Doc Coleman's Blog, page 5

From Alpha to Editing

I didn’t post last week. Bad blogger! But there were reasons for it. Things were actually quite busy, and what time I didn’t have taken up by work had to be dedicated to sleep. And I still didn’t get enough sleep.

So, a lot of work last week, but a lot to show from it, too. I finally had to end the Alpha Read, as my last Alpha Reader wasn’t able to give feedback on the last few chapters of the book due to the distractions of moving to a new house, caring for a family, holding down gainful empl...

RavenCon Schedule Sneak Preview!

The 2014 convention season is about to kick off for me. This time around, the year starts off with RavenCon. Last year, I went to RavenCon as a vendor. This year, I’ll be returning as a panelist! And apparently, it is going to be a big year for RavenCon. The con hotel has already sold out, and they are trying to make arrangements with other nearby hotels. The con is less than a month off, but the schedule is starting to come together…

Even though the schedule isn’t final yet, I can share with...

Rebuilding

Life has moved on a bit in the last week. It does that. As a result, this post is a bit later than planned. It has been a few weeks since I talked about what has happenedin my life, so I thought I’d share some this week. In the past few months, we’ve had a number of things around the house fall apart for various reasons: age, over use, and the odd ruptured pipe. Now, we’re finally getting to the rebuilding phase. Not just rebuilding the house, but rebuilding the way we’re living.

I believe tha...

Let it go, man, let it go

This post may seem like a bit of a reversal from the last one, but the Perils in Peril post was a bit of a cry for help. And I did get the help I needed, although it wasn’t exactly the help I thought I wanted when I wrote the post. Not making much sense yet, am I? Let’s just say that the cry for help was less about helping me meet a goal, and was more about getting me to face facts I had subconsciously realized, but hadn’t admitted to myself.

It was a wake up call…

And thanks go to Sue, who rem...

Perils in Peril

Last summer, I asked for help from you, the readers of this blog. I had reached the state where I needed readers to further polish by novel and get it ready for publication. A number of people volunteered to Alpha Read, and to Beta Read. Well, things went slow with the Alpha Read. I had to scramble to get some replacement readers in December. Now, the Alpha Read is about to complete, and I’ve sent word out to the Beta readers that their part is about to begin.

And I’ve heard back from exactly...

Dawn’s Early Light coming March 25th!

Wellington Books never wanted to be a field agent. He was quite content as the Archivist for the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences. Happy to spend his days in the hidden sub-basement, tending his analytical engine, seeing that all the agent’s reports and their associated artifacts were properly cataloged and filed. Life was simple, but good. He even had time to tinker on his own personal projects.

And thenshe came.

Eliza Braun had been a filed agent. Had been. She had blown up one too many insta...

The horrible truth about bookstores

The world of publishing is changing, and a lot of the old measures of success are going away. Oh, those measures are still there, but more and more authors are finding new ways to be successful in different ways. Still, there is some draw to some of the old landmarks: getting an agent, signing a deal with a large publisher, seeing your book in bookstores. And yet, having your book in bookstores may not be the road to success most people think it is. You see, they aren’t what you think they ar...

The Craft

A while ago I posted about forming a local writing group, the Germantown Writer’s Guild. The GWG has been doing pretty well thus far. We’ve had over 30 people join on Meetup, and there have been a couple of meetings where we have had twelve or thirteen folks show up. There is certainly an interest for some kind of support for writers in the Germantown area. We’ve already started a weekly writer’s workshop run by one of our members and based on an MFA course she once took. Another member is ru...

Back matter matters

In the full court press to getThe Perils of Prague ready for publication, I’ve had to deal with a number of new experiences. One of which is figuring out the cover. I’ve done covers for a couple of my short stories in the past, but those were only e-books. ForPerils, I’m planning on also having dead tree copies available. This brings up an entirely new dimension. You see, physical books have back covers. And since they have them, I have to figure out what to put back there.

Part of that is art...

A writer’s fears

A number of authors have talked about their fears on their blogs, but this has never been a topic where I’ve had a lot to say on the subject. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that I’m perfect and everyone else is flawed. Quite the contrary. We all have the same doubts. We all look at our writing at one time or another and say “This is crap!” For some, this becomes a paralyzing fear. They can’t move on and many consider quitting writing altogether. They figure that if the writing is cra...