Tag Archive: Writing

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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Writing through a rough patch

November 12, 2010 2 Comments

There are times when the words don’t come, and what words that do come make you cringe. You sit down and work, you reach your writing goals each day, but you hate every last bit of work you produce. I’m in the midst of one of those rough patches. For the last week or so I’ve wanted to toss my work-in-progress in the trash. It’s not writer’s block — writer’s block is bullshit — it’s something else. It’s “this sucks, this story sucks, these words suck, why am I bothering with this?” I hate that feeling. I’ve mentioned a few times before that I’m wrapping up a readable draft of a dystopian science fiction novel. I’ve gone back and forth between hoping people find it…
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Random Musings, Writing

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Pitched! Vol. 1 is now available via Lulu.com

October 9, 2010 1 Comment

If you were interested in that little comics anthology I wrote last year (with the help of a slew of talented artists) but still hadn’t gotten around to getting a copy, good news. It’s now available via lulu.com. I’ve gotten my copy and can vouch for its quality. Nice, glossy cover, strong binding, and decent paper quality. I’ll be up front: happy as I was with the quality of the work ComiXpress did (and I was), I got some complaints about slow order fulfillment. Excellent quality on the product, but it’s true. A few orders were slow to be fulfilled. The Lulu version takes a slight slight (slight!) hit on paper quality, but trades it for a glossy cover, printed spine, and very fast delivery….
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Comics & Graphic Novels, Works by Eric, Writing

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And the next plug-worthy project is…

October 8, 2010 3 Comments

… not something I can announce just yet, but I’ve been working hard on it for the last two weeks or so, it’s due in bookstores next August, I’m working with some extraordinary writers (I’m merely one small part of a team), including Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Award nominees, and it will be geeky as hell. The last part is the best part of all. So yeah, all you geeks out there? Watch out for a wickedly fun announcement

Uncategorized, 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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