How do you get the support you need as a writer? Well, here’s how to know when it’s not the support you need. Get the Support You Need: A Little Horror Story When I was an acquisitions editor, I heard from an author who wanted to pull her book from publication because her friends had…
As an author submitting queries, you may end up wondering what to do with literary agent feedback. Do you blindly accept it, completely reject it, or maybe meet somewhere in the middle? Have You Received Literary Agent Feedback? A while ago, an author came to me with a conundrum. He’d written a slow-burning psychological thriller…
Multiple streams of income. You’ve probably heard that as a writer or editor (or writer-editor) you should have them—but how? And why? Here is my best advice for establishing multiple streams of income for editors and writers. Multiple Streams of Income for Editors and Writers Simply put, having multiple streams of income means you earn…
The Business of Storytelling Book Release Newly released book The Business of Storytelling will help editors and writers expand their resources to bring in other streams of income. If you’ve been in love with stories for a while, you’ve probably thought about making them the center of your working life. But if you’re also a…
Do you struggle with not taking rejection personally? Let me share some thoughts… An online writers’ group I belong to recently had a discussion about saying no – how to do it, how to mean it, how to deal with people who try to negotiate after you’ve already said no, and so on. That got me…
Are you dealing with creative burnout? I know the feeling and have some thoughts to share. A writer sent me an email saying she felt creatively drained. She said, “My book is good. How can I convince others?” Reading between the lines, I figured she’d written a book she felt was excellent but agents/editors were…
Writers need to know how to grab readers’ attention, and I have a few thoughts on this. Give your novel its best shot. Few readers will read beyond ten or fifteen pages if a novel doesn’t engage them. Agents and editors—even if interested in the manuscript—almost never go beyond thirty or forty pages before finding…
Writers’ Topic: Character Inspiration Can writers get character inspiration from other writers? Using an existing character can be a good jumping off point to a new character. A student once asked, “I often find B characters in novels more interesting than the leads, yet they’re never fully developed (hence the B aspect). I wonder if…
Need help finding story ideas? One of the most common questions I’m asked is, “Where do you get your ideas?” I’ve always said that if you ask me to write a story about a woman in a red dress sitting at a bar, I can do that without batting an eye, but ask me to write…
Writer Question: Exactly how long does querying take? I’m often asked how long it takes to hear back from editors or agents. Maybe a writer has an agent who has submitted a proposal or a manuscript, and she’s biting her nails waiting to hear back, or she’s submitted the full manuscript of her novel at an agent’s request…