J. Scott Savage's Blog

I got a call today from a previous co-worker congratulating me on a year of writing full time, or as we in the industry like to call it, living hand-to-mouth. Wow, has it really been twelve months since I put my family's finances in the hands of the American book-buying publics? Apparently so. In honor of that, I thought I would list the top ten things I have learned from a year of writing fulltime.

10) Nothing comes as easy as you think. And if it did you probably wouldn't appreciate it. Many...

View full post on J. Scott Savage's website »

Saturday night, I learned that, Heather Christensen, a woman who had previously been the band director at my children's school passed away when a bus she was riding back from a band competition in, crashed and rolled over. If you live in Utah, you probably read the story or saw it on the news. When the driver passed out, Heather leaped forward and tried to take the wheel. It was while she was trying to save the children on the bus that she was thrown out the window and killed. Over the last ...

View full post on J. Scott Savage's website »

This isn't going to be a hugely long post, but I wanted to say first, that Land Keep copies just arrived at the warehouse! Whoo hoo! Can't wait to see them. I am going to run up to Salt Lake and grab a box before going over to James Dashner's launch of Maze Runner at The King's English tonight. Pics to follow! This means the books should be hitting store in the next week or so. Let me know when you start seeing it.

I also wanted to make a point that came up while I was doing a class recently a...

View full post on J. Scott Savage's website »

First of all, I just want to say my laptop is working again. Huzzah!!! According to HP the power adaptor hasn't shipped yet. But we'll just keep the fact that I got it the end of last week between you and me. Let me also at this point give a big, big, nudge to anyone who doesn't have all of their important files backed up daily. Do it. Do it now! When my laptop bit the dust I was in the middle of revisions on two books. Both of those books were past deadline. There was no way to get the...

View full post on J. Scott Savage's website »

I really haven't disappeared off the face of the Earth. I am just waiting (not so) patiently for the power adaptor HP promised me over a week ago. The one under warranty. The one I paid for. Yeah, well thanks to the wonders of outsourcing, I am kept up to date with e-mails like this.

"Thank you for contacting HP Total Care.
Reviewing the entire interaction I understand that we have created service order for your notebook AC adapter but still you have not receive AC adapter.
Due to lack of AC ada...

View full post on J. Scott Savage's website »

I don't discuss politics on this blog. There are two main reasons for that. One, I tend to be too liberal for my conservative friends and too conservative for my liberal friends, and I'd like to keep all of them as my friends. More importantly though, I'm a fiction author. Presumably you come to this blog expecting me to post something about writing, reading, or other authorly (is that a word?) type stuff. There are plenty of sites either promoting or criticizing whatever your political views...

View full post on J. Scott Savage's website »

I mean really, is there anything more to say?


Okay, maybe this!

What, you were looking for something to do with writing? Come on didn't you know that sports relates to everything?

Okay, I've got you covered.

First quarter: McKay Jacobson is playing front of all his famiy and friends since he is from Texas, where the game is taking place. In front of a national audience, broadcast on a giant screen that goes from twenty yeard line to twenty yard line, he fumbles a punt reception. Not only does h...

View full post on J. Scott Savage's website »

I know, blogging three days in a row! What's up with that? It certainly isn't that I don't have enough other projects going on. Must have hit a hot button with the agent thing or something. After my last post, I received an e-mail asking about rejection. Basically her point was that if you tell yourself you are the best writer ever, how do you handle it when your manuscript is rejected by an agent or editor?

Good question! This is actually one of the biggest conundrums of being an author. You hav

View full post on J. Scott Savage's website »

I know, I know. I just posted yesterday. But a friend of mine sent me a message about the article that made me have to write again.

Here is her message:

I read the interview with those four child-like agents, and now I'm so depressed I can barely look at my keyboard. What were you thinking? What was I thinking in believing I could compete in a world where a single grain of sand on an endless southern California beach needs to stand out so significantly just to be published ... or at least know som

View full post on J. Scott Savage's website »

So I had a great post I was going to write today about finding and working with the right agent. Then I came across this interview and went, "Here is pretty much everything you need to know." Imagine sitting down for dinner with four, young, exciting agents and asking them everything you always wanted to know about the industry. Well this is it. It ran February of 2009, so it's even fairly up to date.

Read it and let me know what you think.

http://www.pw.org/content/agents_and_editors_qampa_four_y

View full post on J. Scott Savage's website »