Jared Dees's Blog: The Latest from Jared Dees, page 38

Why I Quit Social Media for Email

Today I am making it official:

I quit social media.

I actually quit more than a month ago.

What I mean is:

I blocked or avoided the news feeds (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.). I resisted the urge to post “updates” throughout the day. I resisted the urge to post links to articles and videos I found interesting.

. . . and life went on.

In fact, I have had more meaningful communication with my readers and with other authors and influencers than I ever had before simply because I shifted m...

The Rule of 30,000 (Steve Scott)

How do you know if there is an audience for a book about a topic that you want to write about? After you spend months writing a book, how will you know that there will be readers to buy it?

Steve Scott, whose series of habit books consistently put him at the top of the Amazon author rankings among business authors, suggests something he calls The Rule of 30,000.

Here is how it works:

Pick a topic that you want to write about. Search for books about that topic on Amazon and check their Amazon...

3 Lessons from How We Learn by Benedict Carey

I just finished reading Benedict Carey’s book, How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and Why It Happens.

Here are the the three biggest lessons I learned about learning from the book:

1) Pre-testing is a form of learning.

As a teacher and even now as someone who works with teachers, I looked at testing in the wrong way. I always saw it as a way to assess student comprehension. I didn’t see it as a form of learning in itself.

This is particularly true of pre-testing. A test for...

Should I use initials as an author pen name?

A number of authors use their initials instead of their full name on the covers of their books. It is especially common among authors of fiction.

So, when considering whether to use my initials instead of my first name for works of fiction, I wanted to do some quick research.

Here are a few reasons authors use their initials instead of their full name:

Your name is hard to pronounce or too long to remember (J. R. R. Tolkien vs. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien)

Your name is too common (George Martin...

Author Ken Liu on Goal Setting

While I am reading a book, I like to listen to and read interviews with the authors to find their advice on writing and the lessons they have learned about being authors.

So, after I read the short story, “Paper Menagerie,” I went looking for interviews with the author Ken Liu.

I found his writing advice on goal-setting, which he learned from Tobias Buckell, very interesting:

“The best writing advice I’ve ever heard is from Tobias Buckell, a fellow writer and a friend. He said that the thing...

Author Ken Liu on Goalsetting

While I am reading a book, I like to listen to and read interviews with the authors to find their advice on writing and the lessons they have learned about being authors.

So, after I read the short story, “Paper Menagerie,” I went looking for interviews with the author Ken Liu.

I found his writing advice on goal-setting, which he learned from Tobias Buckell, very interesting:

“The best writing advice I’ve ever heard is from Tobias Buckell, a fellow writer and a friend. He said that the thing...

Leo Tolstoy’s “Two Brothers and the Gold”

I didn’t expect while reading a set of short stories as research for writing my own short stories, that the stories themselves would give me any epiphanal moments. My only intention was to read to learn how to structure the stories and develop the characters and settings.

But, of course, God had different plans.

I saved a large number of one-page short stories to read and came across one by the great Leo Tolstoy titled “Two Brothers and the Gold.” It reads like a long parable from the Bible i...

The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories Feel Real

I am spending some time this month reading the award-winning and nominated science fiction and fantasy short stories (Hugo Awards, Nebula Awards, Locus Awards). I look at is as research for writing my own short stories in those genres.

I realize as I read these stories that one of the things that makes them so good is that when I read them I forget that it isn’t realistic. The characters feel real and you connect with them in a very short amount of time. The theme and conflict in the stories...

January 2018 Project Report

Welcome to my January 2018 Project Report. My goal with these monthly reports is to help other authors, entrepreneurs, leaders, or anyone else who wants to make an impact through their work. Each month I will share how I spent my time as an author and creative entrepreneur and the successes, failures, and lessons I’ve learned along the way.

How I Spent My Time in January 2018

I track every minute of time I spend working on projects using an app called Toggl (here is why). Here is a list of th...

Lessons from a Day of Keeping Our Basement from flooding

I woke up at 5:00 a.m. this morning planning to write a very different lesson. I knew as soon as my foot hit the squishy floor that we were in for a long day. It’s almost 9:00 p.m. and I’m taking a break.

Here are just a few things I learned today while trying to contain the leaks coming from the cracks in our basement floor:

Tell your wife you love her. It’s easy to let stress blind you. Don’t settle for small. The first shop vac we bought had a 2.5 gallon tank. It filled up in 3 minutes. S...