Is she in ecstasy or torture? Does she look like she’s in ecstasy or torture? She must be a writer of fiction conteomplating current avenues of publication because where there was once a clear path to authorship, fame, and fortune, now … 100 articles on how to publish OR see a fabulous, must-own publishing guide by The Book Doctors and Jane Friedman’s advice on publishing. So you studied all that, and now you’re ready to…
Waiting. Publishing your writing is so full of waiting to hear from an agent or editor that medieval torture begins to seem like a diversion to inflict on yourself while enduring the greater agony. I’m at another waiting stage with my novel-in-progress, The Renaissance Club. I’ve been working on this for so long that I can’t look at it right now without guidance. I need an agent or editor to hold my hand and tell…
“Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.” – Henry David Thoreau. When I #amwriting either prose or poetry, I first write long and thin. By that I mean a lot of words to say not as much as I will wind up with, compressed. Having just finished what I hope is the final revision of a 400-page novel, I know the meaning of short…
To help us all tilt our pens forward and launch them into a vibrant and productive 2016, I thought I’d share some bad news and some good news about writing. First the bad news. Kristen Lamb’s blog entry today sums up the bad news about publishing, for the writer. Never mind if book sales are up over Kindle sales, and don’t bother with the debate about Amazon vs. Indie bookstores. You’re almost never going to…
Unless your main character has OCD, s/he has somewhere she habitually leaves messy. A MC’s mess can point to her attitude in life. Kitchen? Living room? Bedroom? Mine is my desk. Where I can pile books and file folders, defining me as someone always looking forward rather than paying attention to details. Your protagonist’s way of making a mess may be an important trait. It may even involve magic. In magical realism in women’s fiction…
A great title gets us reading with a good title as a good first line. Or maybe just as hard — first lines also bear the full weight of the reader’s entry — and have at times despaired over that blank space where the title should go. When I wrote my article The Challenge of the Title, published by Avatar Review, essays on creating titles have proliferated, along with the need for titles because of…
I do some of my best writing in the shower. In my mind, of course. Neither pen nor phone can withstand the water. The inspirational quality of the shower may be in part because mine has a skylight. I can wash or just do hyrotherapy in sunlight, watching clouds drift overhead, or listening to rain on the glass. Whatever it is, washing naked in sunlight has to be one of the best pleasures ever invented.…
I’ve been reading around some of my favorite blogs, from Indiana Review’s blog on Five Marks of Oft-Rejected Poems, to Erica Goss at Sticks and Stones writing about the Open Mic Experience (both reader and audience sides). One of the things I LOVE doing as a writer is reading what other writers have to say about their process — whether it’s writing, revising, publishing, reading, promoting, or reading. And this holiday season seems to bring…
That’s perennial question, along with its corollary: Should writers be sane? Or is crazy really better for the work. If there’s one thing that drives every writer and poet I know crazy it’s the topic of publishing. Publishing is like hunting dragons — you’re not even sure they exist, you know you need some magical arrow that’s not in your quiver, and really you don’t have a killer’s heart. Especially the poets. It’s such a…
Last month, I was tagged by Erica Goss to participate in a virtual blog tour of writers. The goal was to answer four questions about my current writing process. What a great exercise for inquiring into the springs of my creative life. Here are my answers. 1. What are you currently working on? A messy poetry manuscript loosely organized around the title Arabesque. Like the ballet pose and Islamic calligraphy, it dips and swerves, echoes…