More Russell Blake - Building Houses

Russell says - A friend of mine emailed me today, worried. The email asked whether I’d seen the latest review on one of my books. I said, no, I largely don’t read ‘em anymore. She didn’t believe me, and was aghast at the complaints over the writing in the book. Outraged, more like it.

Here’s my take: criticism is a difficult topic to approach dispassionately, as a content creator of any kind, but if you’re to succeed you need to have a system for evaluating it, so you can learn from the meritorious critiques and flush the garbage.

I used to design and build luxury homes. Big ones. Six, seven thousand feet, on the beach.

When you design homes, it’s much like writing a book, in that your target audience (the client) will express preferences in the style of architecture they favor. Some like contemporary, others Mediterranean. Some demand as many columns and arches and curves as possible, others want only straight, clean lines. One person’s fugly might be another’s treasure. Rather like babies, that. And nobody’s really wrong, assuming the design’s competently executed.

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Douglas

The Ultimate List of Books About Writing

Gary Smailes of BubbleCow was very helpful to me in editing some of my first writing in 2011. I still receive copies of his blog and think his post this week is worth passing on.

Books about writing are common place. No matter what you feel about the age-old debate of 'teaching creative writing', one thing is true - a good grounding in the technical side of writing will make you a better writer. 'Show, don't tell', has almost become a cliché, but if you are unable to 'tell' a story in the best way possible, your writing will suffer. And let's face it, writers love to write books about writing!

After years of editing at BubbleCow, we have read and absorbed hundreds of books about writing. This article highlights those books about writing that actually work. The aim is to give you a collection of books which, when read as a whole, will make you a better writer. The criteria for inclusion on the list is that they support the three principles on which we teach and edit.

1. A modern simplicity and clean writing style.
2. The importance of using dialogue and action to tell the story (show, don't tell).
3. The essential nature of structure (3/5 act).

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Douglas

April and May Meetings

The Inkplotters at their April meeting listened to details of a new member’s fantasy writing partnership, an interrogation, a talking book and a thrilling prison cell discussion. Topic for next meeting on 18 May 2015 – An Escape. Further details see web site. www.leamingtonspawriters.org.uk

Douglas

40 Books in 43 Months Wow!

Russell Blake says ...

I just typed “The End” on my 40th book in 43 months of self-publishing. It felt pretty good. And I think it reads better than the first book I wrote, but that’s debatable, because that first one (Fatal Exchange) still sells well when I promote it, and still garners great reviews. It would suck if I’ve gotten worse, but that’s also possible. Guess I’ll have to wait to see how the reviews come out on JET – Escape to know for sure.

I responded honestly that it feels like I’m starting to get the hang of it. I’m taking a month off in April to recharge my batteries, and then will be knocking out another couple of novels in May and June.

A buddy of mine asked me how it feels to have written a solid 4 million words in about four years, not counting blog posts or message board missives, which probably easily brings it to 5 million.For those who’ve missed my prior posts on process, here’s a quick reminder of the habits I follow to write an awful lot of books in a relatively short period of time ...

read on - http://russellblake.com/40-books-in-43-months/

Thanks Russell 

Douglas