Where Normal Need Not Apply
We’re all being told that we need to have a platform, that we need to grow our platform, and that we need to use our platform. Gah! Does anyone else want to throttle the word “platform” after hearing it for the fifty-bajillionth time? The word diminishes the meaning of what […]
Confession: I broke one of the unwritten rules of the Writer Code. I ranted. In public. On an agent’s blog. And yet I’m still here to tell to the tale. In fact, the agent responded to my comment and then—in a show of fantastic grace—emailed me to make sure I […]
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With any job or activity, if we want to get better, we have to stretch ourselves. Athletes strive to move faster or stronger. Musicians aim to complete a harder, more intricate piece of music. And writers… How do writers stretch themselves? We can collect feedback on our writing from beta […]
(Note: I am not Tawna Fenske, so that title is not a euphemism for anything. Sorry. However, this post might include a reference to a shower scene of one woman with two guys. Or not.) I mentioned last time that one day of the weekend was taken up by writing-related […]
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Last time, I used the Green Lantern movie to illustrate how not to plot a story. This time, we’re going to look at the Green Lantern characters. As noted before, Green Lantern felt superficial and formulaic. Sure, it’d be easy to say that it was a comic book movie and therefore […]
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I recently saw the Green Lantern movie. I know, I know. The reviews were terrible, but I often enjoy turn-brain-off movies. This fun-but-dumb superhero action flick definitely fit the bill. But the real entertainment came after the movie, as my family and I analyzed why this superhero movie failed compared to other […]
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A few weeks ago, we talked about about branding and blogging and how to create connections with others. People who feel connected to us are more likely to be willing to give our book a try or to help us promote. Connected readers might become our front lines in our […]
Some people post their work online all the time. Photographers have Shutterstock. Artists have deviantART. Non-fiction authors often base their books on their blog posts. What about fiction authors? That’s a little trickier. We’re not talking about flash fiction, blog hop entries, and the like here. If we limit the […]
Do you dread that question? If you tell the cashier at the grocery store you’re a writer and they ask what your book is about, do you have an answer? All writers who want readers have to be able to answer that question. Whether it’s our brother-in-law at a holiday […]
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The comments for my last post were fantastic—thank you! The range of opinions really got me to think deeper about the traditional vs. self publishing issue. Many people wrote in with circumstances for when self publishing works (and possibly works “better”). Others noted situations where traditional publishing is the only […]
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