Terry Shames's Blog: 7 Criminal Minds, page 206

Keeping up with the... by Cathy Ace

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Rolling into the future...by RM Greenaway

The world is changing faster than you can write - technologically, politically, environmentally etc. How do roll with the changes in your fiction? 
I often wish I had set my series in an alternate reality. There could be old-style telephone booths alongside solar highways, and you could smoke wherever you want. Imagine the freedom? Imagine not having to spend hours studying bylaws and maps, zooming in and out of Google Earth, trying to decide where you can realistically place your shooter...

The world is changing faster than you can write - technol...

The world is changing faster than you can write - technologically, politically, environmentally etc. How do roll with the changes in your fiction?
- from Susan

By taking the easy way out. My stories are all set right now. Where technology is concerned, that means no need for historical research into things like flat screen TVs and cell phones, like pal Cara Black has to do for her mid-1990’s series, or Sue Grafton has to do for hers. The problem with near history is we’ve all lived it and can s...

Standards And Practices

Do you write to a specific pre-determined manuscript length? Does your publisher require you to stay within a word-count range?
Well, folks, all I have is the one. So far, anyhow. I can elucidate the difference between being self-directed with no limit for my first novel and having very tight constraints on my short story work, of which this year I'll have a few in print.
As Deitrich mentions, the sweet spot I had heard from many sources is over 50,000 words, settling somewhere less than 80,000...

Goodbye! Hello! (Or, From A to Z)

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Counting on words

Do you write to a specific pre-determined manuscript length? Does your publisher require you to stay within a word-count range?
by Dietrich Kalteis
I don’t outline or plot out my novels, so I don’t really know when I start out where it will end up, or how many words or pages there will be. A novel is generally considered to be north of 50,000 words, and nowadays publishers seem to prefer the length to be in the 70,000 to 100,000 word range. My novels average toward the lower end of that, but th...

It doesn't hurt to delete words, honestly.

By R.J. Harlick
Do you write to a specific pre-determined manuscript length? Does your publisher require you to stay within a word-count range?
No, I haven't had a facelift. She's a friend of mine. I'll tell you her intriguing story at the end of this blog, but first I'll answer the question.
Since starting out on this writing adventure, I’ve never paid much attention to word count in the writing of the first draft. I just write until the story is finished. But surprisingly I find that most of m...

Writing to a Specific Length?

Terry Shames reporting on the topic: Do you write to a specific pre-determined manuscript length? Does your publisher require you to stay within a word-count range?

I recently got curious about how long my books were. It seemed to me that they had gotten longer as the series went on. I went through the six published books and found that in fact they had ballooned. I went from around 75,000 in the first book to almost 90,000 words in the most recent one. I don’t think I’ve gotten windier. I wri...

That Black Hole We Call Writing

Writing isn’t all that we do, is it? What’s your second favorite activity?

by Paul D. Marks

You mean there is one? Who has time for secondary activities? Writing is like a black hole, sucking in everything around it. Housecleaning, socializing, hobbies and fun, get skimped on. And even when we’re doing those things the mind is always thinking of that next plot twist. Even when I’m relaxing doing brain surgery hobby in my spare time I’m thinking about scalpel twists and plot twists.

But when I ha...

Nascar, Light Opera and Tai Kwon Do

Are just three hobbies I don't pursue, never have, and probably never will.

But what do I do when I'm not writing? Well, at three books a year, I mostly eat, sleep and brush my teeth when not writing. But also - anytime I can I get onto a beach:


And there I don't kayak, snorkel, jet-ski or surf. Nope, I sit, read, listen to the waves and - when it's warm enough - swim.

What else? I've never knowingly passed a sign for a yard sale (or estate sale, or charity shop, or antiques mall or dumpster) an...