Dark, soulful tales that haunt long after the last page.
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From Failure to Flow: My Writing Revival Story
Writers are emotional creatures. Some of us have hot tempers, fragile egos, narcissism, and a host of other issues. These often come with unhealthy coping mechanisms such as drug and alcohol addiction. I’m lucky in that I don’t have the temper, the narcissism (I think) or the addictions. But, yeah, sometimes my ego takes a…
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2024 Books in Review
There was a time I’d read 50 books a year. I can’t seem to do that anymore. In 2024, I read 33 books. Of those, 11 were rereads (in most cases, it had been decades since I last read them). Only six titles earned my 5-star review, but only one got a 1-star review. Let’s…
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Pre-Order _Sycamore Souls_: Release Date and Special Offers
Sycamore Souls, my upcoming novel set for release on November 5, is a heartfelt homage to my hometown, Enid, Oklahoma. The story follows Kelsi, a young woman escaping a troubled past, who learns about love and community while caring for an elderly man. The book is now available for pre-order.
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How to Fail as an Author: A Memoir and Guide by Steven E. Wedel
If you’d told me at the beginning of the year that I was going to write a how-to book for authors, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. But I have been reading so many of them that just didn’t seem to cover my situation, that I decided to outline one. Then I wrote a chapter.…
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Rediscovering the Impact of To Kill a Mockingbird: A Personal Reflection
Last night I finished my first reread of Harper Lee’s masterpiece To Kill a Mockingbird in the last 30 or so years. I read it several times back in high school in the early 1980s, but as my personal library grew, I stopped rereading the first novels I owned. I teared up several times during…
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List of Werewolf Books
A few weeks ago I got an e-mail asking if I’d be interested in a promotion of my novel Shara. All I had to do was recommend five other werewolf books. I hadn’t heard of the person, or the organization he founded, but I looked them up and found out that Shepherd.com was a legitimate…
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How to Fail as an Author ToC
In my last post I told you about the book I was working on, a sort of instruction manual for writers called How to Fail as an Author. I shared the first chapter of the book in my blog. I have finished the first draft of that project! It’s a relatively short book at about…
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How to Fail as an Author
I learned what the dreaded “form-letter rejection” was. “Dear Author, thank you for your recent submission to Boogity-Oogity magazine. Your writing shows great promise but our editors decided this story is not right for us at this time.” It was maddening! What was wrong with the story? How can I make it right for you?
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Sycamore Souls finished
Late last month I finally finished the project I began in November as my National Novel Writing Month project. It’s a literary novel I’ve called Sycamore Souls. The first draft came in at a little over 93,000 words and, while it is a pretty rough draft, overall I’m pretty proud of it. Sycamore Souls is…
Steven E. Wedel 