Writing Temple

  Edward Evjen's Author Micro-Blog and Writing Resource  

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About the next book I'm writing

About the next book I’m writing

I love comic books, and I’m going back to writing a comic fantasy. I’m writing a book inspired off of three things: All of the writing books I read have said “Your character not wanting to die is an obvious and therefore boring motivation, yata-yata,” Challenge accepted. The main character in my new book wants to die. Woah–dark, and easily solved? Not so fast! He’s the undead, he’s already…

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No updates? Hmmm----

No updates? Hmmm—-

I am writing a new book. I (foolishly!) promised a friend to have a first draft ready by April 2nd. I’m working something fierce on that. I decided I want to rebrand (translation: lie a difference way) on fakebook so I created a different page there. Confusing everybody. Anyhow. If you see my ad’s on fakebook drop a small little “Thanks for being a friend” on them. I’ll be a updating you all on…

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Lalani of the Distant Sea Book Review

Lalani of the Distant Sea Book Review

I’m branching out into video content. I want the written blog, the goodreads, and youtube to all work together for new writing, and review of other work.

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Vapor Basin Part 2

Vapor Basin Part 2

 I sheathed my sword and stood with my toes curled over the piers edge. “He’s going to swim for it.” I heard behind me. Followed by a patter of their feet. I leapt into the water. Frantic, I pulled myself to the surface and clawed my way through. The water didn’t sting, and it was pleasantly warm. No biting pain from heat, acid, or something else but I kept my mouth tight shut all the same. The…

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The 8 best writing books in 2021 (and why you should read them)

The 8 best writing books in 2021 (and why you should read them)

Countless peddlers have long lists of “the best” books on writing: “Top X books on writing” (AKA “The Amazon search results for books on writing with 4+ stars”)“X books every aspiring writer should read” (AKA “Here’s a huge list of books I’m pretending I read”)The “classic” writing books (AKA “Outdated bookshelf decoration”) It’s easy to google “best books on writing,” copy paste them (along…

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491 Words to use Instead of Said. Sorted and Ranked.

491 Words to use Instead of Said. Sorted and Ranked.

Dialogue attribution pins a quote to a character. The most common, and best word, to use is said. With said, in the ranked list below, are an additional 491 words to use. All you need to know is: Said, Asked, Replied, Yelled, Whispered. With Said being the king of dialogue attribution. I’m obsessed with verbs. Years ago I loved abusing verbs to carry dialogue. No longer! Here are 492 verbs…

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PUBLISHED! Book one of Space-Farming: Dangerous Weapons

PUBLISHED! Book one of Space-Farming: Dangerous Weapons

Weighing in at 110,000 words and with four interior illustrations I am proud to announce book one of my space opera. Charles Meyer, a gambling addict farmer with a temper, is barely holding on. And it gets worse. He is attacked by disco-pirates, a villainous mega-tycoon, and a corrupt government. Charles gets into gambling debt with the casino. With so much going on, he joins a criminal gang.…

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Cover Design for Space-Farming #1

Cover Design for Space-Farming #1

Novel #1 of Space-Farming in the Age of the Disco-Pirates was enjoyed by my beta readers. I am proud to publish it, but first the cover illustration, one last fine-comb edit, and some interior illustrations. I do all my illustrations and covers, for better or for worse. It will be published January once the final touches are done. I am working on Vapor Basin part 2. It pales in comparison to…

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Writing Update

I’ve been working on my next novel for the past three days. I’m making great progress on the first draft. (10,000 words) It’s the second installment on Space-Farming in the Age of the Disco-Pirates. Well, you might be asking, where’s the first book? My beta readers are still crunching it. I hope to get good feedback from them over Christmas. I don’t have a cover for the book. I don’t want to…

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Choose your Adventure: Vapor-Basin - Part 1

Choose your Adventure: Vapor-Basin – Part 1

I was writing short stories and I’ve been editing them. I wrote a piece I called, A story’s price, but it didn’t feel right to submit it for a journal or something to publish. It’s bigger than a short story, it’s got its own world and everything. But, I don’t want to novelize it. So I thought, what the heck make it a choose your own adventure. This is the first time I’ve tried something like…

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Book review and Short Story of Ready Player One

Book review and Short Story of Ready Player One

I finished that drivel called Ready Player One. Here is my full Goodreads review. I hate it so much I wrote a parody short story. One Player Ready A parody short story of Ernest Cline’s novel, Ready Player One, by Edward Evjen Everyone my age remembers something about the ‘90s. How fortunate. Because that knowledge has just now become extremely valuable. [How so? A little narrative trick.…

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where to submit short-stories: The one stop shop to submit your work.

where to submit short-stories: The one stop shop to submit your work.

Check out https://www.submittable.com/. Here you can easy discover magazines and track your submissions. It is free for the writer. (Save for paid submissions.) I have about four short stories finished and I wanted to submit them. After searching through dozens of articles I collected a long list of magazines. But, alas, the articles were outdated. Countless magazines advertised were on hiatus…

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Character Article is up

Character Article is up

I am becoming proud of my website. Piece by piece the original idea is coming together. I wanted to take about the art of fiction in a precise way. A first attempt at 2 out of 7 articles are up. Both are the articles are quite good. They distill dozens of books and hundreds of articles into a single 5 minute read. You can understand fiction characters better than all your friends (and a few…

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Contrast article is up

Contrast article is up

I wrote the first article! I don’t like stupid fly-by-night I’m-so-smart writing advice crap. So I wrote a good article instead–for you! Looky-looky-looky -> Contrast Article Photo Credit: John Evjen

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Some thoughts on Contrast

Some thoughts on Contrast

I am convinced the next level of story understanding is in contrast. Contrast creates interest. As I’m reading books on how to write a story, every analysis is punctuated with alternating bad and good fortune. With the largest swings at the end. This dovetails well into Kurt Vonnegut’s idea of the shape of stories. Just part of the problem is I’m not sure how contrast meshes with conflict. I…

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Update. Back to regular Blogging

Update. Back to regular Blogging

I finished a hard fought draft of Space-Farm. I sent it off to my brother who is a literary critic–with the promise of a beer or three. While I wait for his opinion I have moved on to short stories. I created this blog with the intention of creating writing advice. On the internet you can find hundreds of words lists and the like. I’m trying to figure out what sets my website apart. I reckon I…

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Book update

I am halfway (55,000) through creating the fourth draft. It’s going faster because large sections are finally working. Looking forward to having it done and I can work on promoting the book and writing about writing.

That’s all.

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