Where Normal Need Not Apply
(Read below for updates.) Recently, a thief broke into my brother’s house. They weren’t home, so no one was physically hurt. However, the shock of the crime still caused emotional pain. The thief didn’t take too much, mostly just small things he could carry, but now they wonder if the […]
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Subtitle: Über Blogging, True Fans, or ??? In case you haven’t heard, recent statements by agents have started a kerfuffle over whether blogging is a waste of time for most writers. The first I heard of it was through agent Wendy Lawton’s post, What’s Not Working, where she says: “I wouldn’t recommend a […]
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The comments of my last post led to a great conversation about how not having a business mindset will likely hurt authors. However, I didn’t say writers absolutely, positively must be business-minded. I don’t think writers without an entrepreneurial spirit or business sense are doomed. The truth is that we can’t be good at everything. We all have […]
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Have you ever visited a restaurant where the food was fantastic, but the service was atrocious? I’ve known several places like that. People who love to cook might dream for years about opening their own place—and then once they do, the restaurant fails. Why? Because the skill of being a […]
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This isn’t going to be one of those “let’s bash traditional publishing/self-publishing” posts. There are still too many of those opinions on both sides, and I don’t want any part of that. Two people I respect blogged recently about publishing and kool-aid. Agent Janet Reid posted about the ten things authors […]
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My first sarcastic impulse is to answer that question with “Duh.” Writers have to be somewhat delusional to pursue a career that has such a minuscule chance of financial success. (Not to mention that fiction writers exist in a constant state of make-believe.) But there are different styles of delusion. There’s the […]
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Last week turned into an interesting demonstration on the benefits of guest posts. We’ve heard the typical reasons for allowing guests or agreeing to guest post: * increased traffic * networking * and marketing. We bring in guests and hope their readers will stay at our blog for a while, […]
I’m excited to share today’s guest post with you because in addition to being a lovely person, Jody Hedlund runs a fantastic blog for writers. As if that wasn’t enough, she’s also graciously arranged for a book giveaway of her latest release, The Doctor’s Lady (see bottom of post for details). Jody writes historical […]
Last week, we talked about how stories change from the initial story seed to the first draft. Then it dawned on me that I’ve experienced that same evolution between a first draft and a finished draft, where so much changed that I hardly recognized the original story any more. For fun, […]
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Artists of every type find inspiration all around them, and writers are no exception. Ideas might come in the form of a dream, a “what if” question, an overheard conversation, etc. Those are all fairly normal sources of inspiration. Personally, I’ve been inspired by dreams, “what if”s, an 80’s music […]
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