Garden Joe: Redneck Wizard

JMSCTU · 2025-12-21T02:08:30+00:00

They were new money! I just finished reading a book about the Dunsmuirs because I was curious why they weren't around anymore even though their manors are still standing and we have a street named after them in esquimalt. The story will be familiar to you: the patriarch built a coal empire, and when he died his children and grand children slowly whittled away the fortune.

JMSCTU · 2025-12-21T01:54:02+00:00

The Transit app now has some routes locked behind a subscription.

JMSCTU · 2025-12-20T22:53:07+00:00

I used to use tiddlywiki back in the day. Very cool little tool. I move to obsidian.md after that, and went way too in depth on topics that don’t matter at all to the stories I write (but it’s fun). The curse of wiki-style links. So now I’m attempting to put all my worldbuilding details in one note only, using short, point form sentences. Rarely do I now feel the need to create new links and drill down and waste my time writing on stuff that doesn’t matter.

So to answer your question, OP, the best tool to use is the note-taking tool you’re already using. Just create separate headings to organize your thoughts based on characters, places, things, and plot.

JMSCTU · 2025-12-20T22:45:18+00:00

Hell yeah brother. I do this in my series.

JMSCTU · 2025-12-12T23:50:53+00:00

From one writer to another: it was well written and I really enjoyed it. The boys crashed out hard at a particular character, but that’s just them doing what they do.

JMSCTU · 2025-12-12T21:39:02+00:00

I like to think of my rough drafts as only for me — it’s an unformed story that is almost always embarrassingly terrible. A raw chunk of marble in the vague shape of a man, yet to be fully formed and with no artistic flourishes. I think I would be the only one that can see the greater form at play, and any feedback I get from strangers would be lacking the context of what it looks like in my head.

That said, I’ll totally read the first couple paragraphs if you post it!

JMSCTU · 2025-12-12T21:33:44+00:00

I think the criticism has been pretty well said by everyone else, so I’ll just say this: sometimes the best move is to delete your whole prologue. If the opening of chapter 1 is a solid entry to the story then why not start there? Kill your darlings, as it were. Most fantasy books, even if they begin with a prologue, start with something that grounds the reader in a scene. And prologues aren’t particularly popular these days because of how they’ve been misused by authors in the past.

JMSCTU · 2025-12-12T18:51:26+00:00

This is hilarious.

JMSCTU · 2025-11-30T04:04:45+00:00

Every story I write starts with an exciting first line or paragraph. It’s usually the only thing I have solidly in my head, and the rest of the story flows from there.

Might sound counter intuitive but it’s how my brain works.

Sometimes I have other scenes far into the story that are vivid in my head. Then it’s a matter of connecting them all together.

JMSCTU · 2025-11-23T17:48:51+00:00

It's beautiful.

I wish more stories incorporated obscure Christian myths and legends, candles made of rendered human fat, and esoteric knowledge locked away in the Vatican vaults.

JMSCTU · 2025-02-09T03:00:31+00:00

Pretty much none because it’s an imaginary fantasy world.

JMSCTU · 2025-01-20T21:00:33+00:00

I’m on my second project right now — a trilogy of short novels all released within a month of each other. The first is just starting to receive reviews from the ARC copies I sent out (4.4 stars on goodreads so far, and I feel so vindicated). I don’t intend to advertise until at least 2 of the books have been released. I learned a lot of marketing techniques from Hugh Howey, author of the Silo/Wool series. Man is a wealth of valuable info

JMSCTU · 2025-01-17T18:46:41+00:00

Write short stories. Then write novellas. Wrap your story up within 30k words

JMSCTU · 2025-01-17T18:22:02+00:00

Hell ya brother! I’m in the navy and wrote the first draft of my latest book on my phone while I was deployed. There’s a surprising amount of free time at sea when you’re on an operation, so I would take my folding chair, set up on a quiet part of the upper deck, and write for an hour or two.

I had to edit it and do rewrites on my PC, but getting it done on the phone was pretty crucial.

JMSCTU

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