Darius Jones's Blog: A Writer Begins, page 29

Dual Giveaway for May

Today, May 16, my novel, The Library of Lost Books and my short story, The Truck Stop, are both free in the Amazon Kindle store. Grab them while you can.

That’s about all for now.

Follow Me on Twitter

Just passed 100 followers on Twitter.

You can find me there under @DariusJonesWrit

It’s a great way to track my progress a bit more closely and get updates on works in progress as they happen. And other short thoughts and such.

Hope to see you there,

Darius

The Craft: Rules for Writing

[This is part of a continuing series on the art of writing fiction.]

[SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for the Chekhov story, “Lady with the Lap Dog.” ]

I’ve been hesitating on writing this post for a while. I think two things were holding me back.

First, I guess I didn’t want to give away the farm. All that hard work, writing, thinking, finally coming up with these rules…And then just letting them go out into the world. But part of the idea of this blog is to share and make other writ...

Water from the Wells of Home

Why do you do what you do? What motivates you? And why do you keep doing it?

For me life gets down to a few simple motivations.

I work because I want to get a paycheck. I show up and they give me a check that I can use to pay the rent, buy some groceries, pay the bills and buy a book every now and then. I also happen to like the job and my coworkers, so I count myself lucky. But those are luxuries, I would still have to work if those things weren’t true.

I pay my taxes because I don’t want to...

First Dual Giveaway Day

Today, April 29, my novel, The Library of Lost Books and my short story, The Truck Stop, are both free in the Amazon Kindle store. Grab them while you can.

As always, please consider leaving a review in return for the free download.

Also, wanted to give a shout-out to new readers from around the globe. “A Writer Begins” is slowly starting to go global, and I’ve got readers from every continent now except Antarctica. I gave a nod to Vietnam earlier and I want to give a list of new countries a...

Past Masters: Qishti-Marduk

[This is the first post in a new series on Past Masters of world literature.]

This series of blog posts will focus on Past Masters of literature. In it, I hope to highlight my favorite writers and analyze their writing technique.

This series differs from my Rare B Sides series in that Rare B Sides covers individual works (a novel, play or story), whereas Past Masters will cover an individual author’s entire body of work, along with a bit about their life and times. It’s entirely possible that...

Works in Progress–Breaking through the Iron Ring

[This is part of a new series on my works in progress.]

Sometimes it seems the whole point—the raison d’être—of the publishing industry is to reject new writers. I often imagine an office full of editors receiving new manuscripts, scanning the contact information (just in case it’s an established author) and then filling in the template rejection letter, hitting send and breaking for lunch.

Of course, I’m never worked in publishing and I have no idea how this all goes down. I base this solely o...

The Craft: What New Writers Should Read

[This is part of a continuing series on writing fiction.]

Every writer starts as a reader. You read something good, then something great and one day you think to yourself, “Maybe I can do this?”

For me the gateway, that first great work, was The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky. I was in high school, sophomore year and I got hold of the junior/senior reading list. The list had Crime and Punishment, The Idiot and the Possessed on the list, but it was The Brothers Karamazov that really grabbed...

My Weird Western Story Is Free Today

My short story, The Truck Stop, is free today (April 7) in the Kindle store.

It’s somewhere between a Weird Western, a ghost story and just a story.

Please download and check it out. (Don’t’ forget you can download to your PC if you don’t have a Kindle with the Kindle app).

If you do read, please leave a quick review on Amazon or Goodreads. I’d appreciate it.

DJ

The Craft: ‘Measure Twice, Cut Once’

[This is part of a continuing series on the art of writing fiction.]

A couple of years back I visited my friend, D—, in Wisconsin. He was showing me around his new house in the suburbs and eventually we made it to his garage where he had a woodshop with work benches, drills, saws, wood, the whole setup.

D— is a writer, too. So, we were talking about the Craft (of writing) and he told me how much I could learn about writing from woodworking. So, I shot back with a question.

DARIUS J.:Like what?...