Write Your Book Like You’d Run a Startup
Sharing his work-in-progress has helped one writer build confidence and conviction about who his readers are and what they’re interested in.
https://janefriedman.com/write-your-book-like-youd-run-a-startup/
#GuestPost
Free ways to recover lost Linux Ext2 partition data? | https://techygeekshome.info/free-ways-to-recover-lost-linux-ext2/?fsp_sid=24713 | #GuestPost #Guide #News
https://techygeekshome.info/free-ways-to-recover-lost-linux-ext2/?fsp_sid=24713
Free ways to recover lost Linux Ext2 partition data? | https://techygeekshome.info/free-ways-to-recover-lost-linux-ext2/?fsp_sid=24712 | #GuestPost #Guide #News
https://techygeekshome.info/free-ways-to-recover-lost-linux-ext2/?fsp_sid=24712
Crafting Cinematic Action by Scene Segmenting
By thinking like a filmmaker—planning your beats, deciding your shots—you create a vivid experience that pulls readers into the story.
https://janefriedman.com/crafting-cinematic-action-by-scene-segmenting/
Comps Can Clinch Your Query
When pitching to agents or editors, the right comp titles help you articulate where you position yourself within a very competitive market.
https://janefriedman.com/comps-can-clinch-your-query/
Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn: Use Stress Responses to Strengthen Your Scenes
Understanding stress responses as learned survival strategies can help you turn every high-stakes scene into character development on the page.
https://janefriedman.com/fight-flight-freeze-fawn-use-stress-responses-to-strengthen-your-scenes/
Please Allow Your Characters Moments of Happiness
When a story barrels from one conflict to the next, hitting pause for a well-placed glimmer of light can benefit both characters and readers.
https://janefriedman.com/please-allow-your-characters-moments-of-happiness/
Long and Short Reviews is looking for guest bloggers for their Winter Blogfest: https://www.longandshortreviews.com/miscellaneous-musings/calling-all-authors-free-author-promo/
They would like a 250-500 word guest post about winter or any winter holiday you celebrate.
The submission deadline is December 19. Click on the link above for more information.
#WritingCommunity #Blogging #Writing #Books #GuestPost #Holidays #Christmas #Hanukkah #WinterSolstice #NewYearsEve #NewYearsDay
No, Colleen Hoover Did Not Email Me: Current Scams Targeting Authors
If you receive solicitous emails from book clubs or famous authors, follow these simple steps before replying or clicking on any links.
https://janefriedman.com/no-colleen-hoover-did-not-email-me-current-scams-targeting-authors/
Why Your Memoir Feels Like Rambling (and How to Fix It)
Having analyzed over 1000 memoir manuscripts in a 15 year span, Wendy Dale found two linked components of powerful, plot-driven storytelling.
https://janefriedman.com/why-your-memoir-feels-like-rambling-and-how-to-fix-it/
It’s Not About You: Your Memoir Is Someone Else’s Story
The person on the page can’t be the person writing the book. Because if your life has changed enough to write about, you aren’t that person anymore.
https://janefriedman.com/its-not-about-you-your-memoir-is-someone-elses-story/
My Brush with a Pay-to-Play Book Award
The majority of book awards are pay-to-play deals. Some do little harm, others are genuinely useful, but most make no difference to your career or sales.
https://janefriedman.com/my-brush-with-a-pay-to-play-book-award/
The Case for Shrinking Your Novel
Even experienced novelists overwrite. Here are five insights about ruthlessly cutting a manuscript—and why that’s a good thing.
https://janefriedman.com/the-case-for-shrinking-your-novel/
Why Print Never Died
This excerpt from the new book Digital Inc. by Richard Curtis examines why ebooks failed to supplant print as many tech pioneers expected.
https://janefriedman.com/why-print-never-died/
Don’t bother improving your chess
Civil discourse requires a shared allegiance to civil society
“If every time you play chess, your opponent punches you in the face, getting better at chess is not the solution.” – Andrew Thomas
An important life lesson came out of my early career as a civil litigator. I practiced law in Canada for eleven years; one of my small professional pleasures was the privilege of wearing barrister’s robes to court (Canadian court attire resembles the English version, just without the powdered wigs). The upshot of this is that opposing counsel and, indeed, the judge, all appeared to be on the same team as I was. It was the clients who stood out in their un-serious and un-robed street attire. This reinforced something it would have otherwise taken me longer to learn: although clients came and went, the system remained. And I was part of the system. Opposing counsel was…well, they were me if their client had walked into my office first instead of theirs. Opponents in a civil society’s dispute resolution mechanism were just that: opponents, not enemies. Although we appeared to be arguing against each other on any given day, we were all participants in the shared endeavor of delivering a fair and dependable system of civil justice.
In my time as a soldier and as amateur student of the law of war (my military specialty is as a combat soldier, not an attorney) even enemies were people with whom I perhaps had more in common with than the civilians back home. The entire notion behind combatant immunity under the Geneva Conventions is premised on the fact that soldiers in the enemy’s army are honorably fighting for their country just as you are fighting for yours. This is morally blameless. So, when an enemy combatant is captured you stop trying to kill them and you detain them in the same circumstances as you would treat your own soldiers (to include providing the same levels of amenities, pay, and other living conditions). The detention of POWs is explicitly non-punitive. These principles became more real for me when I was deployed to the U.S. military’s Camp Bucca, Iraq, then the world’s largest detention facility, in 2007 to 2008. Even in the profession of arms, my enemy and I shared a good deal of empathy. It could just as easily be me as their prisoner instead of them as mine. The standards that both they and I would expect to apply in those two situations were, ultimately, the same. Despite being on different sides of an armed conflict, we were part of the same system.
But there is a difference between our opponents in a courtroom or even enemy combatants on the battlefield, on the one hand, and those who take issue with the very basis of the systems within which a dispute occurs, on the other. In the latter category are those who are considered truly beyond the pale—beyond the bounds of our empathy or compassion—because they reject the paradigmatic premise behind the entire endeavor. In admiralty law these were the “enemies of all mankind” (hostis humani generis). Historically pirates and slave traders fell into this category. US courts have extended it to those who commit state-sanctioned torture.
As piracy anywhere was considered a threat to mariners everywhere, and as pirates operated outside the authority of any nation’s law or protection, there was a jurisdiction to capture, try, and punish pirates in any nation who apprehended them. Such trials could, in extreme cases, be undertaken by the captain aboard the capturing vessel, resulting in the exemplary violence of hanging the perpetrators in a conspicuous place from the ship’s rigging.
The notion behind the universal jurisdiction to try pirates and these others who fell outside of the social contract between the inhabitants of civilized nations is that their crimes were too serious to be subject to jurisdictional wrangling. They were so serious that any nation had an obligation to prosecute those accused of such crimes if they could do so. This admiralty law concept was imported into public international law as “universal jurisdiction”, which certain theorists sought to expand to cover genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and other crimes against humanity.
The extent to which universal jurisdiction is accepted as part of customary international law would be a fascinating discussion on its own, but my point here is simply to outline an important distinction. Some conflicts take place between actors who exist within a system and have allegiance to the rules which govern that system, while others take place between system adherents, on the one side, and those outside the system who have no allegiance to it, on the other.
In our domestic politics we have traditionally been gifted with a robust national dialog between Americans with differing viewpoints as to what course of action is best for our common good. In my lifetime these policy discussions were often heated and passions in discussing them ran high. But our politicians were ultimately, proponents of our system of government. Senator John McCain used to famously refer to this notion of robust debate within accepted guardrails as “regular order”. There are many examples of this, but the notion of “politics ending at the water’s edge” provides a potent one: you could debate the extent of our willingness to fund armed conflict all you wanted, but when the President went overseas all of America’s political institutions were expected to speak with a common voice.
What happens when political actors abandon the notion of “regular order”? When they seek to undermine the system—and dismantle the guardrails—within which normal political discourse takes place? In our politics, political parties are used to competing for the center of the political landscape. This encourages moderation and an appeal to reason that will sway the majority pf Americans into supporting a party’s political project.
However, if a group of political actors declares their hostility to the system, reasoned debate ceases to be possible. Just because any legitimate attempt to govern requires the support of the people to be governed does not mean that all of the people are worthy of engaging in a good faith discussion. We must learn to discriminate between those with whom we simply have a good faith disagreement, and those who are fundamentally opposed to our system of government. Those who decry the rule of law, the freedom of the press, the legitimacy of the free and fair elections, our freedoms of speech, our freedoms of association, and our rights to due process are outside the pale of civil discussion. We do not need to treat with these apostles of extremism. We need to call them out. We need to organize against them. Otherwise we risk the danger of becoming collaborators with those who would seek to extinguish our system of government.
Garri Benjamin Hendell is a lieutenant colonel in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard. He has served three overseas deployments to the CENTCOM AOR, various training deployments to Europe, and served in 2022-2023 as the brigade task force S3 responsible for land forces in support of border operations. He is currently assigned to the operations staff in the 28th Infantry Division and serves as the Division Innovation Officer.
The opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not reflect those of the Army National Guard, the U.S. Army, or the Department of Defense.
Bad Indians and Narrative Seeds
https://web.brid.gy/r/https://www.lifeisasacredtext.com/bad-indians-and-narrative-seeds/
Edit Your Book As If It’s a Screenplay
A writer’s script-editing experience helped fix her novel’s problems with pacing, flat characters, and scenes that didn’t propel the story.
https://janefriedman.com/edit-your-book-as-if-its-a-screenplay/
Crafting Ethical and Moral Dilemmas in Crime Fiction
In crime fiction, the most powerful moments often aren’t about car chases or shootouts—they’re about impossible choices.
https://janefriedman.com/crafting-ethical-and-moral-dilemmas-in-crime-fiction/
Using the Workplace to Add Depth to Your Novel
Using the workplace as more than a backdrop can supercharge the stakes, conflict, and character development of your fiction.
https://janefriedman.com/using-the-workplace-to-add-depth-to-your-novel/
How a 100 Rejections Challenge Prepared Me for Life’s Biggest Rejection
A slew of literary rejections helped one writer develop the perseverance needed when a failed marriage left her urgently seeking a new job.
https://janefriedman.com/how-a-100-rejections-challenge-prepared-me-for-lifes-biggest-rejection/
Client Info
Server: https://mastodon.social
Version: 2025.07
Repository: https://github.com/cyevgeniy/lmst