Chris Abouzeid's Blog, page 9

Living With A Writer: What You Need To Know

Guest post by Liz Smith I’m an artist. When I met my future husband, I thought his creative lifestyle would be similar to mine. I might have had easel-side-by-typewriter romantic notions of our life together.  But being married to a writer turns out to be an, um, interesting experience. If you ...

Writing from the Heart of My Discomfort Zone

By Juliette Fay I’m a huge baby about anything scary. I have no idea why people go to horror movies or read violent stories. Honestly, it’s like someone telling me they enjoy eating dirt and offering me a spoonful. Seriously? Whatever for? Clearly there is a part of the human ...

The Blind Spot

                    By Kathy Crowley This post originally appeared at Beyond the Margins in April, 20111. Not too long ago, I opened my laptop at the kitchen table early one Sunday morning, and made significant plot changes to my novel.  Not a ...

Yoga for Writers

By Becky Tuch Writing is physically demanding work. Back pain, carpal tunnel, neck tension, eye strain–these are just a few of the occupational hazards associated with sitting at a desk for long periods of time. Not to mention, it can make you fat. So, as a regular practitioner of Yoga, ...

The Priest Asked, “What’s your field?”

By Nichole Bernier A new priest was assigned to our church recently. Great priests aren’t a dime a dozen, and our previous pastor had remembered all the kids’ names and sung Sinatra from the lectern. I’d been sorry to see him go, and curious about the replacement. After I met ...

Don’t Be Boring: Hints for Better Bookstore Events & Other Presentations

By Randy Susan Meyers The first time I read in public (a Grub Street open mike at Johnny D’s ) I sucked. Years later (no more experienced) with my debut book launch looming, I knew I had to do better. (Which was actually a pretty low bar—doing better than my Johnny D’s performance.) Pre-publication ...

The 6 Habits of Highly Tormented Writers

By Chris Abouzeid Healthy living has ruined literature. I’ll say it again: Healthy living has ruined literature. Why? Because with every new health trend—paleo-diets, pilates and yoga classes, vitamin injections, meditation—another writer gets healthy, and with every healthy writer literature plunges deeper into the abyss of mediocrity. Did we learn ...

Learning How to Blog — the Hard Way

by Kim Triedman (This blog post was previously published by Writer Unboxed on 10/13/2013) So it’s T minus 4 months and counting. The manuscript’s finalized, your cover’s been designed, and the ARCs are ready to send out.  Even the launch venue has been booked—you childhood bookstore!—and all your favorite people ...

Cross-Pollinating Writing Advice: Novels & Screenplays

By Eric Grunwald Back in the early 2000s as managing editor of Agni I had the good fortune to meet David Mamet at the Cambridge launch of a book of a friend of mine, Ship Sooner by Mary Sullivan, which Mamet had blurbed. I think I was too tongue-tied to speak ...

Staying Motivated One Hundred Words at a Time

By Dell Smith [photo by j.lee43] A few months ago my sister, Cynthia, who writes romance novels, asked me how my novel was coming. I lamented that writing my first draft was going very slowly and I wasn’t sure why. I was getting up most mornings to write for an ...