Recently, literary fiction author Ted Heller wrote an article for Salon called “The future is no fun: Self-publishing is the worst.“ In it, he describes his misadventures in self-publishing his latest novel, specifically the difficulty he’s had promoting it. I am not going to go into detail about all the points I disagree with. (For…
Category Archives: Writing Life
The Passion of the Grilled Cheese.
Deep in deadline hell, peeps. For me, this usually means a scattered attention span, a lot of mumbling under my breath — and a hair trigger around things that seem trivial, almost stupid. So yesterday, I tripped on one of these triggers. Thankfully, after a few years of doing this, I’ve been able to recognize…
2013: The Year of Confluence
Whew. Just like being back from any vacation, I’ve been getting my bearings back from an entire Year of Cruise. I learned a ton of things. I did a ton of things — most of them unexpectedly. I essentially “pantsed” an entire year, and now live to tell the tale. The biggest takeaways: 1. Assume…
The Slow Writing Movement.
As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been researching promotion, trying to come up with a plan that isn’t so frenetic. What I discovered was, rather than simply a new approach to promotion, I’ve been casting about for a sustainable method of writing. By this, I mean writing without burning out and freaking out… and still potentially making…
Permaculture for Writers.
Remember that post where I mentioned I’d be talking about Permaculture? This is it. The Permaculture Principles. For those of you who would like to geek out, an example of the full scale principles can be found here. (I also highly recommend Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture by Toby Hemingway.) While they were…
Target audience, and writing for Rina.
My very best friend in the world is Rina. I met her my first year in Berkeley, in my first art class. We struck up a conversation about Disney’s Fantasia re-release, I wound up going to her house to watch it, her mother fed me lasagna and I basically lived as her unofficial roomie, like…
Postcard from the Year of Cruise.
I can’t believe it’s May already. Five months into my Year of Cruise experiment, and I have to say — once you’re on board, time gets a little elastic. But here’s what I’ve learned so far, almost halfway (!!) through the year… I discovered Permaculture Principles. Honestly, I was just trying to plan a damned…
Simple systems for the writing life.
So, here’s a weird thing. I love systems. But I hate routines. Call it “the creative nature” or simply the knee-jerk rebellious reflex of Muse or my inner child, but “routines” are about as sexy as a glass of warm milk, and I tend to shy away from them, even when I know they will…
A steaming pile of Should.
I recently had a workshop “chat” with a bunch of writers, on how to write every day. Not that I necessarily advocate writing every day, but especially after my last run-in with my Muse, I discovered that if I don’t dedicate at least regular time and focus to writing… well, she gets miffed. A miffed…
What if you couldn’t screw it up?
I’ve noticed on some of the writer forums and blogs I check out, and in some of my classes, that there is this obsession with getting it right. What’s the right way to plot, some ask. How should this work? What do editors want to see? What should they focus on, or ignore? Or, if…
