Category Archives: Guy Anthony De Marco

Welcome to 2016!

Craft & Skills Guy Anthony De Marco The Writing Process 1 Comment

Happy New Year! Welcome to 2016, and may it be your best year yet.

It’s almost cliché to open January with a “let’s come up with resolutions that we can ignore at the first sign of trouble” topic. Instead, I thought it would be a better idea to focus this month on ways you can actually achieve those writing goals of yours.

We’ll have a wide range of items to help you make January a success. Articles include:

  • Software to help your productivity.
  • Personal methods working authors employ to get their projects completed.
  • Motivation and tips for those days when your muse was out getting hammered at the local watering hole last night.
  • Setting and reaching reasonable and achievable goals.
  • Suggested non-fiction books (and reviews) that are worth your time.
  • Tips for plotting your next book, and tips for winging it.
  • …and plenty more!

Guests this month include Petra Klarbrunn, Stant Litore, and Annik Valkanberg.

In 2016 the Fictorians will debut a monthly author interview series. The project will debut on January 29th, the last weekday of the month. You can expect a new interview monthly.

Tune in every weekday for a new article focusing on the writing lifestyle. Let’s go!

Happy Holidays!

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‘Twas ten seconds before Christmas, and all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring, except for an author still working on a story.
Deadlines, deadlines…

Since today is actually Christmas, at least in my time zone, I’d like to wish you and yours a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. If you’re not one who follows this holiday, than I wish you a Happy Kwanzaa, a Happy Chanukkah, or even a Blessed Solstice. The point is, I hope you’re going to be interacting with someone in close physical proximity instead of using your keyboard or smartphone. This year, that won’t be me. It’s a quiet yet oddly warm evening out here in flyover country. This is the second Christmas in a row that I’ll be celebrating alone. Last year, I volunteered to move two of my kids across the country, since my publishing company owns a large box truck. I ended up stranded in a snowstorm when the windshield wipers and the cabin heater broke. At least this year I’m at my writing cabin, and it’s warm. I’d better knock on some wood before I toss it in the fireplace.

Writing can be quite a lonely profession. We all get caught up in whatever writing project or looming deadline that is fast approaching, and we forget that it’s the season to pay attention to those around you. You see a lot of writing advice talking about focusing on writing. There’s a corollary to that thought. Don’t forget to live. Don’t forget to interact. Don’t forget to appreciate those you care about, because one day you might find yourself stranded in a blizzard or alone in a quiet house. Neglecting the truly important things around you just to get the final polish on a short story isn’t worth it. Spend some time with those you love, or even those you tolerate. Sometimes the story is polished enough and you can shove it out the door so you can go play catch with your kid or make your significant other a candlelit dinner.

After all, all work and no play makes Jack go a little crazy in the Overlook Hotel.

Happy Holidays from everyone here at The Fictorians.

Writing How-To’s for Fun and Profit

Guy Anthony De Marco The Writing Process 1 Comment

I have many author friends who get burned out after writing a book-length collection of short stories or a novel. They start dreading their next project, having just toiled away for weeks or months.
“Why not cleanse your palate by writing a non-fiction book,” I’d ask. After some grumbling bout how tough it is to write non-fiction, some actually do give it a try—and they add to their published bibliography and, sometimes, their bank account.

Everyone has something they like to do, or they have some special knowledge that they think is too mundane to do anything with it. For example, I have an ancient hand-written notebook of recipes from my great-grandmother and grandmother. This was at the turn of the 19th century, before refrigeration and electricity were commonplace on farms, through the Great Depression and the first World War. They didn’t waste anything back in those days. Actually, there’s a cookie recipe in there specifically for milk that had spoiled. Yes, they are delicious and they don’t smell like rancid milk.

I’m going to take those old recipes and put them together in a period cook book, padding them out with some recipes from my dearly departed mother and my brother, Gilbert, who is quite the accomplished chef. His pumpkin cheesecake is to die for. Gilbert will be a co-author, as will the rest of the family.

I used to be in the Information Technology field for 37 years. I have a large collection of installation guides I wrote for software installation, as well as server installation and maintenance. I’ve been putting out short how-to guides under a pseudonym for a while, and combined they provide a nice revenue stream to support a charity I selected. That pseudonym is now seen as an expert in the field, even though he technically doesn’t exist.

You have plenty of things you enjoy doing, I’m sure. For example, if you enjoy being the Dungeon Master for your local Dungeons and Dragons group, consider publishing your homemade modules using one of the open, generic gaming systems. A great place to find samples is to visit DriveThruRPG.com and look for some of the freebie modules. I’ve published a couple of books back in the 1980’s with some of my unique items, creatures, traps, and modules. I have over 300 that have been used during the years I played consistently. In fact, consider designing your very own game, possibly centered around gaming systems like Savage Worlds or Pathfinder, or even one of the open-source gaming systems.

I enjoy target shooting, so I wrote a short tutorial under a pseudonym for authors who want to have additional realism added to their gun-wielding characters. I’ve also produced books on topics ranging from how authors can use QR Codes to improving your WordPress author website.

All of these are things I do anyway for fun, so by taking the time to write things down, organize them into a coherent work, and then convert and publish, I get to have another book for my revenue stream and to increase my authoritative stature in my chosen fields. Sometimes, it even brings in a trickle of funds. Enough trickles can eventually combine into an Amazon-sized river. (See what I did there?) I have also collected articles together and either used them as a giveaway on my blog (combined into PDF, ePub, and Mobi versions), or sold them for a very low price, such as 25 cents using Amazon’s price-matching system. Other times I use them as a fund-raiser for charities.

If you need a break, consider writing something non-fiction. After it’s published, you’ll feel refreshed and ready to tackle that 500-page tome of fantasy you’ve been contemplating.

Wrapping Up October (Mummy-Style!)

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We’ve had a heck of a scary month at the Fictorians. Halloween is tomorrow, when the undead and the kiddies wander around playing trick-or-treat. Earlier this month, we had the real horror — presidential debates and political congressional hearings took over the airwaves. It’s Christmas for folks who love dark fiction and black humor.

We’ve heard from wonderful guest authors this month, such as Nicole Cushing, Tonya De Marco, Matthew Warner, Petra Klarbrunn, Pamela K. Kinney and Annik Valkanberg.  Some of them appeared for first time on the Fictorians. We’ve learned all about writing horror and dark fiction from the usual suspects, plus how to mix genres together, get romantic with the dark side, and even channeling dark periods in one’s life into fiction.

Next month, we’ll be concentrating on writing non-fiction, including query letters and blurbs.

For the first time on the Fictorians, tomorrow on Halloween we have a treat for you. After you’re back from raiding the candy stores of your neighbors, curl up under a blanket, munch on a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, and visit us for some flash-fiction scary stories from the Fictorians and their friendly honored guests.