Impact Your Career: 7 Free-to-Enter Writing Competitions
I love learning about an author’s journey from first word to published book. Wooing an agent and publisher in this industry can be grueling; slush piles grow and opportunities to surprise and intrigue are often slim. Winning a respected national writing competition can propel your manuscript into the right hands, or add a compelling edge […]
Act One: 10 Essential Elements
I’m a little addicted to the The Script Lab. As I worry over and scrutinize my fiction novel, tweets about screen-writing from @TheScriptLab interject with lucid, helpful, applicable ideas. My blog is for creatives of all stripes, and ideas for good writing can come from any genre. I really like this list of elements; it reminds […]
5 Key Questions Every Book Proposal Must Answer
The book proposal may require as much time to prepare as your first draft of your manuscript. Or perhaps your fifth. While there are several schools of thought on what agents specifically look for in an effective book proposal, Gary Smailes, the author of several history books for children including the Brave Scots and Modern Hero series, […]
6 tips for promoting your book on Facebook
Every writer’s “other” job is self-styled marketing machine. My bet is because you spend so much time on the computer anyway, your fave form of communication with the outside world is the written word. (See how I plugged the name of my own blog there?) Twitter and Facebook allow invaluable connections. For me personally, my Tweeps […]
The art of pitching your novel; advice from Ken Levine
As I mentioned in yesterday’s post about writing and self-doubt, my husband doesn’t want to hear about my writing process. He has, however, made it abundantly clear that my “pitching technique” needs serious work. I need to sell my story, and sell it like a champ. Ken Levine, a TV comedy writer with a killer […]
Self-doubt and writing: amicable partners?
It’s Monday morning, and I am dragging myself through the mud. Am I making any progress? Is what I’m writing any good, any good whatsoever? Over the weekend, my husband and I had the rare opportunity to enjoy a date night. It was a beautiful evening, so we sat outdoors at one of our favorite […]
“How I Evaluate Full Manuscripts” (Porn for aspiring authors)
But high as my standards are and tough as my editorial vision is, I do love the whole process of reading a potential client’s manuscript — from the exciting request to the potential treasure trove of the full to the rare manuscripts that sparks my imagination.
7 tips for aspiring children’s writers from author Audrey Vernick
For many years, New Jersey children’s author Audrey Vernick wrote literary short fiction, where a big success is “selling” your story to a literary magazine that pays you with free copies of the magazine. Honored twice by the New Jersey State Council of the Arts with its prestigious fiction fellowship, Audrey has published seven children’s books […]
Television as Teacher: 5 things we can learn from TV writers and their characters
A few weeks ago I attended the Writers Faire at UCLA. There were over 45 seminars on the craft of writing, presented by a humbling variety of the nation’s finest authors, poets and screenwriters—who just happen to teach at UCLA. (I’m salivating as I write this. I live just a few hours south–too far to […]
How authors make money. No, really.
Writing your first book (or second, third…) is no small undertaking. In the best of times, getting an agent and finding your book one day in a book store was a long, arduous journey. The task facing today’s aspiring authors can often seem unsurmountable, but the truth remains: a writer must write. One’s story must be […]
