Friday Factoid is a blog feature where I’ll be sharing a little bit of background behind something from one of my books: ideas, characters, environments, pieces of research, you name it, it’s all fair game for the Friday Factoids! If you have a specific question, feel free to leave it in the comments or email me at jrfrontera@gmail.com! What will be featured this week? Read on to find out… about the rather boring names of gangs in the old west, and how that influenced my writing! Well, ... View Post
Writing “into the Dark” for NaNoWriMo 2019: The Set-Up
So as I mentioned in my last post, I'm not entirely starting with a blank canvas for my NaNoWriMo project. I'm not sure if that officially still makes it a "pantsed" novel or not, but I'm not here to argue semantics, so we'll just roll with it! Let me first say that this writing process, what Dean Wesley Smith calls "writing into the dark", is actually my natural writing process. When I sat down to write my first novel at 14 (in 1996), this is what I did. It worked for two novels. And ... View Post
NaNoWriMo 2019: Boldly Going Where No NaNoWriMo Has Gone Before!
At least for me. I've been doing NaNoWriMo since 2012. And I've won every year so far. Except I probably won't win this year. But that's okay. I debated not participating, but that seemed no fun, so I joined in despite the fact I have no real expectations of writing 50,000 words this November, given what else I have going on during that month. (Now watch, this will be the year I totally effortlessly crush it, or something.) Anyway, this fact that I'm not gun-ho to win is not what ... View Post
There can be no story without “The Spark”
Wait, am I about to get all "woo-woo" on you (to borrow the term my Writer Mom Life Podcast co-host Daphne uses and which I love)? Am I about to go on some long, poetic diatribe about how a book can only be properly written when the stars are aligned and your writing space is fengshui and The Almighty Muse is in-house and humming you soothing songs whilst rubbing your shoulders and pouring words lightning-fast into your fingers? No. Not at all. BUT I AM here to tell you that I ... View Post
HAPPY BOOK BIRTHDAY, STARSHIP ASS!!!
That's right! After more than twenty freakin' years of writing stories... after countless workshops and online courses on the craft of writing... after numerous conferences and non-fiction books on book marketing... The day has finally come... when at long last... I RELEASE MY DEBUT NOVEL!!!!! *insert manic cackling* But wait... didn't I already publish some books? Yes. Yes I did. But all of those books were very short. And the longest was a collection of short stories. So ... View Post
Friday Factoid: How Naming One Town Solved 3 Plot Holes
Friday Factoid is a weekly blog feature where I’ll be sharing a little bit of background behind something from one of my books: ideas, characters, environments, pieces of research, you name it, it’s all fair game for the Friday Factoids! If you have a specific question, feel free to email me at jrfrontera@gmail.com (comments are still being finnicky)! What will be featured this week? Read on to find out… About how naming one town greatly influenced world-building and solved three plot ... View Post
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