Weekly Goals

Doo-rah. Abso-fricking-lutely right. BIG DITTO on those goals and comments...

I like your goals... Including the Tablet and smart phone. (Great if you are checking in with website)


But of course your comment on writing... Is it not what writing is about... write, write, write... then EDIT, EDIT, EDIT... (20+ hour sessions after 100K words can make you crazy, but some pro author said that it is VERY necessary.) I do believe it was Ray Bradbury who told me that once when i saw him and met him in person. I got a handshake, and an autographed book, (one literary one i always keep in the book shelf) from Ray Bradbury when i said i was interested in writing fantasy/science fiction. I was so privileged to actually get to speak to him for 5 minutes. I was humbled by his knowledge. He was always a personal inspiration to me, as well as Jack Chalker after that (email corresponded to Jack Chalker in the mid 90's) I got great literary advice.

I always thank their inspiration for their works to help me stay focused, even after their deaths in 2005 and 2012. Alot of writing has kept me focused for twenty-years but theirs has been notable... i surely read alot too... There was not an instant in school and college i did not have a book in hand... or with me... Taken away to some strange land... You'd always find me in reality-land in the Main or Branches of the Library... :)

Also noted and read: Issac Asimov (I robot), C.S. Lewis (Narnia Chronicles), Frank Herbert (First Dune Series) Later his son, Brian Herbert (Dune Sequels and abridged novels), Robert A. Heinlein (Stranger in a Strange Land, Friday), Piers Antony (Ogre Ogre), Gail Baudino (Strands of Starlight / Water! Series), Gene Roddenberry (Star Trek) And Various Trek novelists, Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), Herman Wouk (Winds of War, Caine Mutiny), James Clavell (Shogun, Taipei, King Rat), and Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan Series, John Carter on Mars) Also Glen Larson (Buck Rogers in the 25th Century / Battlestar Galactica), Uchū Senkan Yamato (Star Blazers, Yamato Films), and Edgar Allen Poe (various stories and poetry)


I am glad to see that a younger generation is being encouraged into the world of writing. That's great, but make sure she is well read too... Better read, the better you write. I have done that and i found myself well inspirited.

If she is young... start her off with the love for reading. --

Here is a fun thing if shes older: (and it works to stop writer's block, getting ideas going)

Take a pen pencil and a pad with you and jot down anything interested (blog in short notes) what you see. I have done it for a long time and received GREAT ideas off those notes, and used them in a couple of independent shorts (revamping). From there have taken the ideas on another sheet of paper and just let my imagination run wild to expand those ideas with the "Brainstorming" Technique. There is a fun idea for you and your granddaughter. Do that and see what you get. You would be surprised!

Example: What i saw: building with a steam vent making a billow of smoke into the sky, with bullet shaped junipers in front. A trolly train rolling past it on a track, with people aboard being dropped in and out of a nearby platform.

What i can imagine: A space station with buck rogers rockets ready for lift off and the busy workers and space passengers rushing to their rocket from the nearby train that takes and brings them to the station for immediate liftoff to another world on board their rocket.


See that is kinda fun to let loose. :)


Don't give up with your goals, despite any rejection letter you get when you try publishing. (a real live book) I would suggest, and advise that you also use nicestories.com or storymania.com websites in addition to this one. Publishers seem to like to read amateur sites and have sent me requests to publish a story. (no proceeds of course) but you get a copy of the publication. It is a perfect way to get your foot in the door. A helpful tip...


and of course keep on going... WRITE, WRITE, WRITE... don't stop... and don't give up. it takes a lot of revising and determination to get somewhere. (suggest a publisher's guide to writing too) Those books especially older copies can give you ins and outs of interested parties. (another suggestion that i have found to be greatly useful)

I hope you have great luck in writing.

Regards,

FA Nathaniel A. Miller, USN Ret.