Rick Cook Jr.'s Blog, page 7

Breaking the Author – Week One

It’s the end of the first full week of 2016, which means it is time for my Week One update!

I don’t have a daily update or anything fancy like I did last year, so instead of giving you a day-by-day breakdown of how much I wrote or edited or whatever, you’ll get a quick rundown of what I’ve been working on during the week and then I’ll update my Goals with completions marked as strikethroughs!

So in my first week, I maintained my blog schedule of a Thursday posting and a Sunday posting. The sl...

So You Want To Submit A Story

First Thursday post of the new year and I’m gonna hop right in with a little bit of a look into the submissions process for short stories.

It’s different than it used to be. Used to be you had to print up copies of your stories and send them in to the very few publications that did their trade in short stories, which costs paper, ink, envelopes, return envelopes, stamps. It was a whole thing.

And some of the reputable magazines and journals out there still require snail mail submissions. I un...

1K a Day Wrapup and 2016 Challenge – “Breaking the Author”

Welcome back to Panning For Clouds! After a brief weekend hiatus of not writing or doing a single thing author-related, I have returned with final thoughts on my year of writing 1000 words a day, every day of 2015, and then we’ll jump right into the goals I have set for 2016!

1K a Day Wrapup

So I wrote 472k words last year. Purely fiction.

Gridfall was 175k. I will be editing that one and submitting it for publication.

Savage Duty was 118k. I will be editing that one and self-publishing it to...

1K a Day – “If I Can, So Can You” and Week Fifty Two

It’s Thursday, December 31st. Sometimes known as New Year’s Eve. Sometimes known as the drunkest day of the year.

This year, I know it as the day I conquered deatha seriously hard challenge. To be the very best, like no one ever was.

Except people have done this before. Of course they have.

I have written a minimum of 1,000 words a day of fiction. Every single day. 365 days in a row. No breaks. No cheating. No padding words intentionally to make the day.

It’s the last week of the year and it’...

1K a Day Challenge – Week Fifty One

It’s December 27th, 2015. Week fifty one of writing 1,000 words a day for the entire year. It’s time for another update!

Days 354 to 360 have been successes, with a minimum of 1,000 words a day written.

Stats for Days 354 to 360:

Day 354 – 1558 words
Day 355 – 1719 words
Day 356 – 1791 words
Day 357 – 1783 words
Day 358 – 1843 words
Day 359 – 1753 words
Day 360 – 1521 words

Total count for the year thus far is 465,952words. Average daily word count is1,294words.WIPSavage Duty is at 113,431wor...

1K a Day Motivational – The Naysayers

It’s Thursday and I’m full of sadness because my grandmother passed awayearlier this week and I’m not the same person I was before. I don’t want to be this person because this person doesn’t have his grandmother in his life, but I cannot go back. So I have to go forward, and the way I choose to go forward is to yell into the void and hope it doesn’t destroy me.

I love you, Grandma, and I’ll miss you forever, but I have to talk about other things or I’ll go insane with sadness.

So this is the...

1K a Day Challenge – Week Fifty

It’s December 20th, 2015. Week fifty of writing 1,000 words a day for the entire year.

I’m going to forgo the pageantry and excitement today because of personal life stuff that’s happening, but I have continued to write and will continue if I can.

Stats for Days 347 to 353:

Day 347 – 1622 words
Day 348 – 1652 words
Day 349 – 1596 words
Day 350 – 1518 words
Day 351 – 1517 words
Day 352 – 1536 words
Day 353 – 1510 words

Total for the year is 453,984 words. Average daily word count is 1286 words...

1K a Day Motivational – “But The Pressure Is Too Much”

This is the third to final Thursday of the year, and what better time to talk about feeling overwhelmed with continuing to succeed when the failure will be very public?

I’m writing more words per day than 1,000 at this point, and that has become something of a trial in itself. I’m feeling the pressure to succeed.

I’m feeling it squeeze in on me from all sides. Family and friends have started paying attention again. They’re watching in these, my final days. Will he succeed? Will he fail? Do we...

1K a Day Challenge – Week Forty Nine

It’s December 13th, 2015. Week forty nineof writing 1,000 words per day of fiction. It’s time for another update!

Days 340 through 346 have been successes, with a minimum of 1,000 words per day written.

Stats for Days 340 to 346:

Day 340 – 1596 words
Day 341 – 1502 words
Day 342 – 1633 words
Day 343 – 1609 words
Day 344 – 1754 words
Day 345 – 1632 words
Day 345 – 1637 words

Total count for the year thus far is 443,033words. Average daily word count is1,280words.WIPSavage Duty is at 90,512word...

1K a Day Motivational – “But The World Is In Pain”

It’s Thursday and I’m gonna skip all the silly shenanigans and get right to the point today.

There are times in our lives when bad things happen. Maybe they aren’t happening directly to us, but what hurts others eventually finds its way to you, directly or indirectly.

I’m not going to moralize or soapbox or throw any kind of political or religious agenda at you today, but I want to talk about why I keep writing even though all this horrible stuff is happening in the world.

France. Syria. Egyp...