The Best Writing Advice You Will Read Today

Why aren’t you writing?

Why aren’t you writing – RIGHT NOW!

“Oh, but I have to market.”

Forget about marketing. Write something new. Something will buy it and look for your other e-books.

“Oh, but I have to check Twitter.”

Leave the twittering to the birds. They’ve been doing fine for years without your help – what makes you so special now?

Forget about Twitter. Write something new. Someone will buy it and Twitter about it all by their own self.

“Oh, but I have to post on Facebook.”

Forget about Facebook. Write something new. Someone will buy it and talk about it on Facebook for you.

You won’t even to ask them to do it.

Right?

Write.

This dude says it better than I do.
http://jakonrath.blogspot.ca/2011/07/are-you-writing.html

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I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career.

I’ve lost almost 300 games.

26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life.

And that is why I succeed.

– Michael Jordan

I’ve written 6000 words this morning on a new YA novel.

Took 20 minutes to put a new e-book up on xinxii – in order to get it out to a few more markets that aren’t reached by my Kindle, Kobo and Nook distribution.

I’m not saying that you can write every minute of the freaking day – but you ought to keep writing HIGH on your priority list if you want to make it in this racket.

You like this post – go buy a book of mine. I’m too busy writing the next one – right now!

Why not buy this one? Ninety-nine cents, you can have it now! Just click the pic.

Yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon

What I have been up to…

Several releases in the last couple of weeks.

This isn’t a spam attack – just a listing of what I have released.

On Kobo I’ve released TROLLING LURES – a tale of Coyote and a troll. It’s a novella-length yarn that costs $3.99.

I’ve also released IN THE DARK AND THE DEEP – the first of my new series of short stories of the sea. The stories are not connected, can be read separately – and only cost 99 cents each.

On Kindle I’ve released three of the Sea Tales.

IN THE DARK AND THE DEEP – an historical ghost story from World War 2 Battle of the Atlantic.

HARRY’S MERMAID – a story of a group of homeless men who discover a mermaid…sort of.

And finally the third Sea Tale – I KNOW WHY THE WATERS OF THE SEA TASTE OF SALT – another tale of World War 2 – this one taking place on the island of Okinawa in the final days of the Pacific Campaign.

Each of those three stories are ninety-nine cents a piece.

I’ve also released TROLLING LURES in Kindle format.

As well – just this morning – I released HAMMURABI ROAD – a story of Ontario home-style justice and getting closer to a bear than has ever been dreamed of in the past.

I’ve got ANOTHER short story out in e-book format – but I’ll tell you about that tomorrow.

yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon

The Wolverine…and my birthday

Okay – so last Wednesday was my birthday – but we celebrated it on Saturday – because I had a day-off that day.

Let me tell you about it.

For starters – on Wednesday morning Belinda got up early and made me a big breakfast of blueberry pancakes and bacon. There is NOTHING I love better than pancakes and Belinda makes them better than anyone I know of – so right away I’m a happy man.

We’re grown-ups – so she has already asked me what I wanted sort of present I wanted. I had originally planned on letting her buy me a copy of the fifth season of BREAKING BAD. We’ve been watching the series and loving it – and were especially blown away by the end of the fourth season and we’re keen on seeing how they finally tie things up – but the season pack is only half the season and I decided at the last minute to hold off on buying it until the entire final season is available for purchase.

And yes, I know that you can watch it online – but I’m old-school. If I’m going to watch it I want to own the sucker first.

So I made a decision and told her what she could buy me for my birthday.

I’ll tell you about it in a minute.

I had asked for custard pie – flavored with real maple syrup. It’s awesome. I’m still picking away at it – making it last.

I was scheduled to work a night shift on Wednesday evening at work – so I decided to do something different and bring a cake with me to work to share with everyone. I bought a gi-normous pound cake at Sobey’s and a bag of Oreo cookies and dropped it off at the lunchroom. It was a real treat just to watch other people grin and have fun.

Come Saturday we had our big celebration.

Belinda took me out to the Dragon King Buffet for a monstrous dinner and then we went over to the theater and she treated me to THE WOLVERINE.

Dinner was great.

I had sweet and sour pork, fried chicken, Kung Pao chicken, lemon chicken, sweet and sour ribs, deep fried squid, shrimp fried rice, spring roll, egg roll, veggies – with a custard biscuit and a bowl of congee rice pudding and a bowl of chocolate pudding and a bit of butterscotch pudding with some deep purple Jell-o – while applying a rear naked death throttle upon my diet prior to entering the restaurant.

Mourners can send flowers.

The movie was awesome. Absolutely awesome.

Hugh Jackman does a GREAT job as Wolverine in retreat. The movie really isn’t a “super-hero” movie so much as it is a movie about a gentleman who has been through several kinds of hell and is trying to forget about his past. It takes place after the third X-Men movie – which a lot of people hated but I actually loved – and gets the Wolverine character for the upcoming X-Men: Days of Future Past that is scheduled for a 2014 release.

That’s a lot of what I love about this movie. It is almost completely separate from the whole X-Man movie series – yet it doesn’t go off like a freaking reboot and it does not ask the viewer to forget about the other movies. It builds upon what has happened and opens the door towards future episodes.

I’ve really grown peeved with Hollywood’s incessant rebooting of various series – the rebooted Spider Man, Superman, the constant reboots of Jason and Michael Myers and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Goddamn it – give me an honest to god series with a set of movies that logically build upon each other.

Which is what this movie does.

A cool geeky detail I noticed was early on in the movie we see a bottle of Stanley’s Whiskey – in Wolverine’s forest hide-out – which, I guess, makes up for the lack of the Stan Lee cameo appearance.

Hugh Jackman looked awesome in this role – with an absolutely perfect comic book physique. Apparently The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) played a part in getting Jackman into shape – mostly, as I understand it, in an advisory capacity. I looked it up – and I guess Jackman was on a six month schedule of intensive training coupled with a 6000 calorie a day diet of an “awful lot of chicken, steak and brown rice” – resulting in the gain of a pound of muscle a day. On top of that Jackman chose to adopt a “dehydration diet”, much like a professional body-builder. For thirty-six hours before ANY of his shirtless shots he did not drink any fluids.

The dude is definitely hard-core.

It cheered me up – hearing about his training diet. I figure I put away about 6000 calories at that Chinese Buffet – so if I can only keep that up for another six months I’ll look like Wolverine too.

A really ROUND Wolverine.

(grin)

The villain WAS a little lame – Marvel movies seem to have a hard time coming up with a really kick-ass villain worthy of their heroes – but I really loved this movie and will definitely pick up the DVD when it finally comes out.

And for those who HAVEN’T seen it yet – definitely make sure you stick in for the credits – there is an important must-see appearance of two dudes I’ve been wanting to see back up there together again on the main screen.

NO SPOILERS!

Thanks, darling – for the wonderful birthday celebration. From the meal to the movie to the after-movie visit to Chapters where we read GOODNIGHT GORILLA together and giggled like school kids – I had a blast!

yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon

My Writing Life: Sherrilyn Kenyon

A great inspirational interview.

I’ve sold about 25,000 copies all told – counting my traditionally-published work and my indie-published work – and let me tell you that there is a whole long road of zeroes in between 25,000 and 25,000,000,000 copies!

(okay, so math WASN’T my strong point)

Favorite quote: “I believed in writer’s block once and then I drove a truck through it.”

My Writing Life: Sherrilyn Kenyon.

You get done reading that you might REALLY want to read this!

Unofficial Indie Block Party

All right – this is the season for block parties – right? I mean what other time of the year are you going to haul a bar out onto an open street along with about thirty or forty thousand randomly-colored lawn chairs and gather yourself all of the beer and music and bad jokes and more beer that you can and call it a PARTY!

So – I’ve decided to take part in the 2013 Indie Block Party.

You want details – go and check it out HERE!

Why am I doing this?

Well – let’s say I need the motivation to write a few more blog entries.

Or maybe – I JUST WANT TO PARTY!!!

So – for starters I am supposed to tell you all about myself.

Well – I’m a storyteller. I’m a writer. I can be painfully shy, in person. I’m not a bad guy. I haven’t got too many bodies buried in the basement – and none of them are all that important anyways.

I’ve been writing since the mid-eighties. Or at least that was when I sold my very first short story – a sort of a Mad Max apocalyptic tale that I sold to OUTLAW BIKER for $125.00 – which, at that point, seemed to be an omen of impending wealth.

Note – I am not rich.

Not even close.

In fact, if you’re reading this – SEND MONEY!!!

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Here’s a list of the “blog-entry-starters” the organizers suggest for creating this first block party blog entry.

Why did you start writing?
How long have you been writing?
What are your favorite genre?
What is your blog about?
What do you do when you’re not writing?

Why did I start writing?

Well, I think I started mostly as a way of learning how to talk. You have to understand I was a quiet kid – and I discovered I could hold entire conversations with myself just by writing words down. It became one of my major outlets of self-exploration. I was ALWAYS a reader and I had a great love for watching movies. I think – mostly – I just love the sound of a good story.

How long have I been writing?

Well – like I said – I sold my first story in 1986 – but I was writing LONG before that. I wrote in high school and I wrote in elementary. People liked my stories. Teachers liked my stories. My stories turned into good marks. Once I figured out that an essay or an assignment or a report was nothing but a story with a skeleton of facts attached – I was hooked. Writing was my way of coping with the stress of school room performance issues.

What is my favorite genre?

I like ANYTHING that has a streak of booga-booga in it. I enjoy the horror genre, ghost stories, folklore and any sort of dark fantasy. I also enjoy western stories and have written several weird westerns. I love a good war novel – and I have a great fondness for the shoot-em-up in ALL of its may forms.

What is my blog about?

Well, it is about writing and storytelling and the world of indie publishing.

I’m a hybrid author. I write for myself and publish independently but I also have SEVEN releases through a local regional press – Nimbus Publishing. The good folks at Nimbus have helped me sell THOUSANDS of copies of my regional books.

What do I do when I am NOT writing?

Well – I eat. I sleep. I like to watch old movies. I read. I talk with my wife and my cat and occasionally our teddy-bear Dijon – who is a really a deep sort of philosopher considering that he’s mostly just stuffed. I socialize with a flock of blue jays, a murder of a crows and a gaggle of assorted starlings and grackles whom I feed stale bread and peanuts in the shell most every morning.

So that’s it.

Let the blog/block party commence.

I’ll blow a horn here in my office – or, seeing as I just wrote this words – I guess that it already happened.

It happened in the most important place in the world – your imagination.

Listen – I’ll blow it again.

Whee!

(Because I missed the sign-up deadline I am an UNOFFICIAL Indie Block Party participant – or I guess that means that I am CRASHING the Indie Block Party – in my imagination, anyway)

Don’t forget to check out my the rest of the Block’s WIP as well!
(Updating as I find the posts)

http://sydneyaaliyah.com/2013/08/20/an-exciting-new-adult-paranormal-thriller-empath-flawed-1-book-release-and-giveaway
http://thesaturatedpage.wordpress.com/2013/08/20/the-current-wip
http://mariastaal.com/2013/08/20/indie-block-party-dont-feed-the-rat
http://julidrevezzo.com/2013/08/20/indie-block-party-passions-sacred-dance
http://a-creative-mind.com/2013/08/20/indie-block-party-2
http://skyecallahan.wordpress.com/2013/08/20/indiebp-fractured-legacy
http://www.courtyoung.com/2013/08/my-works-in-progress-southernshadows.html
http://susanannwall.wordpress.com/2013/08/20/indie-block-party-wip
http://biancasloane.blogspot.com/2013/08/indie-block-party-day-two-my-work-in_20.html
http://stacyclaflin.com/2013/08/20/indie-block-party-my-work-in-progress
http://authorjdbrown.blogspot.com/2013/08/indie-block-party-post-2-ema-marx-series.html
http://rolandclarke.com/2013/08/20/current-wip
http://burnsmillie.blogspot.com/2013/08/wip-zeleras-revenge-at-least-thats-what.html
http://nerdygnome.wordpress.com/2013/08/19/introducing-the-latest-zombie-bedtime-story-bedlam-indiebp
http://lindsey-gray.blogspot.com/2013/08/indie-block-party-my-wip-holiday.html
http://libraryoferana.wordpress.com/2013/08/21/indie-block-party-post-3-work-in-progress
http://zenmadman.com/first-a-high-school-noir-novelette
http://shortsweetandsnappy.wordpress.com/2013/08/20/current-wip-indie-block-party
http://www.natashalarrybooks.com/my-current-wip-indie-block-party-day-2

yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon

10 Horror Movie Novelizations You Might Not Have Known Existed!

I have ALWAYS loved the idea of novelizations. Back when I was younger I was a sucker for these sorts of books.

Secret confession: I have ALWAYS wanted to write one of these. As a matter of fact I have a Dr. Phibes sequel half-scribbled in a binder somewhere in my back files. I wrote it when I was about sixteen or seventeen years old – which means it most likely sucked.

Still, I also have a complete feature script for a FRIDAY THE XIIIth movie that DIRECTLY followed that JASON IN MANHATTAN fiasco. It was called JASON IN LOVE – and believe it or not, it actually lives up to the title!
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Horror Novel Reviews

It isn’t uncommon to see a film based on a preexisting novel. Filmmakers have been tapping into the dark world of fiction since the early days of celluloid. But what many don’t realize is that these days we’re gifted novels that are actually based on movies. Novelizations have become increasingly more popular over the last 50 years.

There are some awesome transfers out there, and while many are well known (the Halloween novelizations for example, or more recently efforts like 30 Days of Night and Pacific Rim), there’s a hefty bunch of novelizations that you may not have known existed. Well, it’s time to highlight a few of those works, check out 10 novels that are based on successful films!

The Fog by Dennis Etchison (1980): You likely all know the film, as it was one of John Carpenter’s early shining moments (despite poor initial box office sales) and…

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THIRTY PERCENT DISCOUNT ON FLASH VIRUS OMNIBUS – THIS WEEKEND ONLY!

HEY KOBO BOOK-LOVERS!

This weekend – from August 16 to August 19 I am offering a BIG FAT (and I am an expert at Big and Fat) – THIRTY PERCENT DISCOUNT off of my Flash Virus Omnibus.

So – what is Flash Virus about? Well, it’s a full length novel originally released in five episodes.

It is the story of a teenager who faces the end of the world and how he deals with it.

The way to take advantage of this limited time offer is to use this promo code.

Code: Get30Off
Discount: 30%
Uses: One use per customer
Sale dates: Aug 16-19 11:59pmEST

Remember – FLASH VIRUS OMNIBUS.

Accept NO substitutes.

Cover me – the art of choosing the best cover for your next release

My latest guest blog appearance at the KOBO WRITING LIFE blog.

Cover me – the art of choosing the best cover for your next release.

WARNING – If the sight of a grown man dancing in pajamas on his front lawn is going to offend you – well, you might want to put on a blindfold before reading this blog entry.

Just saying…

And if you liked that article you might ALSO want to check out this one.

yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon

The Naked Truth About Self-Publishing

I’ve nearly finished reading this e-book the once and I expect to go around the second time.

There’s a heck of a lot of inside information here – some REALLY helpful material.

The book is primarily slanted towards the romance writers – but if you don’t glean something from the pages of this THE NAKED TRUTH ABOUT SELF-PUBLISHING = then you really ought to go talk to an eye-doctor on account of there is something SERIOUSLY wrong with your reading glasses.

The best thing about this book is it is CURRENT – and that’s important in self-publishing. The rules of this gig are in a state of perpetual evolution – which is why a book such as this one is of vital importance.

The “How I did it” chapters at the end of the book were some of my favorite parts to read. They were downright inspirational.

In fact – if I wasn’t so all-fired manly I’d probably sit down and write me a romance – but face it – I’ve got so much testosterone in my genetic make-up that Chuck Norris has me on his blood donor list.

For inspiration, information and in-depth instruction you cannot beat THE NAKED TRUTH ABOUT SELF-PUBLISHING.

Pick up a copy now, why don’t you?

(it’s also available in Kindle and other formats, if Kobo isn’t your drug of choice)

via The Naked Truth About Self-Publishing.

Yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon

Kobo Writing Life Podcast – Episode 003 with Sean Platt and David Wright

These guys have DONE what I am still trying to do with FLASH VIRUS. Well worth listening to.

Kobo Writing Life Podcast – Episode 003 with Sean Platt and David Wright.