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Story Updates and World Building

Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope you’re enjoying the holidays at home, being nice and cozy.

Chapter eight of A Study In Magic, the Application is up! You can read it on FFNET or get the whole book here. Now some closing thoughts and notes…

What Species of Snake is Nagini?

I recall JKR said in an interview Nagini is the Boa Constrictor Harry set loose in year one. The films used a Ground Boa. Harry in A Study In Magic met and had a conversation with a Burmese Python when Sherlock and John took him to the London Zoo (you can read about it here). (more…)

By booksofchange, ago

I Write To Finish

Note To Self: if you have the option of taking a day off after a night of foolish writing, take it.

About two weeks ago, I updated A Study In Magic: The Application. A year and six months had passed since I last updated the story, and I was nervous. Will the old readers remember the story? Will they ignore the update notification? Is the new chapter good and readable?

I updated at an ungodly hour in the morning. Fool that I am, I stayed up all night putting the final touches on the new chapter. That was bad enough, but I was also shaking off a cold that struck me down flat three days prior. God alone knows how I got to the office without causing an accident. Needless to say, I showed to work looking and feeling like death warmed up and microwaved in a plastic bowl. (more…)

By booksofchange, ago

The Ideal Writing Life, Part 2: Thinking the Problem Backward

221bOne the greatest gifts Sherlock Holmes gave to the world is popularizing the science of deduction. That is to say, he showed the layperson how to think a problem logically backward.

To address the question of figuring out the ideal writing life,  we should think about the final result. Most of us writers write so that others may read our craft. The end goal, then, is the reader. How do you want readers to find and read your story? Do you want them to find your book in a public library? Or do you want to make it available online for anyone who has an Internet connection? Or do you want readers to purchase your story? How you want readers to find your story is important because creating a story that is read is not the same as creating a story that sells.

(more…)

By booksofchange, ago