Writing

General posts about writing (sometimes my own, but not always)

The really BORING part of having a book published

April 8, 2009 0 Comments

Counting down the weeks to the released of the book I co-authored with Jim McDevitt, A Year of Hitchcock, you’d think I’d be giddy with excitement. I mean, it’s just three weeks or so away, right? Any day now I might get my comp copy in the mail. How exciting! But the truth is, as I mention in How I Got Published, your obligation to your work does not end when the writing is over. When not working on other projects (such as my comic anthology), I’ve spent the better part of my personal working time the last week or so drafting and mailing letters to local libraries and book stores, calling to get the proper contact information, working on press releases, and other painfully…
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Alfred Hitchcock, Works by Eric, Writing

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Rejection letters ain’t so bad

March 11, 2009 3 Comments

Rejection letters. If you’re a writer, aspiring writer, wannabe writer, whatever writer, you’re going to deal with them. I don’t care how good you think you are, you will. That’s just reality. But here’s the thing: They need not be painful. Not even a little. Rejection letters are many things, chief among them something no writer likes to get, but they are more than a necessary evil. They are a sign that you’re an active writer. Proof that you’re actually writing, not just talking about writing. I mean, let’s face it, how many so-called “writers” do you know who never actually write? For every person who puts pens to paper or fingers to keyboard, there are a dozen of these talkers, people who like the…
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Random Musings, Writing

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You want to write? Then read this

March 5, 2009 0 Comments

I spotted this post over at A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing and couldn’t walk away without passing it on, because it’s about as essential as essential gets. Confident or Delusional? ‘Tis a brilliant (and entirely true) entry. Some highlights: Confident writers expect to be periodically rejected. Delusional writers are shocked every time someone fails to recognize their brilliance. Confident writers take suggestion. Delusional writers believe their words are written in stone. Confident writers work even when it’s hard. Delusional writers believe they need to be inspired first. If you write or have any inkling of writing, you need to read this. Read it and ABSORB it. A lot of those lessons are hard learned. You need to set aside the naive arrogance of youth or,…
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Writing

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How I got published, part 6 – all that other stuff

February 27, 2009 1 Comment

There is a lot of stuff they don’t tell you about getting a book published. You hear about the process of writing, and crafting cover letters, and how to approach agents and publishers, and on and on and on, but what about all the stuff the happens after you secure a deal? No one tells you about that. By this point I had done a pretty good job of educating myself on The Process. Thanks to loads of reading — books, articles, and blogs — I knew what to expect at almost every step of the way. But I had no idea what would come after we had gotten a contract. Well, here’s what happens: You still have a whole helluva lot of work to…
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Works by Eric, Writing

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How I got published, part 5 – Revising and rewriting

February 23, 2009 0 Comments

A Year of Hitchcock

(If you’re joining me in progress, this is the 5th part in a series devoted to outlining how my co-author and I managed to get our book, A Year of Hitchcock, published.) So here’s the part where the joy of getting a contract is smothered in the giant pile of WORK no one tells you about when you first start writing. Because make no mistake, writing is not what you think it is when you daydream about a career as an author. It’s WORK. Never forget that. As noted in my last post, it took a full year from the moment we first made contact with a publisher interested in our work to actually getting a contract. And getting that contract meant agreeing to a…
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Works by Eric, Writing

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