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This is an archive to previous days... enjoy...
Welcome writers: This website is all about the craft of writing. My hope is that it will help you hone your writing skills, focus your talents, learn about the publishing trade, and get published. Some of you are next Steven King, JRR Tolkien, Jan Karon, Nora Roberts, Mark Twain, CS Lewis or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The information and interactions among writers here will help you find your niche in the writing world and become a published author -- or become a more successful author. Let's talk about it -- in clear language about writing, editing and getting published. While you may not always agree with me -- and that's okay -- come back often and see what new gems of information we can come up with...
Previous entries:
Writers Conferences: Its important for both aspiring and experienced writers to go to conferences. This is where you will meet other authors, learn from seminars, and meet agents and editors. A common question I get as a published writer is ‘how do I get an agent’ or ‘how to I get my book proposal noticed?’ My first answer is ‘go to a conference.’ At many conferences part of your tuition enables you to .... (more)
Getting Published: There are a lot of stories about the first time famous authors got published. If my memory serves me right, Dr. Seuss sent his Daisy-Head Mayzie around to over 40 publishers before finding one who’d take it. Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time was rejected over 30 times and when it was finally published... (more)
Writers, get some respect: One of my favorite TV shows lately is Monk, a murder mystery that features an OCD detective. A scene of particular interest to writers was one where Monk went to a studio lot in Hollywood as a part of... (more)
Desperate Writers: A few days ago, I talked about how JK Rowling got her start – how she was hungry to make her first sale. There are, of course many examples of hungry writers who create stories from a situation of desperation. Another writer who came to mind is William Sydney Porter writing under the name O. Henry. Here’s a little about his story...more
Farmers, Fertilizer and Tilling the Soil: In my time of thought and mediation this morning it occurred to me that a writer is a lot like a farmer. Farmers till the soil, use fertilizer, choose what to plant and weed out the bad things that crop up. And they have to work hard ... more
Write Like Rowling? A lot of writers wish they could conjured up something as successful as the Harry Potter series. Recently I was visiting Edinburgh and happened to stop in a coffee shop called the Elephant House that claims to be one of the places where Rowling wrote some of her early work. Rowling was a single mom...more
Maya Reynolds was the speaker at the January meeting of the Dallas Area Writers Group (DAWG.) She is the former Vice President for Operations for a Dallas corporation with more than 1,200 employees. In her talk she described how she systematically learned about the publishing industry in order to improve her chances to get her novel published. Her talk was titled “Everything You Need To Know About Publishing.” Some decades ago ... more
Readable history:
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