Understanding freelance independent editors

You don’t have to floss all your teeth. Just the ones you want to keep. —dentists’ motto Ever since I began this blog in 2009, everyone in the publishing industry has been weighing in on the big question: “Do you really need to hire an independent editor? Don’t agents love… Read more“Understanding freelance independent editors”

6 Steps to Tangling with the Publishing Windmill

This is the story about what happened after that Writers Conference in 1996 at which I became friends with the brilliant novelists Lucia Orth and Sasha Troyan. Actually, a lot of things happened, one of them being that I went home and completely rewrote my current novel yet once again…. Read more“6 Steps to Tangling with the Publishing Windmill”

How to Find the Meaning of Life through Writing

At our house, we call this week between the holiday and the New Year “time out of time.” It’s our annual step outside the tide of daily struggle and strife to stop and think and search again for the peace in our lives. In the same vein, we’ve been talking… Read more“How to Find the Meaning of Life through Writing”

The Art & Craft of Story: 2nd Practitioner’s Manual

It’s live! At midnight last night, we released my second book on writing: The Art & Craft of Story: 2nd Practitioner’s Manual It’s available in print through CreateSpace, in ePub through Smashwords, and should be on the Kindle as soon as they’re done dinking around with it. And for all… Read more“<em>The Art & Craft of Story: 2nd Practitioner’s Manual</em>”

Pulp Rag: Planting a suspicion, revealing a glory

A week or so ago I posted an essay on hook-development-climax that was almost entirely quotes from great works. I quoted hooks. And I quoted climaxes. I would have quoted development, but my fingers got tired. I wanted you to see exactly what constitutes a hook (why it’s short!) and… Read more“<em>Pulp Rag:</em> Planting a suspicion, revealing a glory”

Evaluating an editor

Hey, guys! Jane Friedman of Writer’s Digest has a post this morning containing links to a whole plethora of stuff on her blog about the world of writing and publishing. Why am I telling you this? Well, for one thing, Jane and I had a chat on Twitter the other… Read more“Evaluating an editor”