Where Normal Need Not Apply
I’m excited to share today’s guest post by author Roz Morris. After ghostwriting many bestselling books, Roz recently self-published My Memories of a Future Life, her first novel under her own name. Roz’s decision to self-publish came about partly because this novel doesn’t fit into normal genre boxes. However, even as […]
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Several people I know are going through revisions right now based on feedback they received from beta readers, agents, or editors. Every one of them is dealing with the “I suck” issue along with that. Yes, sometimes feedback can be a bit too mean or blunt, but that’s not the […]
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If you’ve sent out queries, you’ve probably received rejections. They usually say things along the line of: “This is just my opinion and others may feel differently.” “Just because I wasn’t drawn in doesn’t mean others won’t love it.” “Publishing is a subjective business and another agent would be better suited to your work.” […]
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In my last post, we talked about voice and how we tend to write the same types of characters, premises, and themes over and over. That’s not a bad thing. Those stories resonate with us as writers. Similarly, there are stories we would never write. Stories might be so against our internal grain […]
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I’ve been having a great conversation with Serena Yung in the comments of one of my posts about voice from a few weeks ago, so voice has been on my mind again this week. When I found a fantastic article by author Julie Leto about voice and how it relates to our writing, […]
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My post about combining comments from multiple beta readers in MS Word brought up a great question. How do we get beta readers? In the comments, Amanda Byrne asked, “[A]ny hints on how you can scare up more beta readers? … [O]nly one of them gets back to me in […]
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We all have weaknesses. Some people want to deny their imperfections, but most of us do what we can to overcome them. Like many writers, one of my weaknesses is my inability to interpret my words the way a reader does. That’s not unusual. We know what we meant to […]
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In my last post about Google search terms, I mentioned that we sometimes have lots of content around a search’s keywords and yet have never answered the question directly. In that case, Google just gave us an idea for a blog post. *smile* One search term that led people to my blog this […]
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My post about the ethics of fan fiction went viral this week, spreading beyond even the Twilight fandom. From a post on mediabistro/GalleyCat to mentions at Dear Author, Jezebel, The Paris Review, and AbsoluteWrite, people have been discussing ethics in regards to writing and the publishing industry. I don’t bring that […]
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No, that’s not a rhetorical or trick question. Recent events in the publishing industry have left me asking that as a serious point of confusion and discouragement. I know this is an ongoing complaint about the state of literature. Over a century ago, people complained about penny dreadfuls and dime novels, and […]
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