D.H. Nevins's Blog, page 5

HELP JAPAN: MAKE YOUR DONATION COUNT

Rare is the person who is unaware of the dire situation in Japan.  Heartbreaking footage has been everywhere since the devastating 8.9 quake hit on March 11.  Images of the tsunami that followed swiftly on the quake's heels struck a stunned silence around the world.  Collectively, we shook our heads; the destruction left it its wake seemed insurmountable.  Many still believe that any donation they send would be a negligible drop in vast, leaky bucket.  These notions, however, are simply not...

SOCIAL MEDIA SUCKS THE LIFE FROM MY WRITING

Everyone, through their own experiences and within their own lives, acutely knows that time is a limited commodity.    There's a finite amount within each given day, which we all balance, manage, juggle and shuffle as we work to accomplish the many tasks that tend to fill a busy life.  Enter social media, and the remaining time in a person's day tends to be sucked away into a pervasive blogging, tweeting, Facebooking vacuum.

Now don't get me wrong, I quite enjoy many aspects of Social Media. ...

AN EDITOR SHOWS INTEREST

I haven't been focusing on editors.  In fact, I haven't sent query letters to any editors at all.  The way I figured it, if I focused my energy on securing a decent, well-known agent, then, TA-DAA!  Job done.  My newly acquired super-agent could approach some of the bigger publishing houses on my behalf.  I wouldn't need to query a single editor.  It seemed like a decent plan, and was one I had been sticking to.

So imagine my surprise when I recently opened my email account, and there...

REJECTION IS SUCH AN UGLY WORD

I heard back from that big agent in New York, and unfortunately, he passed.  But to be completely honest, this 'rejection' didn't bother me.  Of course, it would have been absolutely amazing if he wanted to represent me, but he was such a big-time agent that my chances were incredibly slim to begin with.  I went for it, though, and I'm still smiling at the fact that he chose to give up his valuable time to read Wormwood's entire manuscript.  What an incredible compliment!

And it gets better. ...

AND SO I WAIT...

Believe it or not, I'm back.  I apologize for my extended absence.  My day job, as well as a major role in a theatre production, and revisions to my book, have kept me hopping.  Thankfully, the play has now ended (I'm happy to report that it had a great run), and I've finally been able to come up for some air.

So much has gone on over the past few months, it's difficult to know where to begin.

Let's start with the biggest and most relevant.  Okay; the biggest and most relevant topic to ME.   I...

INCREASE TRAFFIC TO YOUR BLOG

As many of you know, it can be difficult to direct traffic to your blog or website.

A fellow blogger has recognized this need and created a blog for one purpose only: to showcase other people's blogs so everyone can benefit.  Anyone with a blog has the opportunity to showcase it on this site.  If you're interested, check it out at http://getyourblogseen.blogspot.com.

He put a link to my blog on there, and I'm sure he'll do the same for you.  Try it!

New York Writers Workshop\'s Pitch Conferences - Attend if you\'re serious about getting published!!!

Okay, so I said I'd get back to you about an essential little conference called The New York Writers Workshop's Pitch Conference.  It's a great, long title for a small, intensely important workshop.  Every writer that's trying to get published really needs to go to this (so that's most of us, of course!)

Here, you'll polish your pitches under the direction of your Conference Leader in an intimate, workshop-like setting.  Then, you'll actually pitch your book directly to three different...