A while back, I had a frustrating conversation with a guy who claimed to want to write. I’d hoped for better, given his email (which was why I agreed to meet him in the first place), but…well. So here are some of the things he did right, and a
Read more →“So how can you stand being edited?” is a question that’s been coming up at conventions lately. The subtext usually assumes that all editors are a) idiots and/or b) out to ruin everyone’s brilliant manuscripts, and that they must therefore be fought off with every bit of
Read more →It’s tax season again, which means loads of published writers out there are cursing their lack of record-keeping and vowing to do better next year. Fortunately, early March is usually not so late in the year that the very idea of going back over all the business
Read more →Patricia, what is the dividing line between editing and meddling? The retitling of one of the Harry Potter books comes to mind.- Gene Wirchenko There are a lot of flip answers I could give to this question, because it’s based on a fundamental misconception about the publishing process:
Read more →So MaKayla asked about deadlines, specifically whether they’re good or bad, interfere with the process or enrich it, etc. The answer is “It depends on the writer.” I know writers who freeze up at the mere thought of a deadline, and writers who can’t seem to write
Read more →A quick recap from last time: the primary principles to apply when writing a query letter are that you keep it short and specific; that the story synopsis matches the book; and that you are not coy in the manner of back-blurbs. Just in case somebody isn’t
Read more →Lately I’ve been getting a lot of queries about, well, queries. So I figure that it’s probably time to do a post on them, even though I feel like I’ve been talking about the “boring business stuff” an awful lot lately. Anyway, the first thing I’m going
Read more →Back when I was getting started, I had the privilege of talking to a number of long-established SF/F writers and writer/editors – Ben Bova, Gordon R. Dickson, L. Sprague de Camp, et al. One of the things I noticed sort of vaguely at the time, but really
Read more →One of the great things about collaborating is that if you pick the right collaborator (and the right method), you can write until you get to a sticky spot, then hand it off to your collaborator and let them deal with it. In most cases, what is
Read more →People go into collaborations for different reasons…and each project, and each co-author, is a different situation. Sometimes, two or more writers collaborate because they came up with a brilliant idea in the bar at three in the morning…and next day, it still looks brilliant and fun. Sometimes,
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