Author. Writer. Editor. Fool.
The semicolon is a tiny slice of unbridled awesome. Columnist Moira Redmond agrees, as outlined in this fun Slate column I stumbled across. As my departed-much-too-soon friend Frank Lauro once said, “You can have my semicolon when you tear it from my cold, dead hands.”
Collaborating with another person is a funny, sometimes touchy thing. It can be a minefield. It can be enjoyable and easy. It can be a great experience. It can be a chore. It can make you a better writer and it can make you wish you never agreed to the project in the first place. I’ve worked with many people over the years, most recently on A Year of Hitchcock and Pitched!, and every experience differs wildly from the last. Writer Alan Moore said of collaborations: Collaborations all have a different nature, they all work in different ways, because any two individuals are gonna have a different chemistry between them. You have to be sensitive to the person that you’re working with and they have…
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I’m not much for New Year’s resolutions. They’re either a laughable waste of time, a recipe for disappointment, or both. But I do believe in setting goals, especially when it comes to what I want to accomplish with my writing. I’m way too scatter-brained and easily distracted to stay focused without a clearly defined set of goals in front of me. So with this in mind, last December I outlined a set of goals to accomplish in 2009. They were as follows: 1) Finish refining my middle grade fantasy novel and BEGIN SEARCHING FOR AGENTS. The book needs at least one more pass before it’s ready for prime time, but that should not stop me from being ready to start the querying process. 2) Finish…
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Wow. This juvenile meltdown by a published author is making the rounds on the Internet right now, and it’s great reading. The gist is simple: reviewer on Amazon.com gives a book a bad review, the author responds to the review, and total bugfuck hilarity ensues. The author descends into a meltdown laden with conspiracy theories, secret supporters (none of whom we actually see), and a seemingly insatiable need to dig their hole ever deeper. If you at all like watching train wrecks, this is fantastic morning entertainment. I just can’t fathom what’s going through someone’s head when they do this. Even major authors sometimes fall prey to it. Someone doesn’t like your work? Fine. That’s part of writing. You feel like you want to respond?…
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One of my favorite bloggers on writing and the publishing industry, literary agent Nathan Bransford, recently made an excellent post about dealing with criticism. Excellent reading for any and all aspiring writers. Confronting a critique or criticism need not be a gut-wrenching trial. It can, and should, be a valuable learning experience. One of the first and most difficult hurdles on the road to publication is learning to cope with criticism. Yet you must. No matter how good you think you are, criticism is inevitable. It is also vital to your growth as a writer. The ability to solicit critiques knowing they will poke holes in your work, and to then listen to said critiques objectively and with an open mind, is one of the…
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