second month.

It's been two months since I started selling e-books on the Kindle and Smashwords. As a reminder, in July I sold 97 copies of The Storm Killer. As for Smashwords, I sold only one book in July. In August I sold no books at Smashwords, but I had a good run at Amazon.

For the month of August I sold 380 copies of The Storm Killer. I'm not going to go into how I promoted the books, I covered that in previous blogs and they are available in the archives if you want to read them.

On August 11th I...

Magnetic Course

Attend virtually any writing conference and you are almost guaranteed to hear a debate on the merits of outlining a book before it's written. The universal answer, echoed each and every time, ends up being "do what works for you." As if that's good advice. But since this blog is about both writing and being on the water, let's leave that subject for a moment and escape into boating.

And escape I did on a sweet little 23-foot Mako named Fishfinder that I owned a number of years ago. The boat...

Grammar is changing

By Michael Haskins 

Writers, both published and unpublished, continue to learn their craft everyday.

Sometimes we, as writers, overlook the few good books available that explain the rules of how and what we do. I don't mean the glut of books that tells you how to write the best selling novel. Nope. I am talking about the books that explain the rules and even how to break them and how the rules are changing, being challenged.

I have talked a few times at the college library and other events...

Changing expectations part 2.

By Mike Jastrzebski

I wrote the other day about how my expectations have changed regarding writing and publication. Today I want to dwell a little about how my expectations for cruising have changed also.

Mary and I bought our boat, Rough Draft, fifteen years ago. When we bought the boat she was called Lightning. We knew back then that we wanted to go cruising. We read all the books on taking off and living on a boat, but we just didn't have the money to go at the time so we decided we would...

iPad apps for writers

People often ask me why I bought an iPad.  "Isn't it really just a big iPhone?" they ask.  In a way, that was the truth back when the iPad was first released.  But that is like looking at a book and saying, "Isn't that really just a bunch of wood pulp?"  The iPad is a blank page, a slate, a tabula rasa.  Apple created the hardware and put it out there for the creative types to make use of it.

And so they have.  Every day new and wonderful apps are being released that can make our lives as...

Changing expectations.

By Mike Jastrzebski

Most of our readers know that I've recently published two of my books, The Storm Killer

and Key Lime Blues as e-books. I've done reasonably well selling these books on Kindle and I've posted my sales numbers in previous posts. Next Thursday I'll post my numbers for the month of August.

For years I've gone to writer's conferences and pitched my books to agents and small publishers alike. I've sent out hundreds of query letters and received some very positive rejection...

Creativity Comes to Visit

I have never thought of myself as particularly artistic. Yes, I am a chef, a creative occupation, and yes, I am a writer, another creative endeavor, but I never thought I was an artist.  In my mind, an artist is someone who sees things in their head and can translate that vision to canvas or whatever medium they choose. It is something, I thought, ingrained in them, that they have all the time.

And I, have had to work, and work hard for whatever degree of success I have achieved with both...

Where Do Writers Come From?

by Tom Tripp

There are a lot of easy and obvious answers to the question about where writers come from. They certainly come from our schools and universities; from MFA programs, and from writers' conferences and seminars.  They come, too, from certain professions, like public relations and marketing and advertising. In fact, these are all fertile grounds for finding the writers in our society. But there is an even more basic and, I think, more significant answer to the question. Writers...

That Good Old Boat.

By Mike Jastrzebski

I've been working on my writing this summer. I'm currently working on a re-write of my mystery/thriller, Dog River Blues. I feel a little guilty writing, but it looks like the income from my e-book sales are going to give us a nice addition to our cruising/retirement income, so I need to finish this third book before I can start working on the boat. If all goes well I should be able to start full-time on the boat work in November. Mary will be giving her notice the first...