Heinlein's Rules

Robert Heinlein is one of my all time favorite authors. If not the all time. (It would be a tie between Heinlein and Verne). He wrote an essay about writing "speculative fiction" in which he stated five rules for writing. I thought I would post them here tonight, as they seem to back up my decision to push forward with my original plans for Tycho Station and the rest of the DragonHawk Saga. So, without further ado, here's Heinlein's Rules for writing:

Rule One: You Must Write
I try to write something every night, even if it is an entry here on the blog or some notes on one my stories. I don't always manage to write. Sometimes life just refuses to cooperate. But most of the time I am successful.

Rule Two: Finish What Your Start
Last summer I finshed Tycho Station. So I complied with that rule.

Rule Three: You Must Refrain From Rewriting, Except to Editorial Order
Well, that one was broken. Guess it's time to comply.

Rule Four: You Must Put Your Story on the Market
I've made a couple of half hearted attempts, with no luck (obviously)

Rule Five: You Must Keep it on the Market until it has Sold
Got to do Four before you can do Five...

Okay, now I have a plan. I know what I need to do. Time to get to work!

Dave

Damn the torpedos! Full Speed Ahead!

For the past year or so, I have dithered and waivered and hemmed and hawwed (?) around with Tycho Station, wondering if I should break it up into two stories, remove parts and make it smaller or maybe just start over. I have heard fellow writers and actual authors who have said that at 800 plus pages and over 218,000 words it is way too big for a first novel. So, I spent the last month moving, cutting, revising, editing, blah, blah, blah....

Enough! Sweep all that stuff aside and go forward with the version that I like. Its the only version that makes sense to me. Its a bit rough, but I think it will work...

To celebrate my decision I have added a new page called Exercpts from Tycho Station. You can find the link right under the DragonHawk Saga map. Click on the page and read about The Lioness.

Then leave a comment and let me know what you think!

Thanks!

Dave

Time to kick the tires and light the fires!

It occurred to me at work today, as I was struggling to write some terminal learning objectives and some enabling objectives for a refinery training program that I am working on. I realized that I was tired of tweaking things, fussing with templates, reformatting styles and shifting content around. Time to get back to what is important, THE WRITING!
So back to Tycho Station to finish the down-sizing and editing. Need to get it into position to be marketed. That's got to be the highest priority.

Cheers!

Dave

Gonna enter a contest...

I found out about a writing contest that I want to enter. Its called "Writers and Illustrators of the Future." It is a short story type contest (maybe a "novella"?) with a maximum length of 14,000 words. I have decided to take a "flash back" from one of my stories and try to work it into something that I can enter. I've only got about 2500 words so far, so a lot of work left to do. I've got until March 31 to enter the contest and even if I don't win anything, the judges will send me a written appraisal of my writing. That alone will be worth the effort. Here's a link to the website. Check it out and let me know what you think!

http://www.writersofthefuture.com/index.htm

Thanks!

Dave