• General

    Creativity in the Time of Corona

    May 5, 2020

    Like the rest of the world, us folks in Kansas have been dealing with the Rona. Yes, before you ask, my wife and I are safe. We’re both set working from home, and Kansas City is not nearly as hard hit as other parts of the country. Still, it’s been a weird time. The last time we saw friends was the weekend after my birthday, March 8th, roughly 84 years ago. So much has changed since then, and every week feels like a month. I’ve wanted to lay out my own experiences and how my creativity has been doing this…

  • General

    Let Them Hide in the Goddamn Pipe – aka the Tautological Fallacy

    March 3, 2020

    Okay, hear me out through the pretentious sounding title – this is legitimately a very common mistake I made all the time when I was a newer writer. I’d been talking about it on Twitter over the weekend, and wanted to organize my thoughts a little more coherently so that hopefully other people can avoid this mistake. Let me give you a couple of examples. On my first big attempt at a fantasy novel, I had a plot hole where I needed my characters to figure out where a specific prisoner was held. I had done a lot of worldbuilding…

  • General

    Squad Up

    February 25, 2020

    My day job is marketing at an insurance company. We just had the busiest week of the year for us; it’s a big reason why I’ve been so scarce. What we end up doing is having a lot of our agents back in the home office. Before we go much further, I need to clarify something important. A day in the life of a typical insurance salesman is…. rough. It’s a lot of time sitting in your car, driving, meeting new people for a short time, and then driving again. It’s a very isolating job for our agents, even our…

  • Videos

    Why I’m Not Self Publishing

    February 7, 2020

    This week’s video breaks down the difference between traditional publishing and self publishing. Pick your Tool Something I hope that comes across clearly in the video is that these are tools. Self publishing is the perfect tool for some people; traditional publishing works well for others. They also aren’t mutually exclusive – several authors like Gail Carriger manage to both self publish AND traditionally publish. So, for me? I don’t want to self publish my novels. For me a big reason why not has to do with the distribution networks traditional publishing has. I firmly believe that gives me a…

  • General

    Rest is “Doing Something”

    January 28, 2020

    This past weekend did not go exactly as planned. Thursday night I was up until after midnight finishing up the touches needed for releasing the latest video (which, incidentally, thank you all for the support. People have really been entertained by Ron, and that makes me happy). Friday nights are a night off to spend with my wife. Then the original plan was Saturday, with my wife working that day, I would head to my favorite coffee shop and GET SHIT DONE. Plow through that to-do list; update those mug templates, bash out that synopsis, write the next video, plan…

  • Videos

    Mistakes People Make Selling

    January 24, 2020

    This Week’s Video If you follow me on Twitter at all, you know I hop on my soapbox all the time about how people make basic mistakes while pitching through social media. I’ve said it in multiple threads, I’ve said it on my last video about marketing, and I’ll probably say it more in the future. “But Mike,” you might ask, “What are those mistakes people make?”That’s where this week’s video comes in. Behold, several of the common mistakes people make while pitching, all nicely illustrated: What Goes Wrong? I give a lot of examples in the video, but I…

  • General

    Goals for 2020

    January 14, 2020

    After my decade in review, some folks said “That’s great, but… what are your goals for 2020?” It’s something that got lost in all this bigger scale reflection. The thing is, whenever people ask me my goals, I get nervous. It’s complicated. Not because don’t have goals, but because, when it comes to goals I feel like this guy: I actually think a lot about my goals. So when people ask me what my goals are that’s not a simple question and part of me wonders “Well do you really want to know? Because bub I got yearly, quarterly, and…

  • Videos

    A Decade in Writing & Calling yourself a Writer

    January 10, 2020

    Holy crap it’s a new decade already. That’s incredible to me. This weeks video I wanted to go over just what that decade of writing has been like for me – from the very beginning, in 2010, when I had quit writing and wanted to tip toe back after years away from it, to 2020 where I’m working on my 8thish novel and sending out my 42nd query. There is one thing I wanted to touch on in the video that didn’t quite make the final cut. It took me a long time to come back to writing and fully…

  • General

    A note – I hate blogging

    January 6, 2020

    “Reading is magic. Writing? That’s work.“ Dear readers. I have a confession: I hate blogging. That seems heretical to be writing in what is literally the first blog post on this page, but there it is. There’s always other people out there who have incredibly detailed reviews. People who talk in great depth about topics. People who are eloquent and witty in just that combination that makes for an addicting blog post worth visiting all the time. I can’t say that’s me. I haven’t had a TV in house since 2005, and while I do use streaming services the key…