For Readers (and Authors, too)
This blog is for anyone that reads my books, as well as for anyone else who is self-publishing, thinking about self-publishing, or just curious about what it’s like to be an author during rapidly changing times. Whenever you visit here, I hope you’ll share your own comments and thoughts. If you’d like to know whenever I post a new entry, please type your email address into the box in the right-hand column and check the appropriate box (and the newsletter one, too, while you’re at it).
Is Twitter Worth it?
Ah, Twitter. Either you love it or you hate it. The big question is whether an author in the latter camp can afford to simply ignore it. The answer, I think, is “mostly.” Here’s why.
Review: Paul Ruddocks Very Entertaining Short Story Collection, “Not What you Thought?”
Once upon a time – and a very long time it was – the short story was a well-respected form of literary fiction as well as an essential thread in the warp and woof of everyday life. Whether we’re speaking of one of Aesop’s moral lessons or an offering from one of the many modern day exemplars of the form, ranging from F. Scott Fitzgerald to Isaac Bashevis Singer, there has always been a wide appreciation for a good, entertaining, short read. Until, for some reason, they wasn’t. read more…
Hallelujah! Book Two is off to the Editor
The old line about the joys of boating holds that an owner’s two happiest days are when he buys a boat and when he sells it. An author feels the same way about a book, although you have to up the number of happy days to three: the day the author sits down to write a book and realizes that it’s probably going to work, the day the finished work is actually out there for sale, and in between, the day that the actual writing and editing part is finally, actually (really!) done. Thank goodness, that day finally arrived for me yesterday.
When are you done Revising?
What a question. It reminds me of other eternal inquiries, such as Why is a mouse when it spins? or, What’s the difference between a duck?
At least those questions have answers (although you’ll have to read to the end of this blog post to find out what they are). read more…
Back on the Treadmill
Once upon a time, there were authors and publishers. Then things changed, and authors had to be both – ideally at the same time. No problem, right? Well… read more…
When is a Cliché Forgivable?
One of the ten commandments of creative writing must certainly be Thou Shalt Not Use clichés. The difference with writing commandments, of course, is that there’s always an “except…”
Creating Effective Character Descriptions
Effective character descriptions do more than provide a visual image of a character’s appearance. They can also take the reader into the mind of the person they have just met, provide the first hint of their destiny, or perhaps a dark shadow of their past. read more…
An Interview with Ian Probert, Author of “Johnny Nothing”
It’s my pleasure this week to share an interview with career journalist, “hybrid” author, and most recently, illustrator Ian Probert. Ian’s latest genre (ad)venture is Johnny Nothing, a sly, riotously funny book written ostensibly for children that parents will want to read before sharing with their progeny. read more…
Turn and Turn About: Senan Gil Senan (Author of Beyond the Pale) Interviews Me
Not long ago, I conducted an interview with Senan Gil Senan, author of Beyond the Pale, focusing on how and why he wrote the book that he did. I found his book as well as his interview answers to be fascinating. Now we’ve switched places, offering me an opportunity to reflect on why, and how, I wrote the book that I did. So here we go: read more…
A Defense of Curation
It is fashionable for content producers to rail against the concept of “curation” in the Age of the Internet. Why? Because the guidelines of those terrible people, the “traditional publishers,” are supposedly keeping authors from the global audience that certainly must be their birthright. True, the balance can (and in the recent past certainly has) swung too far in the direction of permitting far too few good books to gain access to traditional distribution channels.
But it’s worth remembering that the situation can look very different to a content consumer than it does to a content producer.
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