John Wilander

First, congrats to whoever's been admitted!
I would evaluate like this:
1. Send a chunky prompt with all the angles they care about to a good chatbot
2. Climate (hot, cold, rainy?)
3. Housing (easy to find, costly?)
4. State political climate (abortion rights, civil rights)
5. Access to good airport

YouTube video by shannahamandra S P O C K Never trust a Klingon

Never trust a Klingon: www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsYF...

Massie goes full beast mode today.

Gets on the house floor, shreds the DOJ and starts naming names from the Epstein files.

Former ICE lawyer Ryan Schwank: “I received secretive orders to teach new cadets to violate the Constitution.”

Google obviously has YouTube Premium (www.youtube.com/premium). Are you saying they've never *promoted* it?

Håller med! Jag har föreslagit en koordinerad övergång till europeiska Mastodon. Under en övergångsperiod så postar de där först och på Xitter etc 15 min senare. Media kommer följa efter direkt för att inte bli sena med nyheter. Sen, släck Xitter-kontona.

(Typo: "I83%" för Socialiser+C på Bluesky.)

Thanks! Those details make sense. Stating Ozempic as a manufacturer was a clear mistake. It's Novo Nordisk, for sure.

True, but Ozempic is one of two major semaglutide manufacturers. Their main competitor is the American company Eli Lilly with drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound. Eli Lilly also makes insulin.

"The Imperial House of Japan is said to be the oldest continuing hereditary monarchy in the world (…) 660 BC by Emperor Jimmu." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governm...
"Danish monarchy traces its roots back to Gorm the Old, who established his reign in the early 10th century."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark

Facebook Allegedly Detected When Teen Girls Deleted Selfies So It Could Serve Them Beauty Ads A recent tell-all by a Facebook insider reveals the insidious nature of Facebook's advertising empire, and the dangerous consequences.

'The social media company likewise tracked when adolescent girls deleted selfies, “so it can serve a beauty ad to them at that moment,” according to Wynn-Williams.' futurism.com/facebook-bea...

I've waited five minutes. The page load is not progressing. No errors in the Web Inspector console. Seems I can't exercise my rights after all, at least not for the time being.

After following all the steps, I end up on a white page under https[:]//auth[.]cdt[.]ca[.]gov/signin-drop2?code=[a long code] This site seems broken.

When you log in to that page, you enter credentials including email address on secure.login.gov, which features Google Tag Manager and google.com subresources. See screenshot.

I believe it was Neal Stephenson who said "fiction is entertainment." Not necessarily in the sense of laughing, but people read to be entertained. We as authors have that job to deliver on. Unless you're just writing for your own sake.

Regarding want vs need, you do want to fulfill reader wishes. No one wants an unsurprising story. But readers want to feel at home in the genre and "suspend their disbelief." The reader knows in the back of their mind that novels are made up. If you jolt them too much, that thought takes front seat.

It gets extra tough when it's about one of your darlings. You love a scene, a character, or a joke. The criticism tells you to cut it or seriously rework it.

It can also be be feedback about big things since you create the whole 400-page story before anyone gets to see it. No intermediary feedback.

It sounds like you're asking a question and making a point.

Novel vs product feedback:
You're quite fragile and exposed as an author, especially a new one. You're the sole creator of your story and you're learning a new craft. So criticism can be tough to accept.

I already mentioned that you need to really develop a plan once you get feedback from beta readers because they're not professionals (they shouldn't be!). You have to be the creative force that tries to understand what's working for them and what isn't. Don't take their feedback as gospel. 🙂

At this point, I like to print another copy, read, and take notes. When I've addressed those, I'm ready for the beta readers. They need two months. I splice in questionnaires at plot points to get structured feedback. It's nice to ask what they expect at each point so you know how the story works.

We're now at draft 8 and it's time to send it to your development editor. Give them a month or so. Then the hard work of addressing all the feedback you feel is right for your book. Note that this feedback will not be in small pieces. It can be open ended and you need to be creative to solve it.

You may also need a pass on genre beats. Readers have expectations of thrillers, mysteries, romance, crime, fantasy, etc. If you don't deliver on them, you're taking a huge risk, especially as a new author.

Here's one way of laying out the plot points (there are many):
1. Hook
2. First plot point
3. Pinch point 1 (give the reader a glimpse of the dark forces)
4. Mid-point
5. Pinch point 2 (serious pressure)
6. Second plot point
7. Resolution (climax, cartharsis, end of story arc)

I like Hemingway's (alleged) quote "Don't forget the weather!" So I do a pass on that and often incorporate scene description in general. Now we're at draft 5.

Depending on how much you planned your writing, you may need a pass on story arc and plot points. You probably need to do that earlier.

Then I address all my notes. Together with the pass on voice, I'm now at draft 3.

If you're not yet good at avoiding head hopping, you need a pass on that. It has to be crystal clear in every chapter whose head the reader is in. Readers get super annoyed if you mess that up. Now we're at draft 4.

Depending on my confidence and mood at draft 1, I either:
1. Print a single copy (I use www.thebookpatch.com) and sit down and read it and take copious notes in the margins
2. Do another pass focused on character voice. By default, your characters will sound like you. You need to make them distinct.

The follow-up to get off the beach is that you write TODO notes as you go and keep moving forward. I do that a ton.

So my draft 0 is when I finish the last chapter. Then draft 1 is when I've addressed all my TODOs.

"You have the get off the beach!"
It's a dark reference to D Day and in the beaches of Normandie. The advice is you have to get to the closing chapter. If you keep revising in the middle, you stay on the beach, and you die (i.e. never publish).

Good news – you're off the beach!

Welcome to the 2026 SFWC - San Francisco Writers Conference February 12-15, 2026. Your journey to literary success starts here!

This is a great question. (I know I sound like ChatGPT but I refuse to let it steal my language. 🙂)

My first novel took 10 years to write. That's calendar time, not actual work hours. For the first 7 years I was naive. Then I attended SF Writers Conference (www.sfwriters.org) and got great advice.

OK, that's a short version of number one on the list. I'll stop here and see what questions you have. You may want to do audiobook. I've done that too.

Once you have formatted text for print and ebook, and a cover for hard cover, paperback, and ebook, you can publish. It's a lot of work. Multiple services, connecting bank accounts, getting ISBNs, writing blurbs, deciding on price globally … and on and on. Don't underestimate it. 🙂