The Red Pen of Doom
by Ari Marmell I can’t help noticing that an awful lot of these guest blogs are focused, in whole or in part, on the process of getting published. Finding an agent. Using an… Read More
Author Archive
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How to Read like an Editor
by Kristine Kathryn Rusch I modified this from a piece I originally wrote for Science Fiction Writer’s Marketplace and Sourcebook, Writers Digest Books, 1994. Back then, I edited The Magazine of Fantasy &… Read More
“Prepare the Standard Rich and Famous Contract.”
Of all the landmarks in a writer’s life, nothing ever matches the first time someone tells you your work makes them want to vomit. For me it happened twenty minutes after I sent Dust, my first novel, as an e-query to the first of the long list of names I’d collected from the Agent Query website; I pressed the “send” button, my hand shaking with nerves, expecting to wait weeks or months to hear a word. Instead, a immediate terse reply: My sample chapters were “nauseating,” but they knew a tiny independent horror press who might like them. (The tiny horror press was indefinitely closed to submissions. Occasionally, I think the agent knew this in advance.)
Taking a Swing at Those Writing Slumps
by Jamie Todd Rubin I knew from a pretty early age that I would never make it to the big leagues. I wasn’t a bad ball player, mind you, but there was just… Read More
Own Your Creative Process
As writers, we are constantly being inundated with advice, collective wisdom, and snapshots of other writers’ creative process. On any given day, the internet hands me several blog posts about writing, writers posting their daily word counts, writers obsessing over submission stats, and writers kibitzing over every imaginable aspect of craft, business, artistry, and process. Whether upbeat or despairing, these tweets, status updates, and posts give us a window into the writer’s life…and a guaranteed reason to worry we might be doing it all wrong ourselves.
Building the (Story) Arc
By Jodi Moore Confession time. I’ve been writing stories since I could hold a crayon. I’ve attended countless writer conferences, workshops and seminars. I hold a degree in education. But the concept of… Read More
How to Tackle Your Basement and Water Proof Your Revisions…or the Other Way Around
By Kimberly J. Sabatini I’m going to talk to you about my basement. (Don’t role your eyes at me–even my kids will tell you that’s not a good idea.) Yes, I know I’m… Read More
Get Out of Your Own Way!
By Jeff Cox Let me just start by telling you, I don’t have a book deal. No best sellers under my belt as of yet, just some online articles and the many, many… Read More
The Right Word
By Ingrid Sundberg Mark Twain famously once said “the difference between the right word and the almost right word is really a large matter – it is the difference between the lightening and… Read More
THE NOT SO SHORT…CUTS
by Jordan Summers It used to be that you could give a new writer advice on the publishing industry and be pretty certain that what you were telling them was the truth to… Read More
