I’m getting ready to start another day of motivational boot camp with writer-buddy Linda Formichelli. If you don’t know what motivational boot camp is, read this post. If you’ve never done it, try it. You’ll get more accomplished in one day than you normally do in a week. Of course, it’s possible you may have…
Tag: how to
Accentuate the positive
There’s a lot of doom and gloom in publishing these days, although if you’ve followed along on this blog, you’ll know that book publishing has been doomy and gloomy since about 1847, and that I encourage people not to get too bent out of shape over it. “But!” you exclaim. “This time it’s different!”…
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…
Getting Past Go
This is a guest post by the energetic Linda Formichelli, co-author of The Renegade Writer. If you’ve ever fallen asleep at your computer when you should be working, this post will give you some ideas on what to do differently: One of the many reasons freelancers procrastinate on writing, marketing — everything — is that…
Fantastic first lines
Sarah Mason had always thought that when Death finally came calling for her, he would be better-looking. That’s the first line of Karen Robards’ 2006 novel, Vanished. And if you would put down a book that opens like that, there is nothing I can do for you. Here’s the thing: as a reader…
Red Flags
I know a lot of writers and visit a lot of online writing communities, and lately I’ve seen an uptick in the number of people complaining about taking on work that has proven to be a huge pain in the ass (PITA). Partly this is because of the economy – publishers are taking longer…