Chris Abouzeid's Blog, page 15

The Cost of a Dream

By Kim Triedman Let’s think of this post as a kind of list in the process of making itself. At the top, let’s just put lost income as a placeholder. Okay, lets back up.  So my first novel was just published a few months ago, and people have been asking me ...

The Change Up – How I Started Another Novel to Help Write My Current Novel

By Dell Smith [photo by Liz Smith] I have been writing the first draft of a difficult novel. It has multiple intersecting characters, complicated emotional through lines, and action that takes place in the present and the past. Yeesh. What was I thinking? I love the characters and the story, ...

Science Says: The Benefits of Reading

By Kathy Crowley Full public disclaimer: I am a lightweight in the world of scientific reading.  Science can be fun, though–the Periodic Table and the Krebs Cycle notwithstanding.  And I especially like science when it reinforces what I want to believe anyway (see disclaimer above). For example — I have ...

On Fandom: I Love You, I Love Your Book, We’re Soul Sisters, I Hate Your Hair

    By Nichole Bernier An author-friend who wrote a hauntingly beautiful book once told me that a reader expressed surprise upon meeting her in person. “Funny, you don’t look dark and depressing!” Those readers, they say the darndest things. Authors I know have been offered all sorts of unsolicited ...

Earning A Reader’s Time

By Randy Susan Meyers Most readers have more choices than time, so here’s the question: why should they spend that time with you? My advice? When you ask that question, be hard on yourself. A few weeks ago, I led a discussion about the covenant between readers and writers with a group ...

15 Things You Should Know About Book Events

By Jenny Milchman While no one has actually called me the queen of book events, having done 150 of them over the last year, and getting set to do another 130 over the next four months, I want to float the idea that I should be in the running for ...

Out of the Woods

                        By Kathy Crowley The other day I found myself with completed drafts of two different novels: Novel #1 ripped apart and slowly rebuilt, still requiring lots more time, mending, and patience, and Novel #2, just through the end ...

Ask Margie: On Literary Agents, Neuroses, and Mating For Life

  Dear Margie, I’m in the market for a new agent after an up and down relationship with my previous one, who has now left agenting.  At the time I signed with him, I was fortunate enough to have a few interested agents.  I picked him because he was so ...

Friday Faves: Creative Options

By Laura Harrington Want to be more creative? Take a walk. Taking a walk is a great way to get some procrastinating done, it is also, now documented, a great way to come up with new ideas. Why? We don’t know yet. One theory: It may divert energy otherwise devoted to tamping ...

Researching Fact for Fiction: Seriously Helpful Hints

By Juliette Fay Earlier this month I had the pleasure of serving on a panel at Grub Street’s annual Muse and the Marketplace Conference. My “Researching Fact for Fiction” co-panelists were Lisa Genova (Still Alice, Left Neglected and Love Anthony), Maryanne O’Hara (Cascade) and B.A. Shapiro (The Art Forger). Those are ...