Tag Archive: Writing

How I first got published, part 3 – The Query

March 8, 2017 0 Comments

The following is an encore from 2009, presented here in the hopes that the info will be helpful for aspiring authors. I’ve authored or coauthored five books since, and self-published another four, and most of this still applies. So enjoy. Hope it helps! Yesterday I talked about the process by which Jim and I began writing A Year of Hitchcock: 52 Weeks with the Master of Suspense. Week in and week out we were either in front of the TV watching Hitchcock’s work or, more often than not, in front of our keyboards writing, revising, and writing some more. It was midway through the year when we knew we had something publishable on our hands. By this time we has also developed an inertia that wasn’t going…
Read more

Writing

, , ,

How I first got published, part 2 – Ideas and Execution

March 7, 2017 1 Comment

The following is an encore from 2009, presented here in the hopes that the info will be helpful for aspiring authors. I’ve authored or coauthored five books since, and self-published another four, and most of this still applies. So enjoy. Hope it helps! So as I mentioned in the first part of this series, ideas are, in the grand scheme of things, relatively worthless. In some ways they are the least significant piece of the puzzle. After all, creative people – and I assume that if you’re reading this you’re probably a creative person – usually have far more ideas than they know what to do with. Had I 48 hours to each day and no need to sleep I still wouldn’t have time to do and…
Read more

Writing

, , ,

How I first got published, part 1 – Introduction

March 6, 2017 2 Comments

The following is an encore from 2009, presented here in the hopes that the info will be helpful for aspiring authors. I’ve authored or coauthored five books since, and self-published another four, and most of this still applies. So enjoy. Hope it helps! Chances are, if you like to write you’d also like to be read. While you can throw things onto the Internet and be read instantly, it’s not quite the same thing as a publisher saying, “I like your work. I’d like to invest our time and money into it. I’d like to publish your book.” Because let’s be honest with ourselves: Blogging is nice, self-publishing is interesting, but the majority of aspiring writers know being picked up by a legitimate publisher is key to…
Read more

Writing

, , , ,

Write Your Own Cheques

February 8, 2017 0 Comments

Contributed Post Image source A lot of people simply stumble into jobs. They go to school, get a degree and they take the first job offer to come their way without giving this career choice a second thought. That doesn’t happen with writers. You don’t fall into writing; writing pulls you in. Sometimes that can be in your 40s or later, however, sometimes people are lucky enough to know they are writers from a young age and go to school to study some form of it. But leaving school with a writing degree doesn’t mean you will become the next AA Gill or WHH. A career in writing needs to forged and fought for, tooth and nail, and relentlessly. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t…
Read more

Contributed Posts, Writing

, ,

How do I make a second edition of Breaking Down Breaking Bad worthwhile?

December 29, 2016 17 Comments

Breaking Down Breaking Bad

Back in late 2013, I decided to try an experiment: I decided I’d self-publish a book of television commentary on a show I was obsessed with at the time, Breaking Bad. The result was Breaking Down Breaking Bad. The idea was a culmination of several things coming together at once. I’d had over a decade in journalism and knew I could meet a deadline, and with the show coming to an end it looked like a great time to hit the world with something. I’d also been Editor in Chief for a website devoted to movie and TV criticism for a few years, so I’d been down the “critic” road before (though admittedly, it was never my jam; didn’t enjoy doing reviews then, don’t enjoy…
Read more

Television, Works by Eric, Writing

, , ,