November was a crazy month. I bought a house, finished edits on a MS, sent it to my agent, prayed she wouldn’t hate it, finished a first draft of something new, cheered my friends and CPs on during PitchWars, moved, worked about 75 hours a week, discovered Gilmore Girls on Netflix, negotiated concessions and contracts, […]
I realize that Thanksgiving isn’t until tomorrow, but at some point I started posting every Monday and Wednesday, and I might as well just go with it. Besides, I think it’s important to stop and reflect on the good things in life more than just once a year. Give recognition and thanks whenever you can. […]
First, I want to clarify a few things. This post is not about whether Michael Brown attacked Darren Wilson or whether Darren Wilson was justified in shooting him. Those are questions for a criminal jury at trial. This is a post about our legal system, and how it’s supposed to function. Second, I am a […]
Here’s something that’s no secret: Rejection sucks. We’ve all been there. Unless you were born under a lucky star, chances are that at some point you’ve been passed over for a promotion you wanted, were turned down for a date, didn’t get the job, lost a proposal… or had a literary agent or publisher tell […]
If you’re a writer, you probably spent a lot of time and energy trying to connect with a Critique Partner who understands you and your work, and who writes things you want to read and can critique. When you find that person – listen to him/her. I had a couple of CP misfires at first. […]
So, just as I was sitting here, wracking my brain for something to write about, the amazing and talented Mary Ann Nicholson tagged me in the Liebster Award blog hop. Yes! Inspiration! (No, I don’t know what the Liebster Award is, but that’s OK). She asks some tough questions, though. I’m not even sure how […]
Now, I talk about traditional publishing, because that’s the path I’m following for my manuscript, but let’s take a step back for a minute. How do you decide whether to go with traditional publishing, self-publishing, or some hybrid? (I happily lucked into an agency that does work with authors to do hybrid publishing, which is […]
The past couple of months, I’ve helped with a couple of contests. All three of my critique partners were featured in PitchWars, so I also read a lot of contest entries as an observer/spectator. My guess is that I read probably about 400 entries between all the contests. Why do I mention this? Just to […]
The amazing Michelle Hauck is doing something awesome – for querying and agented writers. It’s a first page blog hop! So, go ahead and review Michelle’s blog for instructions, post the first 250 words, and post a link on your blog. Then start critiquing! Here’s mine: Genre: Women’s Fiction First 250 When I was eight […]
Some writing projects come easily. My first manuscript poured out of me. There were a few plot points I had to mull over for a few hours, or sometimes overnight, but I always knew what to write next until I hit somewhere around 65k words. Plot issues never stumped me for more than a day […]
No, this post isn’t about writing. It’s okay, you can read it anyway. As you may or may not be aware (but should be), there is an election coming up tomorrow. No, it’s not a Presidential election. No, that doesn’t mean it’s not important. If you are over the age of 18, eligible to vote […]
If you’re a writer who knows how to use the internet (and odds are you are), you’ve probably heard of NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. I like to call it “Holy shit, it’s November already?” For anyone who doesn’t know, basically, the point of NaNo is to put down 50,000 words on the page […]