Matthew Jon Smith

12/17/2024 6:19 PM CST Dear Reader, I blew you off on Sunday. You probably haven’t caught on just yet, but I made an unspoken promise to you that I would write a blog post every Sunday, and I failed you. I am a goddamned disgrace, I tell you. But, if I’m being honest with myself, it was for a good reason. Inspiration possessed me as I hammered out the second draft of a story I am working on. The story that I am going to be turning in for that big anthology I wrote about last week. (See last blog, “In the Eyes of the IDOLS”) In relation to another blog I wrote, “Re-writes, The Horror I Must Face,” I must tell you that writing a focused and well-informed second draft of that story was exhilarating. I know that sounds cheesy, but it wasn’t until I had let a couple of people read the story and I had gotten detailed feedback from a person with a different perspective that I really started to see my story for what it was. More on that in a future blog. I know I have promised seve...

  12/8/2024 8:53 AM CST Dear Reader, This week, I started out thinking I would talk about Street Fighter. That’s right. One of the few things I do nowadays that doesn’t relate to writing is play a decent amount of Street Fighter 6. Sometimes, if I’m struggling with a difficult passage, I will fire up Steam and fight a few online matches. It often gets me out of my funk or at least forces me to take a well-deserved break from the grind of trying to make it as a new writer in my 40s. There are lessons about patience and craft that I’ve learned from Street Fighter, lessons that I plan to apply to my writing. But I’m not going to discuss that today—consider this a tease for later. (For the record, my Ken is currently a two-star gold ranking, and I fought my way there from a low bronze. More on that in future blogs.) Something monumental happened and we have to talk about that instead. I was lucky enough to see an amazing opportunity on social media at just the right time. Mic...

12/1/2024 10:13 AM CST Dear Reader, Ok. So far, the general topics we have covered are my influences, how I got into reading, how I got into writing, and my adventures in accidental publishing. Today, I want to talk about rewrites, a subject I once hated but am looking to embrace. "Write a second draft." I cringed each time I heard some seasoned editor or agent say it in a "Helpful Tips for Writers" video or when I read it as advice from writers in their blogs. These writers were clearly lying. There is no way they abandoned their 90k-word draft, started over from scratch, and wrote an entirely fresh draft. They obviously want other writers to waste their time and ruin their work, right? My work is a labor of love. I pored over that manuscript for long hours, and there is a delicate balance of symbolism and scenes that unconsciously convey a deeper message and theme. Obviously, I should just do a little editing, revising, and proofreading, and it will be...