Alexander M. Zoltai's Blog, page 45

Bill Bryson, Lewis Carroll logic and cryonics – interview about Not Quite Lost at Andrea Darby’s blog

BONUS RE-Blog: Roz Morris is interviewed about her soon-to-be-released book…

Nail Your Novel

I’m thrilled to be at Andrea Darby’s blog today, talking about Not Quite Lost. You might recognise her name because she was a recent guest on The Undercover Soundtrack with her novel The Husband Who Refused to Die. Andrea and I discovered we had a certain chilly, chilling interest in common – cryonics, the daring science of preserving the dead in the hope that they can be revived when science is more...

Celebrating Reading by Heather Jensen

Some readers may feel this re-blog is only for those concerned with kids’ reading…

Nope…

I feel most of it can just as well apply to a large group of adults…

Nerdy Book Club

I am a reader. It defines who I am. I need books as much as I need food and oxygen. I carry characters in my heart and learn how to be a better person from them. I shout and sing the praises of my favorite books. I celebrate reading with family, friends, and people all over the world via social media. I long to be the aud...

What’s the Real Value of Literary Prizes?

[image error] I started out in my preparations for this post with just one article, which I will feature; but, as I thought about what to call it, I, for some intuitive reason, did a Google search using that title up there…

I’d already known that there are quite varied and strong opinions on the value of literary prizes—some folks think book publishing will falter and die without them, some feel they’re just the result of non-pretty political machinations…

Here are just a few of the various opinions from...

3 ways writers fail to get maximum impact from a story – and what to do instead

Today’s re-blog is from Roz Morris — Worth Reading — Worth exploring her full site :-)

Nail Your Novel

Novels in progress will always have rough patches and individual quirks, but there are certain common issues I routinely see that have quite simple fixes. Here are a few – and they can make a big difference.

Crucial event is underplayed or buried

Does an event change a character’s emotional state or world view? Does it make them change what they want, or strengthen their resolve? Make sure...

#SelfPublishing ~ #BookMarketing >>> #FreeCourse

If you visit this blog because you’re primarily a Reader, do, Please, share this post with a Writer you know :-) [image error]

I’ve written plenty of posts about Self-Publishing as well as Book Marketing; and even though I don’t teach courses, I have a bunch of free books in that left side-bar…

I have had a few posts about various writing-related courses; but, nothing quite like this… This massive, free, audio/video course recommended to me by Jane Friedman and called Self-Publishing Mastery.

Here’s the m...

2 tips for balancing writing and marketing time – Q&A from New Generation Publishing Summit

Sane advice, as always, in this re-blog from Roz Morris…

Alert: Tomorrow will be a special day for those who know nothing about marketing (promotion)…

Nail Your Novel

Last week I spoke at the New Generation Publishing summit and this thorniest of questions came up: how do you strike a balance between writing books and working on marketing and sales?

We had good examples of two extremes. In the marketing-gone-mad corner, we had debut author Toni Jenkins. She cheerfully confessed that when her...

An Honor………

No reblog today…

Because…

Four days ago, a nice lady named Tiana, sent me an email that said:

Love your site and I featured you as a top Blogger in the article, Top Writing Blogs You Should Follow.

And, she gave me this award medallion:[image error]

Plus, she even asked if I wanted her to edit the description she provided for my blog…

There are 64 other writing blogs featured at that link!
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If you don’t see a way to comment (or, “reply”) after this post, try up there at the t...

Friday Story Bazaar ~ Tale Fifty-Nine

The Road…

by
Alexander M Zoltai

~~~~~~~~~

I’m not really a brave man; but, something had to be done…

Our System has three inhabited planets and six inhabited moons—seventy billion of us; but, things had gone down so far, so fast, that folks thought they could never go back up.

You see, Corporate Entities had taken over the rule of the continents of the planets and the plains of the moons.

There had been many massive environmental disasters as well as disasters in overcrowded space lanes—monst...

Coordination and Subordination

Important Little Words in today’s Re-blog…

Live to Write - Write to Live

Coordination and Subordination

In graduate school, I had a professor who said, “The hardest word in the English language to use properly is the conjunction ‘and’,” and “The key to success is subordination.”

Coordination

I just used the coordinating conjunction ‘and’ in the sentence above to join the two quotations, which are independent clauses.

Balanced scales illustrate the concept of coordination in grammar.

A good wa...

What Is #Success for a #Writer?

[image error] I’ve considered this question before—check out these 15 posts on various aspects of “success” (after scrolling down one of the pages, click on the “Older posts” link…)

Now to add to those considerations with an article by author, editor, writing coach, writing workshop leader, and spiritual counselor, Noelle Sterne, entitled, What Is Writing Success?

As usual, I’ll share some excerpts and urge you to read the full article…

First, the “usual” expectations:

“All of us writers know what writing...