a.k.a. “That Time I Got a Big-Ass Typewriter on My Arm” When I told my dad recently that I was getting a rather large tattoo of an antique typewriter on my arm, he asked, “Now, why do you do that?” It wasn’t judgmental or harsh in tone. It was simple inquiry. So simple, in fact, I didn’t know how to answer him. Mind you, both of my siblings have tattoos, so this was nothing new for my folks. My brother…
Pity, party of one. I’ve been in one hell of a terrible slump for probably a year or more, trying and failing to pump some life into a lagging writing career. I’m happy to report that I’m emerging from it, but it’s been a rather dreary time. I thought I’d share a little about why I’ve been feeling this way. Perhaps it’ll help other writers trying to dig their way out of the hole. My slump came to a head…
"I won't leave any unfinished manuscripts." – Harold Robbins (Good for you, Harold. I can't make such a bold statement.) Question for writers: How many unfinished books are collecting digital dust in your computer's filing cabinet? There’s a folder on my desktop called Writing. Within that folder are several additional folders for each of the projects I’ve worked on over the years – novels, screenplays, short fiction, poetry. There are outlines, character biographies, and of course the manuscripts themselves. Some of them are…
Lately, I’ve found myself immersed in children’s literature. I primarily write Young Adult fiction, so I’m never too far from books with a youthful slant, but I’m talking about even younger than that. As discussed in this post, the cool folks at Read Aloud West Virginia are all about such books right now, and I was excited when their mission spilled over into my day job. Then, I started shopping for a couple of good friends who were expecting their…
a.k.a. The Summer of Doctor Who Okay, okay. Don’t panic. I was purposefully being a bit cheeky with that blog title. I haven’t stopped writing for good, but I figured if the folks at Empire News can go viral with a misleading headline about Betty White dying, I can say I stopped writing without technically meaning it! Actually, the fact is I did stop but only for a while. And the incident begs the question, when is it okay for…
"Writing is like seeing a picture of a place you've never visited before and wondering what it would be like to go there." – David James In a Huff Post Books column titled 7 Novels Starring American Small Towns, novelist Alan Michael Parker, in discussing setting as a character, suggests that the smaller the American town, the more likely it will function as a character…or at least agrees that it is a theory. And, along those lines, I recently attended a…
Note: I’ll preface this post by saying I’m being purposefully snarky. I appreciate inquiries about my writing career from friends, relatives and acquaintances, including the following ones. But I won’t pretend that I haven’t ever been annoyed at being asked one of these questions, despite the good intentions its asker may have. That being said, here are 5 questions never to ask a writer – specifically one in the traditional publishing business who has yet to actually publish a book. 1….
The other day I tweeted this clip from The Golden Girls of Blanche Devereaux perfectly summing up two of the most frustrating aspects of a writer's life: writer's block and rejection. It's the rejection phase that I've gotten fairly used to over the past couple of years. We writers face rejection from all over the place. Those of us in the traditional publishing realm often get our first (and second, third, fourth…) taste of it during the querying process as…
Perhaps one of these days I’ll earn enough money as a novelist to live comfortably off that income. I’ll get up in the morning, brew some coffee, pet the cat and sit down at my desk – still in PJs perhaps? – and write. Yeah…that day isn’t here yet. Most of us writers (wait…should I say most? Yeah, I’ll stick with it.) Most of us writers don’t do so full time. We have jobs and relationships and maybe kids and…
"No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come." – Victor Hugo After finishing up a marketable draft of Blades of Grass in October, I gave myself a needed hiatus before beginning my next project. In November, I told myself, I’ll get started on my next book. November came and went, and no progress had been made. I thought perhaps I was up against that dreaded thing called writer’s block. I would try to work. I’d…