Friday, February 10, 2012

Moving Day

Besides being present here on Blogger, content of the Pages For Small Wages blogging experiment have been distributed across the web on Wordpress, LiveJournal, Tumblr , OFW, The Writers Playground, Twitter, Facebook and other places too numerous to mention.


This past month, Pages For Small Wages made its move to its own domain at PagesForSmallWages.com







This meant decisions had to be made, for one can only spend so much time on so many places on the web... which means time spent not writing, or rather not working on the various novels that are currently in my Work in Progress (WiP) pile [read:mound].

After agonising over the choices, I've decided to merge the content of our home here on Blogger with our WordPress site, which is mirrored on our new domain webpage.

This site will remain, at least for the foreseeable future, as an archive and active link site.

Thank You for making us a part of your life.


Saturday, January 7, 2012

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, Off To The Lists We Go

If this were one of my stories, the title above would involve a walled or hedge-lined berm upon which swords, maces and other weapons are swung by knights or knights-training at their peers.
As this is a Blog on the Internet, what we are paying attention to at this time of year are the other kinds of lists.
First on my list-of-lists are the ones wherein we try to identify the things we liked most… or least from the previous year. Books, movies, songs, etc… They all wind up on somebody's lists.
Some people write lists in order to sway public opinion for… or against particular people, places or things that go bump in the night. Cities, politicians, artists, authors, musicians… They all wind up on someone’s list.
Make it on enough lists and you graduate to some ‘Great list-of-lists’ that someone, somewhere, is keeping… most likely in order to know what you like so they can sell you more of it.   
I won't bore you with my own lists, partially because they're lists of plot mechanisms, story-line queues and Pet PeevesI keep mine in cages and rarely feed them… but primarily as I know plenty of other people with either more fertile imaginations or axes to grind have already done theirs.
So, I wish you happy hunting, with my blessings.
Next on my list-of-lists is the New Years Resolutions list wherein people promise to do… or not to do, that is the question… better in the coming year.
Since these lists have the life expectancy of a glass of ones favourite alcoholic beverage… like the ones consumed prior to the making of 'The List', we'll ignore them and move on.
My second-to-least favourite kind are what have become known as Bucket-Lists; a list of all the things we want to do and places we want to go before we kick the proverbial bucket and become nothing more than a cached-copy in the archives of the Internet and a side-note in the great Wiki-on-the-web-of-life.
Most bucket-lists are, in-my-not-so-humble opinion, hyperbole.
Perhaps I've been lucky, or simply fortunate, or maybe not. I've been able to travel and see much of the world around us (and have wished at various times and in various places not to have), and do most of the things I wished I could do… especially those I wished when I was a child … but none of my lists had anything to do with buckets.
They were my dreams… my goals in life that through blood, sweat and grit I could, and did accomplish. Some have been worthwhile, others weren't worth the yak-spit they incurred or the shekels they cost… and some I have yet to do, but as I am a glass (or bucket) half-full kind of person, I have no intention of emptying mine. I intend to have it sloshing over the top, looking to fill yet another.
Last but not least; my least favoruite kind of lists (and I imagine yours as well) are the ones we make to remind us of the things we need to do 'when we get a ‘round tuit' and then promptly ignore them… The infamous To-Do List(s)
Authors Note: I have a drawer full of 'Round Tuits' that have been for the most part doing nothing more than collecting dust… in case anyone would like to help me out with a list or three. 

Thursday, December 29, 2011

On Fiction Writing: A Brief History


Several years and millions of words ago, an idea was borne from thought to reality by the efforts of handful of writers who believe in their craft: a place where people serious about the craft of fiction writing could gather and discuss issues close to their heart and relevant to their work.

As every good idea does, it needed a home in a place where writers and books and the people who love to read them would gather.

It began as a group in a quiet corner of a busy thoroughfare on the Goodreads platform.

On Fiction Writing

In this group, we discuss storytelling and the hazardous road to publication in its many guises from the standpoint of craft and technique. This group is not a showcase or an arena to promote our particular works. We seek to debate how we research, structure, plot, draft, edit, write, and rewrite our novels. How we format, condense, and prepare synopsis, proposals, blurbs, and hooks. And how we plan our assault to the seemingly impregnable fortress of the establishment: agents and publishers.


Our founder, a quiet ...stop laughing, please!.. but serious man of letters, author Carlos J Cortes.

Exceeding hopes, the group grew, and best of all: it acquired as member a group of writers who were serious about their craft.




From this humble beginning came first the 2009 anthology, Ménage à 20: Tales with A Hook (Twenty Goodreads Authors).







A 2010 anthology release had been planned, but what with one thing and another and the vagaries of the publishing world, it did not happen.

Meanwhile, Carlos and Renee Miller, another of the writer/moderators of OFW had been having other ideas. They wanted to write a book on fiction writing.  Not just another book, but a definitive work on the state-of-the-art of fiction writing, from the germ of an ide to getting published, in todays changing world of publishing.  

What came of that effort was ‘the writers best friend’, The Writers Companion, published in 2011.












Now, follow-your-heart and all other platitudes aside, writing is a serious business. 

It was obvious from the beginning of OFW that to attract serious writers to a place where they could not only discuss and work at their craft but also be rewarded for their effort, one needed to provide a platform, one that would be able to provide and sustain dynamic content.

And so, after much hard work, profanity, sweat sleepless nights and alcohol … 

Beginning January 2012, On Fiction Writing will have a new home:






















We hope to see you there in the new year.