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Channel: Writing – J. Daniel Sawyer
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Updates, general and specific

I’m stopping in to give you all a quick digest on my recent activities, which have been many, prolific, and at hopefully somewhat scandalous. First, the appearances. You can find me on recent episodes...

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Kiwi Sourdough: The Biggest News Yet!

I am pleased to announce that my friend and sometimes actor Philippa Ballantine and I will be collaborating on a new project this year. Although my creative partner on this endeavor and I are both...

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Buried Alive in an Anthology

I am pleased to report that the story I originally wrote for Philippa Ballantine‘s podcast project Erotica a la Carte has just sold to Circlet Press, and will be included in their forthcoming anthology...

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If You Build It, Will They Come?

Free content – particularly in the audio fiction space – suddenly seems a lot less of a perpetual free lunch than it did six months ago, and it’s got a lot of folks freaking out in my corner of the...

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It’s Time To Bust It Open

As part of my self-education as a writer learning to market his work, I’ve been watching trends in e-books and audiobooks as well as publishing industry trends, and thinking about them in the context...

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The Pod Complex

[amazon-product align="right" bgcolor="#99CCCC" height="240" width="120" frameborder="1"]189749209X[/amazon-product]It may be a minor thing in retrospect, but today it’s tickling my socks off. My first...

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The Great Ass-Moving Experiment

As a writer, like most writers, I have one giant terror point. For some people it’s the writing. For some people it’s showing your work to friends, or to strangers. For some people it’s marketing in...

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Back in the Podcasting Saddle with Guns

Those of you following the Balticon and Contracts series on the blog have probably been wondering where the hell I’ve been – and those of you following the podcasts are really wondering. Well, I’ve...

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Microsoft: Consistent Quality Through The Ages

A few months back, after grinding my eight-year-old generic ergo keyboard into the ground I found myself in need of a new ergonomic keyboard. The keyboard failed on a deadline, so I had little choice...

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Writing Odyssey: The Binge

By the time I finish writing this article, I’ll have written 123,000 words in fifty days. The output constitutes two short-book-length works (one novel, one reference work), nine blog posts, two...

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Writing Odyssey: Lessons Learned

If you want the background for this post, check The Binge post for a description of my recent unintentional astronomical word count adventure. Short version: I wrote one hundred twenty three thousand...

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How To Spot a Zombie

Zombie industries are all around us–these are businesses whose models have ceased to be relevant and they’re just waiting for something better to knock them over. This doesn’t mean they’re not still...

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The Ideal Rejection Letter

An editor friend of mine recently asked me what I would consider an ideal rejection letter, if I were a hopeless writer with delusions of adequacy and no command of grammar. (I’m pretty sure the “If I...

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Announcement: And Then She Was Gone

On Halloween Weekend, October 29th to be exact, a new series debuts at Amazon.com and in the other major ebook markets. A man of infinite social grace he isn’t, but what former disgraced Oakland Police...

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Link Salad, Oct 22 2010

And, from the kitchen this weekend we have for you a lovely Link Salad, with leaves of history and science, garnished with a healthy dose of whimsy. But first, I begin with a special treat for my...

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That Plateau Feeling is an Illusion

The following is intended for other writers working to find their stride. I hope something in the following meanderings is useful to you as you hash out your process. Fall is crazy, right? Halloween,...

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Link Salad 12/27/10

Time for your vegetables again — these are some of the highlights of my research journeys hither and yon in the great wasteland of cyberspace. Hope you enjoy! Vanity On the ever-so-self-indulgent...

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Link Salad, Jan 10, 2011

It’s mid January, and time for your vegetables. This year’s first link salad is here–I hope you enjoy this sampling of my weidrness and wanderings from around the web! Vanity For your starter today,...

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The Great Cull (Free Will Update)

When I started writing The Antithesis Progression, I had a nice, tidy three-book series in mind. Then I wrote it, and discovered that what I thought was book 1 was actually 2 books cleverly hiding...

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Who’s an Outlier, Again?

A funny thing happens during times of great industrial upheaval: Everyone wants a piece of the new deal, but nobody wants to take what they perceive to be a risk. Most established players retrench,...

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Literary Studies, Anyone?

Disclaimer: What follows is a rant about something that can screw up the creative process. This post is more esoteric than is normal for this blog. It contains a lot of jargon, and talks a lot about...

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Failing the Wikipedia Test

Writing fiction in the age of the Internet can be fraught for the author who values authenticity–particularly if you write historical or technical fiction. Since the glorious thing about writing...

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Playing Jazz With Words

You hear a lot of talk of “discovery writers” and “outliners” in the writing world. The “pantsers” and the “plotters,” respectively. It’s true that there are a lot of people that fall into both...

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Tinker, Tailor, Topple, Die

So, you want to make your work–book, movie, sculpture, whatever–perfect, don’t you? You want it to shine. And you’re going to polish it, rewrite it, re-imagine it, and retcon it every chance you get?...

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Released: Suave Rob’s Double-X Derring-Do

Sometimes you can’t help smiling a mile wide just typing an announcement, and this is one of those times (for me–at least I assume I’m the one typing. Yup. Okay, then, on with the show). Today I get to...

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Dealing In, Episode 11

Download Subscribe Welcome to the First of the Free Will/Next Ten Thousand Hours Feedback shows! This one is episode eleven of the Dealing In series of feedback shows, where I and several friends...

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What’s Next After Crudrat

Attention Girls and Boys, Androids and those whom labels don’t quite fit: Crudrat is almost done. We’ve moved into the very final phases, which means that next week, the rest of the studio is gonna be...

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Blogging Book 3 (Antithesis/Mannix)

So, I've got a big book in front of me. One that I've been avoiding for years because, frankly, I'm afraid of it. When I finished writing Free Will (soon to be The Vindicators), I was exhausted....

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“Infected” review

“There’s nothing worse than having an itch you can never scratch.” -Leon, Blade Runner Dr. Seuss wrote marvelous childrens books filled with clever word plays that kept them interesting for the adults...

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Entitlement mentality

This post is mostly for my own benefit, feel free to skip over it if you’re not interested in my dusty brain’s internal gear grindings. As I’ve been researching the current state of the biotech debate...

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Chasing the Bard fans – Welcome!

Welcome to all fans of Phillipa Ballantine’s Chasing the Bard! You’re doubtless moseying on over here because you heard me this week on The Story So Far and are wondering about those podcasts I...

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Predestination, Episode 5

Download Subscribe Here we go, boys and girls, with episode 3! Will Joss give into his conscience, or will he save his hide and get off the station as soon as possible? What’s really going on with Jim...

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The Moving Meter!

The wordcount meter for Down From Ten is moving again. After several weeks of solid non-stop podcasting, I couldn’t take it anymore and have picked the project that’s second on my priority list to...

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Of Pub Crawls, Publishers, Short Films, and Short Cons

This weekend kept me busy – posting the latest Antithesis episode, hitting the pub with Chris Lester and Seth Harwood, and hitting Silicon in San Jose. To start with, on Saturday night, I joined Chris...

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Getting the Words Right, part 1

When writing a period piece, whether that period is past or present, getting your terminology right is essential to maintaining the illusion. It’s also one of the easiest things to miss on a revision....

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Cold Duty goes live

As covered by SFFAudio, my story Cold Duty is now live at SteamPod. Head on over to hear a tale of a 100-years too early scientific and technological revolution that happens because a stable boy gets...

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Cold Duty runs on ClonePod

The folks at ClonePod liked Cold Duty so much that they ALSO bought it to run as a Christmas episode. You can find it by hitting this link here. Cold Duty: Selected Readings from the Diary of a...

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The Year that Almost Wouldn’t Die

Some highlights and lowlights of 2008 This year, particularly the second half, has seen a lot of people turn very pessimistic about, well, everything. Yeah, the economy’s slowing down. Yeah, people...

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Warning: Dead Robots Ahead

I was interviewed this week on The Dead Robots Society, where we discussed Predestination, producing full cast audiobooks, and the glorious delirium of writing. Hear it all here

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Site Updates

I’ve updated the Media Appearances and Publications pages, for those of you who want to be current on what I’ve been up to besides my podcasts and blogging.

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Buried Alive In The Blues

My story Buried Alive In The Blues is now live at Erotica A La Carte. Head on over and take a listen. You probably guessed this based on the name of the venue, but this story is definitely not suitable...

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First Lit/Phil article sold

Well, my friends (and enemies, and trespassers), I’ve just sold my first article that’s NOT about Linux. My essay “As The Gods Themselves…” about science fiction, religion, and the singularity is now...

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Down From Ten preview

Download Subscribe Here you are, all you wonderful listeners — a sneak preview of Down From Ten. Enjoy — and please distribute widely!

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Big Press Day!

Amazing day today full of good press for your humble narrator. It started off with your humble narrator being interviewed live on Podioracket’s BlogTalk Radio show. Shortly after I wrapped that up, an...

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The Dusty Office (Kabrakan/Antithesis Day 1125)

Down From Ten has been on my mind a lot, lately. A lot of reasons for it, I suspect, but the biggest one might be scenes like this: I’d like to claim that I’m waiting out the Era of the Jackpot in a...

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