All Blog Posts Tagged 'writing' (683)

YA draft is done

I'm kinda jazzed. The draft for my first Young Adult novel is done (only took a month to write). It's 20,000 words, but I'm not too worried. A lot of my drafts are underwritten. The first rewrite is where I start fleshing shit out, doing more showing and less telling.

I'll probably wind up trying to sell this novel, since I have no idea how to reach the YA audience. Though, I may put out a limited hardcover version on my small press. We'll… Continue

Added by Johnny Ostentatious on June 23, 2008 at 5:34am — No Comments

Stuart MacBride Interview

THE BLOODY SCOTS: PART 3

Suspect: Stuart MacBride

Known Aliases: Bearded Wonderboy, Stuart MacBeard, Crime Write-ist

Occupation: Write-ist, General Naughtiness

Last Known Location: Aberdeen, Scotland

Listen in as… Continue

Added by Angie on June 19, 2008 at 1:46am — No Comments

Oh, So You're an Author! (R)

I was pretty quiet about wanting to publish until I got my first contract. In a small town, announcing that you've written a book is an invitation to "Who does she think she is?" comments behind your back. Once I got that contract, however, it became necessary to come out of the book closet and start down the endless road of marketing and promotion.

The most surprising thing is how many phone calls I got from people who had also written a book. They wanted to know how I got published… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on June 18, 2008 at 10:26pm — No Comments

The Perils of Blogging

There are, in my view, two big dangers in blogging. One is that your blog is not read: you waste time, writing long, carefully-thought-out messages to no one. The other is that your blog is read and you say something dumb or hurtful or, worst of all, libelous. Ah, yes, the joys of the dilemma.

If you are read, that's good, right? People get to know your name, get to know your views, and remember you when they think of authors. But writing every day or week or whatever means you have… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on June 17, 2008 at 11:03pm — No Comments

Killing people at a conference ...

My latest book, Autographs, Abductions, and A-List Authors, is out just in time for the conference season. It kicks off my "Fatal Writers' Conferences" series -- the heroine is an up-and-coming author who goes to a writing conference and WHAM, a best-selling author dies while autographing a book for the heroine.

I had a lot of fun writing this and having the heroine (and other characters) express opinions about agents, editors, publishing, and publishing houses. And to be… Continue

Added by J L Wilson on June 11, 2008 at 10:48pm — No Comments

Pen to Press Writing Retreat

June 5

I managed to pose with the lucky face of Hannibal at Mardi Gras World in New Orleans, though I am not sure which of us look most deranged. For the record, I'm not all that fond of liver.

The city experience was bizarre--from the Disneyland quality of the French Quarter to the psychotic bums on the ferry landings, it definitely was rich and ripe and crowded. I don't know how Bourbon Street looked before the hurricanes, but I felt like taking a hot shower after walking… Continue

Added by Scott Nicholson on June 6, 2008 at 2:22am — No Comments

Donna Moore Interview

THE BLOODY SCOTS, PART 2

Suspect: Donna Moore

Known Aliases: Kafka, Queen of Shoes!

Occupation: Writer, Reader, Some Scary Day Job Involving Financial Stuff

Last Known Location: Glasgow, Scotland

Join us this week as Donna talks about her Lefty Award winning P.I. spoof,… Continue

Added by Angie on June 2, 2008 at 6:42am — No Comments

Book-signing tour troubles, thanks to gas prices

This weekend I will need to gas up the Miata and, for the first time, I will pay more than $4 per gallon! My friend Lee Fairchild is visiting from Ohio, where he said gas prices are still within the high $3 range. I assured him it would be closer to $4 by Memorial Day.

The price of gas has blown my book-signing budget. I knew going into this that signings didn’t pay for themselves in sales, so I budgeted for gas, food, and, where needed, lodging. Signings sold books and got my name… Continue

Added by Michael Haskins on May 17, 2008 at 4:33am — 4 Comments

It's Character That Matters

I've been having a terrible time with my WIP. The plot I'd envisioned didn't seem to want to happen. The history was a mess (but then, history always is). I've set it aside a dozen times to let it percolate, but nothing worked.

Then I got the character. I knew I didn't have her quite right, but I couldn't make her come into focus. She has to be different enough from my former protag to be her own person, but everything I tried made her lifeless or overburdered the plot with… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on May 16, 2008 at 11:12pm — No Comments

Missing the Connection

If you read this blog regularly, you've probably figured out by now that I'm having Internet connection problems lately. No one seems to know if it's trees, weather, or outside interference, but our computers have become confused and inoperative most of the time.

So what do computer junkies do when they have no Net? Growl about it, mostly. I'm writing this using an ancient dial-up connection that I kept just for such emergencies, but even it doesn't always come when… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on May 14, 2008 at 10:35pm — No Comments

Steve Mosby Interview

Suspect: Steve Mosby Known Aliases: The Notorious B.O.M. (Boring Old Me)

Occupation: Author

Last known location: Somewhere in Leeds (that's in the U.K. for you non-Brits)

Listen in as Steve talks about his take on serial killers in The 50/50 Killer, the influence of… Continue

Added by Angie on May 13, 2008 at 1:00am — No Comments

When You're Published They Think You Really Know

Of course the real line is "When you're RICH..." but it still works. As I travel around, hawking my book and talking about anything people want me to talk about, I get lots of questions from people who'd like to be published. "How do you write a query?" "Do I need an agent?" "How long does it take to write a book?" "How do you know what will sell?"

I have no answers. I have an experience, and I have lots of author acquaintances who have had experiences. None was exactly like mine, so… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on May 12, 2008 at 10:30pm — No Comments

Charles Ardai Interview

Suspect: Charles Ardai

Known aliases: Richard Aleas, Charles Gordon Lemuel Cork, and a bunch of other ones I don't know about...watch him - he's shifty!

Occupation: Author, Editor for Hard Case Crime

Last known location: New York City, NY

In this week's show, Charles talks about his two novels (Little Girl Lost and Songs of Innocence, why Las Vegas can be a cool place to write, and why "Schizophrenia Can Be Fun"… Continue

Added by Angie on April 30, 2008 at 2:10am — No Comments

Northeast Writing Workshop Tour

It’s a darn shame that some 4 million fiction manuscripts a year are rejected before the first few pages are even read. All that work on plot and characters and you can't get anyone in publishing to read past page 3, 2, or 1.

I’ve been a book editor working in publishing 44 years. Now that I’m retiring and have the time and means to travel the country, I'm sharing insider information about the manuscript submission process--including how to improve your own odds of surviving the 90… Continue

Added by Chris Roerden on April 21, 2008 at 8:00am — 1 Comment

It's a fine line...

I've been following this plagiarism business a while now. Today it was announced that Cassie Edwards and her publisher have parted ways over the allegations. Obviously, they are of a different mind regarding fair use. It's brought up the question for us writers: What constitutes plagiarism? A court in England found Dan Brown not guilty in the case of The Davinci Code; and as far as I can tell, these two cases differ only in the fact that Cassie Edwards didn't include a bibliography… Continue

Added by Cheryl Norman on April 20, 2008 at 8:22am — No Comments

Leonard's 10 Rules for Writers

I've been a big fan of Elmore Leonard ever since I read his novel Mr. Paradise. I read his 10 Rules for Writers. Here's my review:

If you read customer's reviews of this hardcover book on Amazon.com you will quickly see that some people feel they were hoodwinked. In truth this "book" is really an article reprinted from The New York Times on the thickest paper I've ever seen between two covers. However, the…

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Added by Richard Krauss on April 18, 2008 at 11:00am — 2 Comments

Editing, As in Slicing?

I think the natural tendency of most writers is to write too much the first time through. This conclusion comes from thirty years of reading student essays and crossing out countless parenthetical expressions, prepositional phrases, and wordy descriptions. Somebody has to make your project say what it has to say and no more, and that somebody should be you.

Sometimes it's whole passages. A friend who edits for me is good at locating sections that don't need to be there. "Why do we… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on April 16, 2008 at 10:30pm — No Comments

The suspenseful wisdom according to Patricia Highsmith

Years back, I read Patricia Highsmith’s book on how to write suspense thrillers. She being one of my biggest influences, I actually annotated the text, printed out my notes and stuck them on the fridge. Figured some of my more criminally inclined blog buddies might get something out of it, so I decided to share the highlights that I pulled from the book:

A protagonist reveals his or her character by what he does. Action is character!

Characters, conflict, choice, and… Continue

Added by Josephine Damian on April 5, 2008 at 3:00am — 3 Comments

Agents v. Readers

I'm just venting. This blog has no point, except to get out of my mind, the latest adventure in what I'm calling, My AgentQuest.

Hmmm. I'm not sure what to make of my situation. I have done several rounds of edits and revisions to my manuscript, CHILD SUPPORT. I have queried agents and after only one partial and one full read, everyone has passed, mostly on the personalized letter alone.

Coming from a newspaper background, I have several people who read me. So, I… Continue

Added by Ailene Yasmin on March 25, 2008 at 7:56pm — 8 Comments

That Boat We're All In (R)

As I read posts and talk with writers, I find striking similarities in the need for outside affirmation. We all write because we're driven to write, but there is beyond that a step that we cannot take by ourselves. In order to be comfortable with calling ourselves writers, we have to be accepted by Others, be it agents, editors, or readers. Just writing isn't enough, at least not for long.

When I started writing, it was for myself. I wanted to tell a story, not an important one, but… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on March 19, 2008 at 11:39pm — No Comments