Last fall, when my youngest kid went off to kindergarten, I went full-time (six hours a day during school days) as a writer and publisher. The year turned into three novels at different stages of production: one is in the later stages of editing, and two are half-written. Now that summer break has arrived, I…
Some of these lessons, you just can’t be “taught.” The truth is, to be a good writer, and a good indie publisher, you have to have outside feedback, and then, miraculously, you have to know what to do with it. Because sometimes it’s not grammar or spelling or even A + B = C, but…
I know that many of the people who follow my blog are not writers or publishers. I also know that, as a writer, I often get in a discussion (about being a writer) with people who have a very hard time understanding what I am talking about. This is because of the revolution you didn’t…
Welcome to this Monday’s edition of the My Writing Process Blog Tour. Don’t know who’s been following along, nor how long it has been chugging, but it is now my turn. You can try and track the thread backward, or wait to go forward as each new Monday arrives. Either that or just read this…
Let’s call this the American Culture Series. It will be four parts, posed in the title as questions, and each one will address something that as a philosopher I find strange about American culture. Then I will explore it from the perspective of my job (and obsession) as a writer and publisher. And now we’ll…
In the writing world, much of our advice becomes trite. Partly, I think, this is because it is true and therefore gets batted around so much it becomes tattered and, at times, useless. For example, my last post was about Write what you know. I have the feeling I could have written the first two…
How many times does an individual writer hear, “Write what you know.” And conversely, if you write something–even completely fictional–and write it well, you get “When did you do that?” or even the dubious, “How could you have written that?” Look at the hubbub surrounding Wally Lamb’s She’s Come Undone (a painfully intimate account from…
The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, third edition. Written by Christopher Vogler and based on the works of Joseph Campbell. Third edition published in 2007 by Sheridan Books. I read this book for work. I am a novelist, so I had to self-edit as I went, since it is written with a strong bent…
If you have been around this blog, long, you witnessed my first attempt at NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), last November. (For the journey, see here.) If you haven’t, I’ll just explain that NaNoWriMo happens each November, and tens of thousands of writers and would-be-writers sign up to pound out 50,000 words during the thirty-one…
Let’s get this settled once and for all. Where is the line between YA (young adult) and MG (middle grades) literature? What ages are we talking here, let alone themes and appropriateness? (Please note that this debate has been worn out just about everywhere else on the internet, but I have not settled it for…
I am no stranger to the forced pause. I am a migraine patient (aka migraneur) and have been since I was five years old. I have what used to be called classic migraine, which means my symptoms include blindness or partial blindness, confusion, disrupted speech, etc. on top of the usual pain, nausea, sensitivity to…
Let’s be smart about this. I am all for intuition, as a writer. But the other day, I had a moment where my subconscious writing process made a leap to my consciousness, and that’s when one can all of a sudden share that process. We’ll call it a teachable moment. Whereas before what I was…
Sitting in my most recent writers’ club meeting, my mind wandered to the issue of the modern reader and how a writer should and would respond. Most specifically, I was thinking about the attention span and the action requirements of the modern reader. Personally, I can relate. I have adult ADHD and even though I…
I pay close attention to first lines. One of my writer aspirations is to have such a great first line that they’ll be begging me to use it in the “First Lines” section of Poets & Writers. I read that section, every month, scrutinizing the novel lines. Then whenever I start a new book, I…
With NaNoWriMo, I honesty haven’t been taking in too much to entertainment, even reading (which is like half-entertainment, half-work). My plan for these last two months was several books, but I haven’t even finished one all month (unless you count the first book of Parade’s End, which I guess we should). We did, early on,…
They all said to make a plan. I even chirped the same advice to my writing friends: October should be NaNoPlaMo, National Novel Planning Month, we said. Because if you want to succeed at the 50,000 words demanded of you to conquer National Novel Writing Month in November, you want to have all guns blazing…
Still in the middle of National Novel Writing Month. Still spending five-plus hours per day getting those 2,200 words on the page. (Normally, it would be more like 1,600, but I was behind due to a sprained spine; more on that to come.) I am trying to keep writing and stop wanting to lollygag and…
In case you are unaware (and I haven’t spoken with you in the past couple weeks), November is National Novel Writing Month. Now, it is true that every day and every week and every month is some sort of official something day or week or month, but this one–believe it or not–is widely observed by,…
My intention was to find a writing group to join sometime this year. It was still sitting there on my list of Owl and Zebra goals when I was thrilled to find myself, one evening last spring, in a conversation with a new acquaintance about a burgeoning writing group which would happily include me, if…
I have been reading an article in Poets & Writers about current writers (and book sellers) in Egypt. (Yes, I am a couple months behind on my trade reading.) With the continuing upheaval (think Arab Spring and then lots more) in the country, it is precarious to be a writer or to be selling modern…
the starving artist 