Robert L. Slater's Blog, page 19

The Doldrums, Rising Tide and Banned Books

The last month has been a hard one in terms of writing. Though I wrote 55,000 words this summer, probably more than I have ever written, it was not the 75,000 and the finished rough drafts of a novel and a novella. Instead, I have unfinished drafts of two novels and a novella. I also hit some walls in terms of writing everyday, one of the biggest was my day job as a teacher coming back into 45+ hours a week focus.

My sales also fell, despite being involved in two sales for e-books. My book is...

Call for Beta, Gamma, and Delta readers.

My Deserted Lands novella, Toils and Snares–a parallelequel to All Is Silence,is now in rough draft completed form.

Now I need Alpha, Beta, and Gamma readers for Toils and Snares

Beta readers – reading the messy first draft for the story arc. Does it work?
Gamma Readers – What can be cut? Tightened? Note typos?
Delta Readers – Line/copy editing: reading for typos, grammar issues for final draft.

If you would like to read it before anyone else, please send me an e-mail noting which of the above typ...

BACK TO SCHOOL SALE – Outward Bound Collection is FREEEE!!!!

BACK TO SCHOOL SALE – Outward Bound Collection is FREEEE!!!!

For the next 4 dayson Amazon’s Kindle store.

Please, download, tell your friends. I’d love to rank high on the free chart for a day!The links are below. Thanks for all the support.

United.States.INdiaU.K.DEnmarkFRanceESpanaITaliaJaPanBRasilCAnada

MeXicoAUstralia.

New Publication: Just Desert

And now for something completely different. My new Publication, Just Desert, a short story of a woman’s mid-life crisis in the southwestern American desert.

How far will you go to find yourself? What will Chela sacrifice? Her life? Her soul? What will she lose and what does she find?

A Magical Realism story combining legends, mysteries and lost missions…

I will run either a countdown sale on it in September to try and get some traction. If you have Kindle Unlimited, please download it and give i...

Goals, Humility and Reality…

Well, what have I accomplished as I wind down toward going back to my day job as a high school English teacher? I’ve written more than 25 words all but 3 of the last 70 days. I’ve averaged 546 words. I only hit 2000 words of fiction on one of those days, though I had two more days where the combo of fiction and blog posts exceeded 2K. I’ve mostly finished a rough draft of a novella currently titledToils and Snares.

I’ve reformatted Outward Bound for some special promotions in conjunction with...

Can’t Make it to WorldCon Sale and more marketing thoughts…

This post is really about marketing experiments. If you’re not interested in marketing and haven’t bought All Is Silence and would like it on ebook, gohere. In paperback or hardcover go here. Now back to the topic: marketing! In Three Parts.

1. So. Do sales help? I’ve marked All Is Silence down temporarily in part to support other writers and on the off chance that I might sell a few copies. It’s currently $3.99 here. It will stay on sale until the 20th. The weird thing? And this happened the...

Noveling: 7 Ways You Can Help

Okay. Really, really, need to get more fiction written. Lots of marketing, some plotting, etc. Some great times with family in the last 10 days, but not enough words!

How can I help, Rob? Here are a variety of options that take anywhere from a little time to a lot. You can also ask me if you see anything on a social media site whether I’ve met my daily word goal!

Write me a review. Post in on Amazon, GoodReads and anywhere else you feel like! Here are one-click links to All Is Silence for all...

Best Laid Plans: Falling and getting up again…

I broke my 500 words a day streak two weeks ago at 34 days. I restarted and went another five days. Now I’ve blown it two days in a row. Not just the 500+ words a day streak, but the Write Everyday Streak after 52 days! No words. No fiction. No blog posts. A few social media posts, but very few, at that. And now the anti-streak is started…

Did I getWord Count Paralysis? Maybe. Did I fall out of love with my WIP [Work In Progress]? Well, WIPs in this case, but yes, perhaps. What I didn’t do? I...

Things more important than words…

Things more important than words and streaks and novels and such. And the greatest of these arefamily and friends. Yesterday I focused on them. I got up early and continued ripping out old decking so that it would be safe for small children to play on. Safe is, of course, a relative term. I wouldn’t recommend anyone go barefoot on the ground I cleared. I think I picked up all the nails and brackets that I removed, but I also picked up several rusty nails from the previous deck installation.

I...

On Backing Up… wherein I praise my ThinkPad & Scrivener writing software

On Friday I was at the Whatcom YMCA waiting for my daughter to climb the wall. I know, usually children make their parents climb the wall, right? Well. There were a bunch of people there despite the fact that we got there five minutes before the climbing wall opened for Family Climb.

So we got her harness on and then she waited. Climbing the bouldering wall and getting all warmed up. While I waited I found a spot partway up the stairs where I could see her when it came time for her to climb an...