No doubt half the bloggers in the US are running some sort of post on what they’re grateful for this year and why, because that’s what Thanksgiving is all about here. And I’m going to be no different. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because nothing happens. At my house, anyway, there are no expectations to…
Month: November 2009
Doing the work
In the course of any given day, I have lots of conversations with lots of writers. A consistent theme in the past few months has revolved around “doing the work.” In fact, it’s become kind of a sign-off mantra with a friend of mine: “Okay, I’m off to Do The Work.” It can be hard to stay focused and…
Pitch sessions: the other side of the desk (part 3)
In which we conclude our series of amazing insights into the pitching process . . . . As a writer approaching a pitch session, I get keyed up, hoping I make a good connection with the editor or agent, hoping she’ll be interested in my project, hoping this meeting turns out to be the key…
Pitch sessions: the other side of the desk (part 2)
In my previous post, I gave some thoughts about being an agent accepting pitches at a recent conference, and what I learned about pitching from it. Here’s Part 2: Because of the informal nature of the program and because a lot of the writers involved are colleagues, people I’ve known a long time, I…
Pitch sessions: the other side (part 1)
A while back I wrote a blog post about how to prepare for pitch sessions because as a writer I’ve done my share and learned something useful from the experience. Recently, though, I was on the other side of the table, accepting pitches, and the other side of the table always offers a different perspective, one…
The power of yet
You’re probably wondering if I know I have a typo in the title to this blog post. And indeed, the power of yes might be an interesting post to write someday. But I really am talking about the power of yet. The other day, my daughter Jessica and I were watching Mr. Magorium’s Wonder…