Blog Posts

This is from a post I did on March 5, 2019. I am doing a review of these priorities. Look for Notes beside each one dated 2021.

2019 Why would I share my priority list as a new writer? I said I would share my journey in this writer’s world and making certain things priorities is important. Some I will do every day and others every other day.

2021 Why update this list? To see my growth as a writer and author, as well as growth as a social media kingdom ruler.

I put it into categories of a writer’s life: learning and studying, writing, reading, and community. This is an ever changing list so it will be updated often.

Learning and Studying

I am learning how to improve my skills as a writer and author. 2021 I doubt this learning will ever stop.

I am also taking online blogging and writing courses.

              Blogging Bootcamp Taken 2019

             Online Genius Academy Taken 2019 Basically an ad for their large course

              Udemy Creative Writing Tips Completed February 2021 Came away with a lot of story ideas

              Udemy Editing Class Completed 20219

2021 Taking an editing your book class online.

Books:

Deep Work Read 2019

The Elements of Style and its Workbook 2021 I have them.

Research archaeology. 2021 finding article, videos and memes about archaeology to share.

Read book on a real archaeology expedition. 2021 Douglas Preston’s Book The Monkey’s Head

Read Alfred Hitchcock stories for your story. Read in 2020

Read Like a Writer 2021 Have not read yet.

Writing

My two blogs require something to be written on them every day or every other day. 2021 Blogs are written on once a week 52 articles a year. I use PLR on my lifenotonthelist site.

2021 Social media sites 2021 Facebook, twitter and Instagram are written on daily.

I am currently 10,000 words into a novel I am writing. 2021: I have completed novels 1-4, working on novel 5 for Grey of Dharaven series. I have a short story for an anthology written and edited. First novel in series is due out in late summer of 2021. Grey Dawn of Dharaven: Katz Island

Murderous Gloves written in Alfred Hitchcock style. 2021 Not written yet.

I also have two more book ideas sitting waiting for me to get to them. 2021: These two stories still wait for me to work on them.

Poetry typed and rewritten. 2021: Poetry has been typed by a PA. I am working on categories to put them in for a chap book.

Contest entries through Submittable and other places. 2021 I have been rejected 27 times on Submittable. I was accepted twice. One piece is a short, short piece of 42 words. The other published work appeared in Carcosa Magazine February 2021 Issue 1. I keep trying with other pieces. I will find my tribe eventually.

Community

word nerd-2021 not there so much anymore. Went an expensive hub.

 writers helping writers.-2021- I am still on this site.

I am an administrator on a forum and Facebook website. Forum must be checked daily. 2021- Forum and website are doing well.

Emails checked for all 3 sites daily. 2021 Email for my own is checked. Have to remember to check them more often.

CONTINUING PRIORITIES 2021

I am learning how to improve my skills as a writer and author.

Research archaeology.

Read book on a real archaeology expedition. 2021 Douglas Preston’s Book The Monkey’s Head

Read Like a Writer

Write blog articles once a week.

Facebook, twitter and Instagram are written on daily.

Murderous Gloves written in Alfred Hitchcock style.

These two stories still wait for me to work on them.

Poetry Chapter Book

Contest entries through Submittable and other places. 2 to 27

Continue admin duties of forums and sites.

Check emails on all three sites at least once a week. Personal each day.

Keep talking to other writers on sites.

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What’s your next writing projects?

I am working on collection of short stories about a team of Do Gooders who fight evil in the American southwest. I am also working on getting my poetry together, finding the best ones, and making a chap book, or poetry pamphlet or both.

Name 5 favorite movies.

Independence Day

Armageddon

Terminator 2

Star Wars- all the movies

Star Trek- all the movies and the series. Currently watching Discovery on DVD.

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What’s your favorite love story?

Richard and Kahlan in The Sword of Truth Series by Terry Goodkind. They fall in love in the first book in spite of going through hell, and stay together through hell and back several times.

What’s your favorite line from any movie?

“You tell them I’m coming and Hell’s coming with me.” Tombstone

If we Googled your name what would we see?

https://katherineesoto-author.com/ after all the genealogy ads and people search.

You were just given a yacht. What would you name it?

My yacht would be named Who Gives a Rat’s Ass.

The flag would have a skull with a rat on top of it with its tail running through the skull’s eye.

Editing is the hardest part of writing. Writers groan over editing their longer pieces. Just when you think you have found everything wrong in the manuscript, you find the silliest punctuation mistake or the mistake gets published in the book or newsletter. (If you find an error in this article, email me for a prize. First one that finds one gets it.) How do you edit so you get all of the errors out of a piece of writing? Here is what I have learned.

First: Write the entire piece. I fix the spelling and typos as I go along otherwise my pieces would become unreadable. Get those ideas down. Then leave it alone for awhile.

Second: Do a first edit. This is here you look at the content of your piece. Does it have the content you want it to have? Does your plot make sense? Are there any writing holes you need to fix. I found a timeline problem in one of my pieces and had to change the days around for it to make sense.

Third: Edit your Point of View and Characters. Do you have several points of view, or one point of view? Do your points of view agree with one another? Does your POV character carry each scene? Are you characters making sense? I had to rewrite an entire scene due to my POV not being my main character’s.

Fourth: Edit by chapters, then pages, then paragraphs, then lines, then words. Take your piece through an stringent editing process from chapters to words.

Final edit: Use a speech app to read it to you. There is one in Word. Pay attention and you will catch a lot of little line edits that need to be done. Take your time and your piece will be polished and ready for that publisher.

You can also use an aide such a ProWritingaide or Fictionary to help edit your pieces.

When you write take time to go back and edit each piece with the care it deserves.

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Author Inteview

• What is the first book that made you cry?

I remember Where the Red Fern Grows being pretty sad when I was young.

• What is your writing Kryptonite?

Simply not having enough free time has to be the biggest hinderance, I think, for any writer who also works full time. It is for me.

• Who is one author are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer?

I’m not “friends” with my publisher’s head (who is also an author) in the traditional sense, but she provides constant, invaluable pro tips on all things writing, and publishing/marketing as well. I’m a better writer because of her, no question.

• If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?

Plot first, use ProWritingAid to stomp out your passive voice, and be proud—you’ll actually be published one day.

• How did publishing your first book change your process of writing?

I would say it’s shown me the importance of time management and deadlines, because marketing and promotion are now just as important as the writing itself and require a LOT of time, not just in execution, but learning how to do it.

• What was the best money you ever spent as a writer? If you have not made any money, dream about it?

Paying an editor for my first novel. If it’s your first novel, I don’t know how you don’t hire an editor. They provide typo and grammar help, etc., yes, but there are bigger elements to story-telling that an editor will teach you, like character arc and pacing. You’re paying for more than just the correction of your story—you get to learn a hell of a lot.

• As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal?

I’ll go with a bighorn ram. I do have one tattooed on my chest after all. They’re small, mostly docile, but can hold their own. And for some bizarre reason, they seem to find themselves trying to climb higher and higher, as if bored by the lowlands. Sure, they’ve evolved to climb to avoid predators, but don’t they look like they’re just sort of enjoying themselves up there? That’s me, just trying to avoid disaster in this strange existence, and just trying to get a kick out of it while I’m here.

• How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have?

A handful of short, novelette, and novella-sized works await my editing. My third novel is in its very early stages. All of my stories have a strong nature element, usually a creature or two, and supernatural occurrences.

• Have you read anything that made you think differently about fiction?

Jack London’s Call of the Wild. It’s third-person, yet feels like the dog is telling the story. It made me think about the lines we draw between point of view, and appreciate those who can manipulate a story’s narration that way.

• How do you select the names of your characters?

They are approximately 85% randomly chosen, 15% hidden meaning for myself. I’m not fantastical (is that a word?), so I need ordinary names, but not so ordinary they incite yawning.

• What is your favorite childhood book?

Where the Redfern Grows. You got me. It’s pretty much the only book I read the first half of my life. I can’t “booknerd-out” with readers and other authors, which is kind of sad. In timed reading sections of elementary school tests, even through high school, I scored really well—on the questions I had time to answer. I was a slow reader, needed to absorb every detail, and I could never finish reading it all in the allotted time. So, at a young age, I assumed I wasn’t a “good reader.” How could I be a good reader if I couldn’t even finish the reading test on time, right? Thus, reading never became a part of my identity. And so, hyperactivity became me, and I went the bicycle, crawdad hunting, football, wrestling, cross-country route.

Author Biography

Greg Marchand is a Medical Laboratory Technician, Western Kentucky University Alum, U.S. Army veteran, and former Yellowstone sous chef currently living in the “Crossroads of America” state of Indiana. From writing articles for his high school yearbook, to penning radio scripts on foreign soil for the U.S. military, Greg has always found a passion for writing. The colorful, admirable, and contradictory people he’s met in his lifetime inspire his stories, as do his moments spent among the trees, in the mountains, and under the stars.

When he’s not cursing medical laboratory instruments for a living, Greg is often downstairs hashing out his tilted stories, P90x-ing, and struggling to learn banjo. Occasionally, he emerges from his man cave to cook for his wife and stepson, and to take the dogs down to the river.

Book Blurb

BLURB:

The paths of five strangers cross and their fates intertwine when Yellowstone Lake employee, Kyle Fenn, finds his way into an ancient, sacred cave and gets too close to a buried secret.

Moderators remove an archaeological scholar from a conference stage at Montana State University as he frantically declares that evil always finds a way… After burying her mother, and suffering the apparent loss of her boyfriend, a young Virginian returns to work at Yellowstone, to start again… A Native man leaves his ranch and his father’s crooked patriarchy to work as a Yellowstone ranger where he discovers a darkness now compromises his family’s safety… And, in Gardiner, Montana, outside Yellowstone’s north gate, a hot-headed divorcee gains a special ability after playing pool with a stranger.

Yellowstone Shifters follows Fenn as he finds himself at the epicenter of a paranormal re-awakening, deciphering friend from foe and seeking the origin of this unfathomable evil.

<releases March 2, 2021> https://gregmarchandwrites.com/yellowstone-shifters

LINKS TO BOOK: https://books2read.com/u/mKyVNZ