Tag Archives: writing

Was attending #Bouchercon2025 a success for me?

PolyWogg.ca
September 14 2025

That’s a bit of a strange question, isn’t it? I went to a book conference; I was NOT looking for an agent or to promote a book; I had no real defined goals in advance. I didn’t ask “Did I enjoy it?” or “Was it fun / interesting / illuminating / horrible / terrible / no good very bad 4 days?”

I asked if it was a success.

It wasn’t cheap…registration was fine, $250 or so. But staying in the hotel for six nights at $179 US plus my flights plus all my meals, taxis, and minor souvenirs isn’t pocket change. I haven’t added it up completely but it’s probably between 3.5K-4K overall, Canadian. Which I knew in advance, not whinging. Food was a bit more expensive than I expected, with fewer cheap options in the area to get to, but I’ll come back to that.

But with the cost, and the experience tied to it, I find myself wondering of course if it was worth it. Particularly as this wasn’t a family trip, it was just me on my own doing my own thing.

And the trip was a bit of a test for me in three different domains. So if I ask if it is a success, I guess I have to ask if it was worth it in those three areas.… Read the rest

Working on images for my astronomy guide

PolyWogg.ca
February 22 2025

I wrote on my ThePolyblog.ca site about “needing” to write an astronomy guide, but not really being that thrilled about it. The issue is that there are a few fora that I participate in for astronomy, and I really don’t like the way people answer certain questions. It almost seems irresponsible to me to answer the questions like they do.

For example, if someone said to you, “I want to buy a vehicle”, would you say, “Oh, you should buy (this specific model)”? Probably not. You’d ask them what they want to use it for, how often they’ll be driving it, how many passengers, etc. The car they use to go shopping around town once a week is probably not the vehicle they need for hauling pigs, if they have pigs to haul. And a whole host of other variables, which is partly why there are so many cars on the market. They serve different market niches. But someone out there could probably just say “Get a Honda Civic”. The basis for their recommendation is relatively linear — a good all-around sedan, and if you don’t have any other details, maybe it’s as good a recommendation as any, probably better.

Yet, for astronomy, people frequently respond with:

  1. Just look up with your eyes — the equivalent of telling someone just to walk instead of buying a car;
  2. Buy binoculars — like saying to get a bus pass;
  3. Buy a Dobsonian — the Honda Civic of cars, a good all-around suggestion;
  4. Buy a large EQ mount with an expensive refractor and some good camera gear — the equivalent of telling someone they need off-roading capabilities so they can get all the way to the top of a nearby mountain because that is the biggest / hardest use to handle; or,
  5. Don’t buy (brand x)—this is the same as those who will tell you never to buy a Ford or Dodge or American or Japanese, whatever, because someone they once knew had a bad experience 40 years ago with a bicycle owned by someone who drove one of those vehicles one-time as a rental.
… Read the rest

Holy crap, I missed two milestones!

PolyWogg.ca
November 11 2022

I’ve been doing a fair amount of blogging in the last two years here and there, I’ve moved some stuff around, added some content that was pending. And somewhere in all of that, one of my “tools” stopped functioning. I had a word count plugin that wasn’t very good, and it even reached the stage where WordPress wondered if it was abandoned before it was updated recently.

So, I haven’t been keeping track of my word count overall between my two sites. I knew I was up there. I had hit 1.5M words quite some time ago, and I figured I was probably over 2M now easily. I had to be, right?

Today I did a quick dive to find a simple word count stats plugin to replace the old one, which is not as easy as it sounds. There are lots of REALLY complicated ones out there, but I don’t want all that extra bloat. I just want the basic stats.

Basic stats

For the number of posts, I have 1591 here at ThePolyBlog, although 26 are still in draft. PolyWogg has another 147 with 3 in draft, although that will likely increase as I revamp that site a bit more and add some regular blogging posts about HR or astronomy.… Read the rest

#NaNoWriMo2021 – Days 8-30

PolyWogg.ca
December 12 2021

Way back at the start of November, I committed to the National Novel Writing Month goal of 50,000 words in a month.

I’ve done lots of writing in the past, never thought I’d do a binge one, but was feeling a little lethargic about my HR Guide. I want a full update for January, so I buckled down and wrote, wrote, wrote.

I had hoped to reach 70K, but life intervened. I found it difficult to write much at night, and I was using a poor physical setup to write close to my son’s computer. He was also writing and I was impressed with his commitment. Not sure how we’ll maintain that going forward, but we’ll find a way. He’s got a good idea, but keeping the faith will be hard for him.

I set a blazing initial pace, hitting 30K+ easily by the mid-point. Then, I got kind of distracted. On the last day, I was about 2000 words short of the 50K goal. So I stayed at my computer until I finished the section I was on, blazing to a final total of 50,925. I’ll do the rest after Christmas probably. We’ll see, I need to do some more planning and outlining this week so I can finish on time.… Read the rest

#NaNoWriMo2021 – Days 5-7 – Chapter 4a, b, 5a, 8156 words

PolyWogg.ca
November 8 2021

Over the last three days, I’ve finished a long chapter on understanding the HR process, added a section on acknowledgements, and drafted most of a chapter on searching for government jobs.

Friday (Day 5) was 3865 words, Saturday was a light day for writing (918 words) but I did a bunch of research, and Sunday (Day 7) was back up to 3373 words. Call it 8156 over three days. My new combined total is 24,378 words, or about 34.8% of my 70K estimate for the guide.

HR Guide
34%

Jacob added 500 words on Friday and took Saturday and Sunday off. This brings a total of 2137, or 24.2% of his revised 8800 words goal for the month.

Fantasy novel
24%
Stylized signature block to say happy reading in most posts and pages

#NaNoWriMo2021 – Day 4 – Chapter 4a, 4481 words

PolyWogg.ca
November 4 2021

Tonight was a bit of a tough slog for content, part of a very long chapter for the HR guide. I did about half of it.

Understanding the HR Process
…Overview
…Understanding Merit
…Step 1 Needs
…Step 2 Advertising (including clearance, etc.)

I managed to get 4481 words today. My new combined total is 16222, or about 23.2% of my 70K estimate for the guide.

HR Guide
23%

Jacob added 481 words to his fantasy novel, bringing his total to 1637, or 13.6% of his 12K goal for the month.

Fantasy novel
14%
Stylized signature block to say happy reading in most posts and pages

#NaNoWriMo2021 – Day 3 – Chapter 3, 4318 words

PolyWogg.ca
November 4 2021

About 2.5h tonight of actual writing, but a few hours earlier of research and collation of bits to help me write later.

Today I was on to chapter 3, understanding types of government jobs.

Types of Jobs

…Functional classification

…Life beyond the three big categories

…Departmental Roles

I managed to get 4318 words today, which generally flowed pretty well. I’ll have to cut it down in editing, but it’s not bad as it is. My new combined total is 11741, or about 16.8% of my 70K estimate for the guide.

HR Guide
17%

Jacob added 277 words to his fantasy novel, bringing his total to 1156, or 9.6% of his 12K goal for the month.

Fantasy novel
10%
Stylized signature block to say happy reading in most posts and pages

#NaNoWriMo2021 – Day 2 – Chapter 2, 3887 words

PolyWogg.ca
November 3 2021

I was so happy with my progress on day one. 5500 words, I noted. It seemed high, but I didn’t really question it. I do write fast, it’s non-fiction, and I’m working from a solid draft even though it’s pretty much a complete rewrite of the earlier version. I’m not keeping much at all.

And today, I worked about the same amount of time, but had 2000 fewer words. Wait a minute…oh, I see what I did. I wrote down 5500 instead of 3500 yesterday. It’s actually 3536 and I just duplicated the 5. Oops. Well, okay.

Today I was on to chapter 2, knowing yourself.

2. Know yourself
…WFH changes to work environment

I managed to get 3887 words today, which was 11 for a title page, 84 for a copyright page, 26 for a dedication, 738 for an executive summary of the “welcome” chapter, and 3028 for Chapter 2 on “knowing yourself”. I kind of like the way that worked tonight. I took Chapter 1 from yesterday, duplicated it and reduced it down to 700 words for an executive summary version, and then worked on Chapter 2. While my goal is to get the ExecSumms down to about 300 words or so, I’ll leave Chapter 1’s summary long for now and edit at the end of the month.… Read the rest

#NaNoWriMo2021 – Day 1 – Chapter 1, 3536 words

PolyWogg.ca
November 2 2021

As I mentioned in a previous post (#MoreJoy – Day 31 of 31 – NaNoWriMo), I had a number of “works in progress” for consideration as my WIP this November. Ultimately, I chose to commit to working on my HR Guide. I want it fully written, revamped, edited, and published by January 1st, so blasting through now isn’t a bad idea.

I have written the intro multiple times. 2014, a revision in 2017, an earlier revision of the current version in 2020. And yet, I wasn’t happy with the flow. It was solid, a good draft. Certainly addressed the content I wanted it to, at the time.

Now? I hated it. So I completely rewrote it from scratch. For my “checklist” tracking on my dashboard, I dealt with:

1. Introduction
…Competition vs. selection
…Myths

I managed to get 3536 words done (**for some reason, I wrote it down as 5500, a bit too ambitious), but I’m expecting to go to about 70K. Either way, Chapter 1 is relatively “done”, at least as a draft.

HR Guide
5%

Jacob is also joining me for a writing quest this month, and he managed 398 words for Day One for a fantasy novel.… Read the rest

Since I blog about writing

PolyWogg.ca
September 27 2021

Way back in 2012, practically the dark ages of the internet, I bookmarked an article by author Veronica Sicoe called 13 Types of Writers’ Blogs – Pros and Cons. Fast forward 9 years, and it is still one of the better lists that I have seen of blogs / websites that authors use.

Sooooo, considering I’m a wannabe writer, and I do have a website, what elements interest me? I blogged the other day about not wanting to monetize my site, but this isn’t quite the same thing. This is more about using my website to promote potential book sales. It’s a very fine-line for a distinction, but it is a distinction of significance to me.

General writing advice — I have no extensive expertise to offer, but there are a few blog posts here and there where I have had an opinion that I hoped was worth sharing about small narrow areas. A different take on an issue, for instance. But, as noted in the original article, the posts are generally of interest to writers, not readers, so it doesn’t do much to sell your books.

The Writing Industry / Self-Promotion — I am a good analyst, and one of my skills is the ability to take a lot of info and synthesize or condense it down to meaningful, digestible chunks.… Read the rest

#50by50ish #49d – Write a novel [#NaNoWriMo2019 Feast or Famine, Chapter 04 (4441 words)]

PolyWogg.ca
November 11 2019

* Editing notes: Chapter 3 -> reduce belt colour for Ninja Kit

** Personae dramatis

– Carleton “Cal” Clarke, lead investigator;
– Marilyn (maternity) and Phil (appendix), investigators on leave;
– Five legal beagles;
– Harrison Matthew James III, founder and senior partner in
– Lila Matthews, James’ assistant
– Haggerty (1950s), McCleod (1960s), other partners
– Maxwell Jennings, father, divorced
– Maria Jennings, mother, divorced
– William Clarke, Cal’s deceased father
– Melanie Jennings, daughter, deceased (car crash) and goddaughter to James
– Michael Jennings, son, missing
– Detective Daniel Moorcroft, detective, Bayport PD
– Jim Peterson, drunk boyfriend in car crash
– Chris “Kit” Markle, patrolwoman, Bayport PD

START CHAPTER 4:

Before I left the parking lot, I phoned a friend who works as an insurance investigator at Garrison Fidelity. His office is in New Jersey, but he travels around quite a bit. Today he was up in Boston. He’s a bit unconventional, and when I explained all I wanted was to get copies of unredacted police files, he said it didn’t even count as a favour. He took down the particulars and told me to check my email or he’d call me if there were any problems.

I was just about to head back to the office when I got a email alert from one of the senior associates at the firm.… Read the rest

Articles I Like: Developing and Introducting the Sleuth in Your Mystery Novel (WD March/April 2015)

PolyWogg.ca
April 11 2019

Lots of articles exist on the ‘net about good ways to create a rich protagonist in a story, whether they be sleuth or otherwise. So why do I  like “Developing and Introducing The Sleuth in Your Mystery Novel” by Hallie Ephron (Writer’s Digest, March/April 2015, pp. 56-58)?

In simplest explanation, it’s because the article divides the tips into two separate sections — developing the sleuth and introducing the sleuth.

Developing the sleuth takes the reader through the main tips that are common to most articles, or at least the first three of five are common. First and foremost, they start with basic appearance — what do they wear, and what does it say about them? Dowdy clothes or upscale business suit? Fashionably chic or jeans and t-shirt? Nobody would ever mistake Kinsey Millhone, blue-collar PI, with her cousin in the books who’s an upmarket lawyer, even though the two of them look alike. Nor Miss Marple for Jessica Fletcher.

Second, she talks about disequilibrium, although most people would call it motivation (either intrinsic or extrinsic). Separate from the “case”, what in their life do they want to change? Usually this is described as more the character arc that you have in mind for their overall backstory, even though the case might only be a small segment of that journey.… Read the rest

Articles I Like: Straight Up Non-fiction with a Twist (WD March/April 2015)

PolyWogg.ca
April 10 2019

Most days, I aspire to calling myself a writer. In reality, I’m merely a blogger. Sure, I’ve written more than 1M words on my blog, and my daily “hit” count is rising with each extra bundle of content I provide, but I haven’t finished my non-fiction book about HR processes, and it is a very long time since I attempted anything resembling fiction.

Some people maintain their dream through pre-writing activities. Maybe “reading about writing”, through books like Stephen King’s On Writing, or other writing guides by Lawrence Block or Sue Grafton, or how-to guides like Save the Cat!, or a whole host of other books out there from big writers talking about their writing process. Others join writing and critiquing groups, online or in person. And others subscribe to writing magazines such as Writer’s Digest to get their “fix” that somehow they are honing their craft without actually honing their craft through, you know, WRITING. I’m kind of in the first and third categories. I still subscribe to Writer’s Digest, and I regularly comb through issues of the magazine or the webfeed for tidbits, some of which I squirrel away for a rainy day of writing when I’m retired.… Read the rest

Articles I Like: Six Myths About Traditional Publishing

PolyWogg.ca
December 2 2018

As someone who is interested in writing, I naturally have an interest in the publishing world. I grew up as an insatiable reader, and always dreamed that perhaps one day I would be selling books as an author. Later, I realized it wasn’t my primary interest in life, or at least not my only interest, and that I was more interested in the steady-paycheque world of being a salaried employee of a government entity doing public administration and policy. You know, a public servant, without the snide view of their role.

My writing has shifted over the years. Some email stuff from time to time, later some blogging and presentations. A few long reports for government. And I realized that as much as I might have dreamed of writing fiction, I have a knack for taking relatively opaque and / or complex topics and simplifying them in order to explain them to others. It’s fueled much of my career in government, as well as some of my personal blogging.

In addition though, my interest in traditional publishing was never very high. Sending off query letters? Getting rejections? Negotiating rights? Maybe seeking an agent? I have zero interest in ANY of those things.… Read the rest

Articles I Like: How To Create A Killer Opening For Your Science Fiction Short Story

PolyWogg.ca
November 29 2018

On the rare days that I allow myself to dream that I will eventually make the time to write some more fiction, I dabble in reading interesting tidbits that resonate with me in terms of what I want to do as a writer. Not always “writing advice”, sometimes it is just about the industry, publishing, etc. Rarely do I find much in the way of real writing advice that I think, “Yes, that’s good stuff right there. I should bookmark that!”.

Way back in 2014, one of my regular feeds, The Passive Voice, shared excerpts from Gizmodo’s sub-website “i09” about science fiction writing entitled How To Create A Killer Opening For Your Science Fiction Short Story. Most of the time, I wouldn’t even bother to click on a title like that…too clickbait-y, and honestly, rarely does it live up to the premise. Often the writer will include examples of their own work, and the author isn’t usually that well-known. But the excerpt was intriguing, so why not? It was a slow day.

The article was awesome, perhaps for two reasons. First, the author, Charlie Jane Anders, put a fair amount of analytical thought into the piece. I’m an analyst by nature and profession and I recognize a good framework when I see one.… Read the rest

Articles I Like: Should you write under a pseudonym?

PolyWogg.ca
May 2 2018

When people talk about creating a pseudonym for their writing, most existing writers fall into two camps…the “no, never” camp that thinks it’s better for people to find you as easily as possible and the “well, what if you write in different genres” camp where people are afraid your reader will pick up your book expecting your traditional Western and get your erotic thriller instead, and presumably be unhappy. Or vica versa. (As an aside, there’s something strangely amusing about the reader looking for an erotic thriller and getting a Western instead while thinking, “What’s going to happen with the horse?”, but I digress.)

I confess that on occasion I have thought of pushing out some fiction under a different name. Mostly because I love the idea of writing anonymously for fiction. It would feel a bit subversive to me, almost clandestine. I have this illusion of seeing someone I know reading my book but having no idea that I wrote it. But that’s just a fanciful dream, at least until I ever get around to finishing anything fiction-related. But when ThePassiveVoice shared an article from Nail Your Novel, I had to click.

The article runs through the basics early on:

  • The “pseudo-excitement’ of using initials;
  • Gender-specific names depending on the genre;
  • Trying to sound like a specific nationality (or alternatively not);
  • Having multiple identities for separate markets (like genres or fiction/non-fiction);
  • Separating writing from other employment roles;

It talks though too about the ability to keep your real name separate (with a good link to Kristen Lamb’s post too):

But these days… is there anywhere to hide?

… Read the rest

Articles I Like: Focus on the Fight: Writing Action Scenes That Land the Punch

PolyWogg.ca
May 1 2018

Often when I read writing tips, there is very little sense of balance. Most of them come down to a single form: “Do X, not Y”, with the small caveat that you can do Y if you do it well. The classic “Show, don’t tell” is a perfect example…except in some cases, a simple exposition deals with an info gap to get people to the next plot point. In that case, a little exposition can go a long way to avoiding stopping the action, jumping somewhere else to “show it”. Another classic used to be “Don’t use multiple points-of-view”. And then someone comes out with a fantastic book where they use multiple POV to great success. Because they did it right. Which means, often the real advice is “Do X, not Y unless you’re better than average and can actually do Y well, but know that it often doesn’t work for a lot of writers”. On the other hand, there are more advanced tomes by Lawrence Block or Stephen King that avoid that problem and give you the straight goods.

In this case, Diana Gill is an executive editor with views on how to write fight scenes (well, actually, action scenes in general).… Read the rest

Articles I Like: 13 Resources to Make Editing Your Novel Easier

PolyWogg.ca
November 13 2017

Let’s be honest — one of the biggest challenges for people when writing isn’t the actual writing. It’s editing. So much so that some newbie writers think editing is something done by someone else. But long before it gets to that “editor” at Publisher Inc., you have to do your own editing. Virginia Ripple is a writer, and she has a website called “Writer on a Shoestring Budget”. Catchy. And one of the big writing tip websites leveraged a reprint of an earlier version of a post about editing, but her main website has an updated version (13 Resources to Make Editing Your Novel Easier).

Mostly what I like about her post is the initial main thrust:

No matter what you do, if you want to be read and have those readers give you great reviews, spread the word and buy your other books, you have to face the red pen. You must edit your manuscript.

Self-publishing or traditional publishing, you need to edit. So she published a list of 13 resources to help with editing. Not all the links are created equal, and some are dead now, but I liked A Perfectionist’s Guide to Editing: 4 Stages by Jami Gold as she breaks down the stages into finishing, editing and polishing, with tips on which questions to ask in which stage.… Read the rest

Articles I Like: Indie Author: 6 Dialogue Traps To Avoid

PolyWogg.ca
November 12 2017

I’ve been going through some of my saved/bookmarked pages, and I came across this one from April Hamilton from back in July 2011. It’s a great summary of some problems that newbie writers (like me) have with dialogue (Indie Author: 6 Dialogue Traps To Avoid).

So it mentions that newbies often have the characters talking the same way i.e. with the same “voice”, which doesn’t happen in real life and is really boring to read. I’m not sure I like her examples of fixing it, as it starts to sound a bit cliché to have 20-somethings or ex-military people talk like caricatures, but it can give flavour to their voice. Equally, newbies often go for melodramatic scenes that are tripe for soap operas, or heavy on the exposition dump. And I like the overall premise of “when in doubt, read it out loud”. If it sounds wrong, it probably is.

However, I’m not sold on the third trap related to newbies not differentiating enough between men and women. Here’s the excerpt:

In the masculine, words are used to accomplish some goal. The goal is usually imparting necessary—and that word, “necessary”, is key here—information, but it can also be to quickly size up a person or situation, or to establish or reinforce the pecking order (e.g.,

… Read the rest

Articles I Like: A potentially long cold strike in Hollywood

PolyWogg.ca
April 12 2017

Since I watch a lot of serialized storytelling through scripted television shows, I often find myself reading business items about the industry, following ratings, looking to see which shows are picked up and which are not. And, for fun, following blogs of insiders like Lee Goldberg and Ken Levine. The world of TV is about to go a bit crazy, or at least it could, as it is time for a new contract to be negotiated between the Writing Guild of America (WGA, i.e. television writers) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP, i.e. the producers). As Ken (can I call him Ken? I don’t know him personally, but he seems like a Ken rather than  a Levine) makes very clear in his latest post (By Ken Levine: Strike update), when they say “producers”, they are not talking about creative producers like Shonda Rhimes, it means the corporate studio suits.

You might remember back when there was a writers’ strike before…new shows didn’t get written, seasons got curtailed, blah blah blah. It wasn’t good for just about anybody involved. People reportedly lost houses, cars, etc. It is a sad reality that most of the people who really need to benefit from an increase in pay because of a strike are also the least able to sustain themselves during a strike.… Read the rest