The journal and sometimes blog of author, Joseph L. Selby.
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Dystopia, Genre, and Finishing the First Draft
You may find yourself asking, where has Joe been? He hasn’t been posting three times a day. That’s night like you. You may also find yourself living in a shotgun shack. You may find yourself in another part of the world. If it’s the former, December is when I have to work. And not just…
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He Makes the Turn! He Approaches the Finish Line! …OH NO, HE’S TRIPPED!
So all other obligations were set aside for this evening. Yes, I’m supposed to be making left overs so my wife has something to eat for lunch tomorrow, but she’ll understand. This is ART! I’m flying along and get to the last chapter (now considering making it the second to last). I’m about to have…
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The
HardestHarder PartYou’ll often hear that this or that is the hardest part of writing a book. Writing a good beginning. Writing a good first sentence. Writing the middle. Writing the end. Rewriting. Revising. Querying. Being rejected. The thing is there is no hardest part, just harder parts in relation to other parts at that moment. In…
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Look at the Tree
I am 5′ 7″. I have been told since I stopped growing1 that I am short. I am not short. The tallest person in my family after me is 5′ 1″. I am six inches taller than anyone else in my family. I am tall. When someone tells me I am short, (s)he is not…
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The Known Unknowns
Between my own experiences in the industry and the years I’ve spent participating in various industry blogs (pubrants, the Bransford, etc.), I am not too worried about what will come after I get an agent and sell a book. Or at least, I feel like I have a pretty solid understanding of most aspects. Except…
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The Drawl
I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been struggling on voice with JEHOVAH’S HITLIST. It’s not so much struggling as I can’t find it. It’s struggling in that I keep changing my mind, so the narrative text is horribly inconsistent. Here’s where I’ve been flipping. Take a nice classic rural drawl. Change of to a, drop the…
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No Sympathy for Bookstores
The general premise is that if you want to be a writer, you should buy books whenever you can, whether they are for yourself or gifts for others (this sentiment most often comes up around Christmas). I don’t have a problem with this, to be honest. Support the business you work in. Makes sense to…
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Grooving
Things on JEHOVAH’S HITLIST slowed down for a couple weeks. It occurred to me that I was fast approaching maximum word count and the pacing was too slow. I also was bored as a writer, which means I’ll probably be bored as a reader. I pushed through what I had and sped things up. That…
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The Roast Beef Sandwich…FROM HELL!
I held onto this comment because I wanted to maintain the positivity of Thanksgiving, my second-favorite holiday of the year. Five days later, it’s still such a wild ride that I’d feel horrible not sharing it with you. It is Wednesday evening, the night before Thanksgiving, and my wife has been preparing various foodstuffs for…
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Hellloooooo (Male) Nurse!
Just to be fare to all the readers out there after yesterday’s Julia Stiles pic, I totally have a man-crush on Nathan Fillion. He is, was, and always will be Captain Malcolm Reynolds. My obsession with Firefly is total1 and despite the days where he spams my twitter account trying to make a fad (the…