Career advice
Today as I struggle to get The Dreamer prepped for publication, I wonder, as I sometimes do, if it was particularly wise to structure my entire life and career around something I decided to do when I was five years old.
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Unexpected Encounters
One of the things I have missed in the pandemic is getting new inputs and having new experiences. These lead to serendipities in my writing (problems solved and new directions taken) and keep me engaged and energized. A few months ago, just emerging from our isolation, my daughter and I went to a harbor-side restaurant…
Ode to my imaginary constructs
People sometimes wonder how someone as feral as I am came to be a writer, which is all about connecting and communicating with other people. For me, the connecting and communicating with others is more of a bug in the process than a feature. I mean I want people to read my books because otherwise…
Dojo Wisdom for Writers Book Club – Lesson #8
Welcome to the Dojo Wisdom for Writers Book Club! Every Wednesday, we meet to discuss one of the lessons in Dojo Wisdom for Writers. We’ll go in order, so it’s easy enough to follow along. Read the lesson, then read the blog post, then comment in the comments! Do feel free to comment on each…
Book proposal basics
Like most agents (like most anyone), I spend my days juggling a lot of competing priorities. I always have more opportunities — in terms of clients I could take on, editors I could schmooze with, colleagues I could connect with, projects I could work on — than I have actual time and energy. So here’s…
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One of the most difficult parts of writing a non-fiction book proposal is putting together the competitive analysis (this goes by various names but is basically the section where you compare your book to others like it). People often make several common mistakes. 1. They write the competitive analysis after they’ve written the rest of the proposal —…
California Dreamin’
When I moved to Los Angeles, I started writing the sequel to my earlier memoir (The Improbable Adventures of a Middle-Aged Woman). I kept written journals but something kept nagging at me to draw. I am not by any stretch of the imagination an artist. This did not stop me from trying. Not knowing how…