Month: May 2024

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Celebrate a Book Birthday!

On this day in 2017, M.A. Lee published Old Geeky Greeks, third in the Think like a Pro Writer series.

We published with one cover. At the end of 2019, as part of the year-long updates to the entire Think like a Pro Writer series, our cover designers Deranged Doctor Design came up with this wonderful cover.

Here’s information for this book. Click the link to Amazon to purchase.

What do these have in common?

Atonement. I, Robot. The 13th Warrior. The Hobbit. Jurassic Park, in all its iterations.

Harry Potter. Ironman. Perseus. Dudley Dooright. Macbeth.

5 Stages of the Hero and the Monster. Blood tragedies. The scariest woman in all literature. Hubris.

These oddly-matched items all have origins in the ancient Greeks and Romans.

The first storytellers discovered many ways to intrigue and thrill their audiences.  They laid strong foundations for what worked and what didn’t work. Their techniques are still used, re-packaged as exclusive insights, glittery infographics, three-point seminars, and Wham-Pow webinars urging modern writers to Buy Now!

Old Geeky Greeks: Write Stories with Ancient Techniques presents these techniques in a clear, organized method for writers.

Chapters in OGG cover understanding characters, plot requirements and the oldest plot formula (the Blood or Revenge Tragedy), and such concepts as in medias res and dulce et utile and more, all to solve the sticky problem of audience expectations.

The bright minds of Classical Antiquity first explored that problem, and the answers that they developed are applicable in this age of the internet, special effects, and infographics.

Save yourself the hours spent at seminars and in webinars or scanning social media. Spend that time writing—and study the Old Geeky Greeks at your leisure. Whether writing novels or plays, blogs or non-fiction, poems and songs, this guidebook offers information to improve your writing.

Old Geeky Greeks is a seminar in book form, 28,000 words of time-proven techniques.

Writer M.A. Lee has published 25-plus titles under various pen names since she began self-publishing in 2015. She has over 30 years of experience in guiding college and high school students as they examined, analyzed, and applied these techniques.

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Wish I’d Known ~ About Podcasting and Writing

Wish I'd Known image created by Emily Dunn
stock photo from MS

We don’t often take the time to look back, to do a retrospection, a look at What I’d Wish I’d Known before ever starting. We track our accomplishments. Then we diligently write down the small steps that take us to our short-term goals and on to our long-term ones.

If we’re good little bunnies, we check our Master Plan once a year. We should rewrite it every third or fifth or seventh year. I can’t imagine a 10-year Master Plan. After my first five-year plan, I had to drop back from five to three because my plans change so much. I get new information. I clarify my goals I shove things forward that I wasn’t able to accomplish when I first envisioned them through rosy-colored glasses.

Even so—when we do stop and look back, we should consider all we’ve gained, all we’ve learned, and share that with others. Advice along the lines of “Wish I’d Known”.

We have a two-episode Retrospective, first on Podcasting, especially since many people are exploring podcasting as a new endeavor, on May 15. Then on May 22, the Retrospective focuses on Writing.

Decisions. Regrets. We cover them all.

Link to the audio of the May 15 episode: https://eden5695.podbean.com/e/520-wish-id-known-a-podcasting-retrospective/?token=002359eb986dd8adc7af0ec72855c8d2