Tag Archive: advice

On writing: when hatchet jobs are a good thing

November 15, 2010 2 Comments

I’ve mentioned before that good editors will almost always improve your work. Writers (myself included) are often too close to their own work to be completely objective about it. It’s difficult to get outside your own head and read your work the way a reader would — and that’s a vital part of the polishing process. After all, if you’re not writing with readers in mind, you may well be writing crap. Another blogger recently made an excellent post about working with editors, specifically newspaper editors. That’s what I happen to be Monday through Friday, so I was especially delighted to see that this guy got it. He stood there, reading the draft, occasionally eying me over the top of the page, then pulled out…
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Writing

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Want to be published? Learn to query

September 29, 2010 0 Comments

Every now and then someone mistakes me for a person with a clue and asks how to approach a publisher about a book. There are no grand secrets — by now everyone knows that — just some basics on how to get started. In a series of posts last year I outlined how my first book landed on shelves, but skip all that for now, because I want to get to probably the most important part of the process aside from the writing itself: Your query letter. A query letter is simple, in theory. It’s you saying to an agent or publisher, “Hey, want to see my book?” Not so simple in practice, though. I won’t get into the details because other people have done…
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Writing

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Sound advice for aspiring writers

May 3, 2010 0 Comments

A fellow Eric brought these links to my attention and I thought they were well worth sharing. There is a wealth of advice here, and while not all of it will be applicable to you, if your aim is to write you’ll want to read these and take 90 percent of ’em to heart. The Guardian first gives us Ten Rules For Writing Fiction, as offered by noteworthies like Neil Gaiman and Elmore Leonard. They followed it up with Ten More Rules, bringing folks like Michael Moorcock and ian Rankin into the fray. The vast majority of this advice is good, sound, reasonable, and damned difficult to learn. Take this stuff to heart NOW rather than learn it after years and years of slogging through…
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Writing

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Staying Focused, Keeping Busy

April 11, 2010 2 Comments

Someone recently asked me how I stay focused. It seems like I’m constantly juggling projects, working on new things, producing new material … but how do you keep your nose in your work (especially when also dealing with a full-time job and family)? Aside from the fact that my focus is an illusion — the truth is I’m a lazy, not-very-driven person by nature and always have been — the secret is, there is no secret. It’s damn hard. It’s never easy. And that’s all there is to it. For the person not yet making his or her living solely on writing, for the person wedging that impossible dream into a life already crammed with work, family, and life in general, staying focused on writing…
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Writing

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Total. Author. Meltdown.

December 17, 2009 5 Comments

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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Writing

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