Back in the day, on Usenet, I had a little lecture that I posted periodically, whenever too many folks seemed to be bemoaning the horribleness of the submission process so much that they were losing sight of the actual job of submitting. (Make no mistake; the submission
Read more →The problem with sequels is that the writing and publishing process gives readers too much time to think. Let me unpack that a little. It takes me one to two years to write a novel, and this is fairly typical of most of the professional writers I
Read more →How did you know that you wanted to be a writer? I didn’t. I never, ever wanted to “be a writer.” I wanted to write. I wanted to tell stories. I wanted to get these blasted characters out of my head and nailed down on paper so
Read more →When you look at the arts, there are some that clearly, obviously require the talents of multiple people to produce. Movies, for instance, need not only writers but actors, camera operators, prop and costume people, and on and on – last time I went to one, the
Read more →A couple of posts back, nct2 asked what Other Helpful Stuff a writer could do – besides writing, taking classes, or learning new skills – to improve their work. I blinked at that a couple of times, because my very first reaction was “Learn to touch-type,” and
Read more →One of the things 4th Street Fantasy Con did this year was a workshop on writers’ support systems, which I participated in. I did a lot of thinking about the topic, and it occurred to me that most of my blog readers probably weren’t there and could
Read more →In the two years and a bit that I’ve been producing this blog, I’ve developed a rule of thumb that goes “Any time three people ask me more or less the same question in the same week, it’s probably time to do a post on the topic.”
Read more →Writing is one of the few occupations that aren’t tied to a particular place and time. It’s something that you can do anywhere, any time, if you want to. So I used to find it odd to hear so many writers talk about their desks and offices
Read more →Once again, I am late on a book. This time, it’s a combination of things: first off, I didn’t count on how much time handling my Dad’s taxes would take this year; second off, I didn’t count on yet another family crisis involving meeting with lawyers and
Read more →Writing is a profession with a very long lead time. For the majority of writers, writing a novel takes somewhere between six months and two years (there are, of course, folks who can do it faster or who require even more time, but they’re outliers). Then you
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