I find myself in a little rut where I might write things like "Jim ran to the door," and so on. The upshot of it is that I end up writing a character's name way too many times, especially at the start of paragraphs.

To counteract this, I try to kick off a sentence with action. I love action-oriented writing anyway, so this is perfect. It goes something like this: "Leaping to his feet, Jim ran to the door."

Another way to break up sentence structure is to be more descriptive. Every single thing a character says or does is an opportunity to build up more story and interest in the character, so don't squander it! You could give a simple action more punch like this: "With a scowl on his face that could melt ice, Jim leapt to his feet and ran to the door."

Same guy running to the same door, but now we've got emotion built into it. Of course, you can also fill out the scene a bit more by describing the tension in the room before Jim jumps to his feet. That would let the scene build up before he jumps up and runs off. Or you could add details like "Jim leapt to his feet, overturning his chair as he raced to the door." I find it's easy to overdo that kind of thing, but it's great if you use it in small spoonfuls.

That's enough for now. Go write something! Just a paragraph. Go. Begone.

I hope everyone had a great holiday. I am thankful to one agency for quickly responding to my query letter with a kindly-written rejection. Usually, rejection letters I get say "Good stuff, just not for us." I think they were saying that they just weren't feeling this one, but that someone else might think differently.

That's OK. You've got to go through the rejection process. Get out there and start collecting NOs as fast as you possibly can! Collect them. Own them. Embrace them. Let's say you send out your book to a hundred people and only ONE is a good fit for you. Ergo, you need to get a few dozen NOs before you get a YES. Heck, you might even get 99 NOs before your YES.

What really sucks is no answer at all. So, I'm thankful for the NO. Now I'm not sitting here wondering if my query letter got caught in their spam box.

And in secret project news, I've sent out three more query letters to agents. My goodness! I hate their stodgy and irritable guidelines! Read between the lines and it says "Be awesome, sit up and bark like a dog or we'll throw your junk in the trash. You writers are a dime a dozen."

Encouraging, no?

I've given my proofs a good once-over and have fixed a few issues. Now, I've got a friend looking at a copy for typos this weekend. Next, I'll have to re-submit the update, get another round of proofs and sign off on them...assuming there are no more problems.

By the way, Amazon Create Space did a marvelous job printing these books. I'm very happy with the final result.

"Nothing personal," he said as he pulled the trigger and let the hammer fall, but I got news for you: when somebody kills you, it's personal.

I woke up in cold storage, yelling "God no! Just kill me if you got any conscience at all." But the techs don't really listen. They just plug you into the network and throw the switch that makes you part of the system for good. Sure, they might be able to save your skin, but where's the money in that?

I woke up in the grid like anybody else, disoriented and ticked, and determined to catch the lousy scum that put me here, just like anybody else. Difference is, I'm actually gonna do it. It may be the first in the history of the system, but I'm gonna find that guy and I'm gonna kill him. Spread the word. Tell 'em Ace Card says so.

Man, I've been feeling awful since last weekend, fighting a cold. However, I got my fanny in gear and uploaded an updated copy of Empyre Robotika to Amazon Kindle. This has some minor setup tweaks and a new cover. I called it version 1.2.

Here is the front cover as it stands right now. I might do some more tweaking. I have GOT to say that CreateSpace (Amazon's print on demand arm) is very handy and easy to work with, but some of the things like cover design and getting the inside laid out correctly could be a huge pain for people who aren't graphics experts.

(As you may know, I do graphic design for a living, so it was all quite clear for me, but I realized it could prove challenging for others.)

Well, I hope you like it. Please let me know!

I'd rather bend the rules or make them up as I go along. That's probably why I like the solitary nature of writing and the purely creative nature of fiction, particularly SF/Fantasy, and even more so with Young Adult lit. The rules are very loose and consist of whatever you make up at the outset.

Enter publishers, writer's agents, and all their restrictive rules. You approach a potential publisher and it seems like they roll UP the red carpet and start pushing the button to call for security. The ball is totally in their court, after all, and they have hundreds of writers who are clearly better than me just waiting in line to fall at their feet. Or, so you would think by going over their submission guidelines.

Anyhoo. It's annoying. That is all.

I find that the more I write, the more often I get story ideas popping into my head. Surprisingly enough, they start materializing in whole or in large chunks of ideas.

Just the other day I had a terrific opener that I meant to post as "Flash Fiction Friday" had I not completely missed doing a Flash Fiction Friday. Don't hate me. Go write something.