On working with writers
Similar Posts
How a Book Is Born, Part 5
So I spent a lot of the last post talking about focus, and I touched a little bit on habit, how focus is connected to habit, and I thought I would be more explicit about that. You can’t write professionally – that is to say, meeting deadlines and producing good work at reasonable intervals –…
On not following the rules
I’ve noticed that writers and editors run out of things to talk about so they invent ridiculous rules that don’t exist outside their own heads, or they apply them like a toddler with a hammer. “Don’t use adverbs!” they say. You know, adverbs can be terrific. Writing is never about 1 + 1 = 2….
Thinking Like an Agent, Part 5
Back when I was working as a literary agent, Writer’s Digest published an article I wrote on thinking like an agent. Though I’m an acquisitions editor now, not an agent, these pointers are all still true. I wanted to update them and share them with you. What I wrote then: 5. Be yourself – but…
How to get feedback
In my inbox: The feedback I have received over the last couple of years from publishers is the following: Your book needs some editing but not much so just send us between $6000.00 and $20,000.00 to do a full edit of your book and begin publishing, marketing and printing. What I am looking for is someone…
Working in themes
So last week’s post was a little short on specifics other than the admonition to do the damned work. It’s a good admonition, and you really can’t go wrong with it, but here’s one thing I do to impose some sort of shape and coherence on all of the things that want my attention. I…
On what I learned from writing a romance
I wrote my first romance novel on a dare. I’d been a nonfiction book author and magazine writer for a number of years, and I was working on a mystery of the hard-boiled private eye type. A colleague suggested that the reason the relationship between my protagonist and her love interest wasn’t working was that,…