Welcome to the official author's blog for Pico Triano. From this site you can find links to most of my online writing. The menu below will bring you to some of my more popular work and allow you to navigate the site. In the sidebar you will find feeds listing the latest articles on all my websites. Relax take you time and enjoy your visit.

Sunday 19 April 2015

Old Writing



Been working slowly but surely over the past couple weeks closing up shop over at Bubblews. My balance is over thirty five dollars over there but I seriously doubt I'll ever make up the between fourteen and fifteen dollars needed to hit the redemption amount. I don't think they'll ever lower that number because too many people like me will just take the money and run. There's no advantage to them to do that. My intention is to harvest everything of value and then abandon the account.

I had written in excess of five hundred posts there. I am slowly deleting them one by one. It is taking longer than I expected because there is more of value there than I thought. I expected to pull maybe a dozen or so posts that could be worked into articles out of the junk pile. Under estimated myself. As I go through them I'm finding that about fifteen percent is worth keeping. It might end up being even higher than that. The material will reappear on my blogs or on Hubpages. 

This is one of the reasons I established the Pico's Writing Practice blog. A lot of my writing practice does deserve to be forgotten but there is a surprising amount of usable material produced. Once I've moved a few things off my plate I expect to be more active on that blog. I should be producing work daily and while I do pretty well considering my schedule and time constraints, I want to do better consistently.

Tuesday 14 April 2015

Pico's Cycling All Time Top Five Articles



We have grown so fast at the beginning of this year that all five most popular articles are from the current year. Jack Hawkins my fellow cycling writer usually does well and claims the top spot overall but the other four are all written by yours truly.

1) I Want to See the World is a story from Iohan Gueorguiev who is riding from north of the arctic circle to Argentina. This covers the first leg of his adventure. Included in the article is a link to Iohan's youtube video. He records himself with a selfie stick and narrates as he goes. I'm impressed with the steadiness of the pictures. The quality is outstanding. The trip itself is incredible.

2) It Begins is the first instalment of my own solo long distance self contained cycling adventure. The story is continued in successive issues of the webzine but none of them have attained to the popularity of the beginning.

3) Choosing a Touring Tent surprised me. I honestly didn't expect this very basic article to get this much attention. Evidently there are a lot of people looking for a little advice on getting this type of equipment.

4) Cycling in Bear Country I think is a very useful practical article and again was surprised at the amount of interest. Whether people are just curious or really would like to know about cycling in that kind of environment is not something I can answer.

5) Family Versus the Dog Kind rounds out my current top five. I expected this one to do well because I haven't met too many cyclists that have not had a run in with some other man's best friend. Sometimes I can actually predict what people will read. Most of the time though I can't.

I'm hoping to have continued success and maybe even see some of these supplanted in the future. At some point I may write a post listing our top five from 2014. Maybe before the end of the month. We'll see how my time goes.

The title of each article in the list here is a link to the article itself. If you haven't read them yet, that what they're published for - enjoy.

Thursday 9 April 2015

My Daughter Wins a Writing Contest


I don't usually write more than one post a day in my author's Blog but dad has to boast. Last month my daughter Mieke entered two writing contests on www.writing.com. She recently found out that her entry for "Boy Have I Got a Story for You" was awarded first place. She was surprised because she wasn't expecting this story to have what it would take.

Here is a link to her winning entry A Dragon's Princess.

Mieke is regularly entering contests on that site. She usually does very well. The points she wins keeps her subscription there current. I love the site myself. It is where I got the feedback I needed to get my first story ready for a publishers eyes. It's also where I met Kitty Sutton who introduced me to Inknbeans Press. 

Mieke's primary writing focus is on novel length fantasy. The short story contests are exercises to improve her writing

Advertising Fail


I've been reading an eBook on writing called "Write Good or Die" that I downloaded during a free promotion. It is a series of articles on writing. Most of the information is very useful, which is why I have not been racing through it. Some things I want to apply as I go.

One article really caught my attention because I was blowing it at a very basic level. Now that the problem is pointed out, I've had one of those face palm moments. When someone asks you what your book is about, you should have a short concise answer ready for them right there. Like most new writers, I didn't have an answer. I'd hem and haw. I'd say it was hard to explain or describe. I didn't want to come off like a salesperson trying to convince them to buy the book. Don't get me wrong, I think I wrote a good book worthy of reading but my approach or lack of approach didn't sound like it.

As a writer, I now understand that every time I don't answer that question directly, succinctly, positively, I've lost a potential reader. The article suggests one sentence. I've got mine down to two and it works. One of the ladies at work asked me what it was about. I answered with my prepared reply and she responded "I would like to read that book. That's the type of book I like to read." Bravo! Took me awhile to get that one right.

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie is about a man seeking justice and revenge. He is the worst nightmare for a dirty cop and crime lord but he needs a reason to live beyond his vengeance. I usually end up elaborating more but having a real answer has been effective.