I’ve ended up taking a short, unscheduled break from writing newsletters over the last fourteen days. Regular GenrePunk Ninja transmissions will resume in October, and some of the ideas in this week’s entry might be expanded out. Mainly, though, if you’re hungry for great advice about writing and publishing, however, I’m going to direct your […]
Like many of you, I have good weeks and bad weeks on the writing front. This week has been rocky, and if you’re feeling like things are unsettled and unfocused too, that’s a pretty natural response to this point of the year. Ordinarily, my response in this newsletter would be offering advice: here’s how to […]
Welcome to GenrePunk Ninja supplemental, where I occasionally post foundational essays written before I launched the GenrePunk Ninja newsletter, especially if they’re timely to other conversations occurring online. This essay originally appeared in Eclectic Projects issue 2 in 2023. Estimated Reading Time: 30 Minutes | Don’t like reading online? Get an ebook copy here. Here […]
This week’s newsletter is the second of a trilogy, dealing with a fundamental challenge of being a writer: not all the advice you’re offered is a great fit for you, even if it worked perfectly for the person offering the advice. Over the years, I’ve routinely found this out the hard way, applying advice indiscriminately […]
Writing advice is never a one-size-fits-all thing. Context and philosophy is everything, yet there’s a tendency for both the givers and receivers of advice to assume a bon mot of wisdom applies without questioning the resources, genre, goals, and ideology behind it. I’ve built a career out of helping writers figure out their craft and […]
Welcome to GenrePunk Ninja supplemental, where I occasionally post foundational essays written before I launched the GenrePunk Ninja newsletter. This essay originally appeared in Eclectic Projects issue 1. Estimated Reading Time: 22 Minutes | Don’t like reading online? Get an ebook copy here. On Heinlein’s Habits & The Rise of the New Pulp Era SECRET […]
I run into writers who think the reason their book isn’t selling is the price. The first question, when a new release isn’t working, revolves around discounting. “Should I make this ebook 99 cents?” or “Should I give this away for free to generate interest?” These are both solid strategies when used the right way, […]
What is the story of your writing right now? Not the story you are writing, but the story you’re telling yourself about who you are and how you work as a writer. We all have a sense of who we are as writers, which shapes the projects we take and the way we approach our […]
I didn’t watch zombie movies as a kid. We lived in a small town with limited TV reception, and the nearest cinema was hundreds of kilometres away. Movies were hard to find, and horror movies were always way down the list of things to see. Particularly after a series of school camps, where my 4th […]
In which we celebrate the launch of Val Vega: Secret Ambassador of Earth, but Ben Fransisco…
Miriam Aster made a big mistake: she fell in love with the Queen of the Fey. All this was ten years ago, when Miriam was an up-and-coming homicide detective and fairies were things out of fairy tales. Miriam met the queen of the fey in a bar, felt a rush of attraction, and soon they […]
Last week, I ran a bunch of writing workshops for Villanova College here in Brisbane. Four workshops spread over three days, focused on writing a crime story in 900 words. My year of producing original short fiction for Patreon came in incredibly handy, since I have a lot of thoughts on how to curtail your […]
