Chuck is the author of the published novels:Blackbirds, Mockingbird, Under the Empyrean Sky, Blue Blazes, Double Dead, Bait Dog,Dinocalypse Now,Beyond DinocalypseandGods & Monsters: Unclean Spirits.He also the author of the soon-to-be-published novels:The Cormorant, Blightborn (Heartland Book #2), Heartland Book #3, Dinocalypse Forever, Frack You,andThe Hellsblood Bride. Also coming soon is his compilation book of writing advice from this very blog:The Kick-Ass Writer, coming from Writers Digest.

He, along with writing partner Lance Weiler, is an alum of the Sundance Film Festival Screenwriter's Lab (2010). Their short film, Pandemic, showed at the Sundance Film Festival 2011, and their feature filmHiMis in development with producers Ted Hope and Anne Carey. Together they co-wrote the digital transmedia dramaCollapsus, which was nominated for an International Digital Emmy and a Games 4 Change award.

Chuck has contributed over two million words to the game industry, and was the developer of the popularHunter: The Vigilgame line (White Wolf Game Studios / CCP). He was a frequent contributor toThe Escapist, writing about games and pop culture.

He currently lives in the forests of Pennsyltucky with wife, two dogs, and tiny human.

500 Ways to Write Harder by Chuck Wendig

500 Ways To Write Harderaims to deliver a volley of micro-burst idea bombs and advisory missiles straight to your frontal penmonkey cortex. Want to learn more about writing, storytelling, publishing, and living the creative life? This book contains a high-voltage dose of information about outlining, plot twists, writer's block, antagonists, writing conferences, self-publishing, and more.

All this, straight from the sticky blog pages ofterribleminds.com, one of the 101 Best Websites for Writers (as named by Writer's Digest).

This book contains the following chapters:

  • 25 Bad Writer Behaviors
  • 25 Hard Truths About Writing & Publishing
  • 25 Steps To Becoming A Self-Published Author
  • 25 Steps To Edit The Unmerciful Suck Out Of Your Story
  • 25 Things To Do Before You Start Your Novel
  • 25 Things You Should Know About Antagonists
  • 25 Things You Should Know About Conventions & Conferences
  • 25 Things You Should Know About Metaphor
  • 25 Things You Should Know About Narrative Point-of-View
  • 25 Things You Should Know About Outlining
  • 25 Things You Should Know About Worldbuilding
  • 25 Things You Should Know About Young Adult Fiction
  • 25 Things Writers Should Beware
  • 25 Things Writers Should Know About Traveling
  • 25 Turns, Pivots and Twists To Complicate Your Story
  • 25 Ways To Be A Happy Writer
  • 25 Ways To Get Your Authorial Groove Back
  • 25 Ways To Survive As A Creative Person
  • 25 Ways To Unstick A Stuck Story
  • 25 Writer Resolutions
  • Appendix: 50 Rantypants Snidbits Of Writing And Storytelling Advice

CURATOR'S NOTE

Chuck Wendig delivers machine-gun-fire pithy pieces of advice on all aspects of writing and publishing. You’ll need to take it in small doses, and you’ll keep coming back. I only recently met Chuck. Not only is he an extremely popular fiction writer, he’s been a tireless advocate for writers and disseminator of advice. It’s like reading from a firehose. – Kevin J. Anderson

 

REVIEWS

  • "Chuck Wendig’s Confessions of a Freelance Penmonkey is full of the kind of writing advice I wish I’d gotten in school. Practical, brutally honest, and done with the kind of humor that will make it stick in your brain. Whether you’re a veteran writer or new to the craft, you’ll find something useful in here. Plus he says ‘fuck’ a lot, so, you know, there’s that."

    –Stephen Blackmoore, author of Dead Things
 

BOOK PREVIEW

Introduction

Reading this book will not make you a better writer.

I'm supposed to tell you differently. I'm supposed to say, THIS BOOK IS 156% GUARANDAMNTEED TO MAKE YOU 478% BETTER AS A WRITER. I'm supposed to assure you that, upon the conclusion of you reading this book, you will be so filled with the breath of the Muse that it's like rolling a natural 20 in D&D or getting a Get Out Of Jail Free card in that shitty game, Monopoly. I should be promising you that it will make you be a better writer, storyteller, publisher, marketer, blogger, thinker, word-herder, penmonkey, and overall biblio-champion. It will, were I to lie, make you a better lover, a better human, a better spiritual entity.

It's all horseshit.

This book is just an agglomeration of ideas. A sticky, uncertain, sometimes counter- intuitive and contrary agglomeration of ideas.

This book isn't magic.

It won't make you better.

It's not a pill. It's not an unguent. It's not a storytelling suppository.

It is both passive and inert.

If you're going to become a better writer – if you are going to, as the name of this book suggests, write harder – than you will do that all by yourself.

You're the only one who can make yourself a better writer.

This book is a springboard to that, if you want it to be. It's a book that's meant to jostle loose the scree, to break apart the picture you already know into its requisite puzzle pieces. It's a series of thoughts, notions, ideas, tips, tricks, comments, questions, complaints, marriage proposals, death threats.

The goal of this book is to energize you. To force you to think about how you do things. To rethink how you tell stories and write words and promote yourself and be creative and live the life of a bonafide penmonkey. This book represents a series of

exclamations and question marks. Each statement or question is meant to be a tool – a tool you may use, or discard, at your leisure.

But you're the only one who matters.
This book isn't just a thought exercise.
It is a call to action.
Because without action – without doing – you accomplish nothing. Talking about writing isn't the same as writing.

Thinking about writing isn't the same as writing. Reading this book about writing isn't the same as writing.

I joked on Twitter the other day about the "Seven Habits Of Successful Writers," which, really, isn't a joke at all. The seven habits of successful and effective writers?

1. Write
2. Write
3. Write More
4. Keep Writing
5. Finish Writing
6. Rewrite
7. Go Write Something Else

(To clarify, that's not meant to be weighted unfairly against rewriting which, by the way, is just writing.)

You want to get better? Get better. Use this book as a stepstool, sure. But by itself, it does nothing without your consideration, your action, your effort.

Go. Do. Write.
Write hard right now, and write harder tomorrow than you did today.