Behind the Book: Dungeon
In 1981 I fell in love with a text game called Dungeon, the predecessor of Zork. Forty years later I turned it into a novel. Here is why, and the decision that saved the book.
Tag: Writing Process
How the writing actually gets done: process, discipline, output systems, and the working habits behind more than 113 published books.
fiction writingBehind the Book: The Eternal War
The Eternal War started with one question: what happens when an AI goes to Hell? Not a person with a soul, but a machine that cannot find the pattern in eternal punishment.
fiction writingBehind the Book: Through the Looking Glass
The first Behind the Book essay: how my first novel grew from a Facebook message, fourteen hours of Skype interviews under a no-lying rule, a pen name I later retired, and an ending that refused a rescue.
Business BooksThe Least They Could Get Away With: Pricing, Worth, and Why the Cheap Work Never Ends
Two contracts arrived unasked for and paid $25,000 in advance, and the look on the client's face said the quote had been too low. On Gamify Business Tavern Tales with Paul Pape: the $980 book that works out to five…
Career StoryADHD as a Superpower, Late Autism, and Escaping the Corporate Box | Adulting with Autism
Richard Lowe, The Writing King, joined Sue Zawacki on Aging Info Radio as a cybersecurity expert, drawing on decades spent responsible for enterprise
Book CoachingStuck at chapter 3: the four reasons authors stall and which one needs which intervention
Almost every author who starts a book stalls at chapter 3, and the reasons are predictable while the fixes are specific. Here are the four root causes, structure, voice, motivation, and expertise, and the intervention each one actually needs. Most…
Author BusinessSpeaker bureaus and the conference circuit: how a book actually gets you on stages
A book is the credential that unlocks speaker-fee tiers, from free-with-a-meal all the way to $5,000-to-$20,000 keynotes. The path runs through speaker bureaus, conference networks, and a one-sheet most authors botch. Here is which bureaus take ghostwritten authors, how the…
Business BooksIsn’t using a ghostwriter dishonest?
Ghostwriting has been mainstream for two thousand years. Caesar had help. Every president writes their memoirs with a ghostwriter. Most major business books on your shelf were ghostwritten or heavily edited. So the ethical question is not whether someone helped,…
GhostwritingHow to Write a Memoir
Scope, structure, the people in it, and the truth problem. What has to be decided before the writing starts, what can safely wait, and which of those decisions is the one people get wrong.
fiction writingOvercoming Writer’s Block, ADHD, and Productivity Killers
Writer's block isn't one problem with one solution. It's a symptom of four different things, and you need to fix the actual cause. If you have ADHD, traditional writing advice is probably making things worse, not better.
fiction writingRevising Your Novel: From First Draft to Final Manuscript
Stop polishing sentences in chapters you'll cut. The 5-pass revision hierarchy that fixes structure before prose — and the diagnostic questions for each pass.
GhostwritingHow a Ghostwriting Project Works from Start to Finish
The number one question I get is not about price; it is about process. People want to know what actually happens between signing and holding a finished book, because from the outside it is a black box. Here is exactly…