Matthew Iden's Blog, page 20

The Infinite Wordstream: Part 1

Mention a number to writer who's been at the craft for a while and you'll get an instant, indexed response keyed to the number you've given them. 700? Flash fiction. 3,000? Standard main-stream magazine short story length. 8,000? The "one-per-issue" exception if the fiction editor likes your work. 15,000? Novelette. 25,000? Novella. 50,000? Short novel, [...]

Librarything Giveaway, Take Two

My second Librarything Giveaway is now about three weeks old and, like my first in early December '11, I'm happy with the results. I sponsored a two-week Giveaway of my second short-story collection, Three the Hard Way, a set of three crime fiction stories. I emailed the list of takers from the first Giveaway (about [...]

Tell…Don't Show

Lately I've been finding myself sighing, flipping pages, and thinking about my fantasy hockey team while I read the latest New York Times zillion-copy seller. I've turned into a serial-skimmer, looking for the telltale short paragraphs and action buzz words that tell me there's something worth reading amidst the reams of fluff. Now, after the [...]

You Speaka My Language?

I was in a store the other day, trying to spend a gift certificate I received from my mother over the holidays. After twenty minutes of picking things out, I was told at the register that the gift certificate wouldn't work at this store. I looked at the logo on the little card. It matched [...]

The Point of Defection

I was at a New Year's party, talking to one of the guests about favorite books. He mentioned some comics, I mentioned some mysteries. The conversation turned to ongoing storylines: what we liked and why. "What series do you like?" he asked. "Like, a character that you really can't wait to read again to see [...]

Naked man, locker room, hand jive…the stuff of crime fiction?

An odd locker room run-in with a naked man is the subject of my first guest blog spot…over on mystery writer Ellis Vidler's blog, The Unpredictable Muse. Come and visit! It's about writing, I promise. http://theunpredictablemuse.blogspot.... Filed under: Uncategorized

Agents: Needle, meet haystack. Haystack, needle. Part Two

(This is Part Two of a blog post about the basics of finding an agent. Read Part One here.) Casting the Net If you want to start gathering agent names for that magical day when you start your submissions, I would suggest reading every page of www.agentquery.com and subscribing to Publisher's Marketplace (http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/) to learn [...]

Agents: Needle, meet haystack. Haystack, needle. Part One

I belong to a small chapter of statewide writing club that includes published and unpublished writers. We connect via a monthly meeting and an online newsgroup, sharing tips, tricks, and sucesses. There was a flurry of newsgroup posts recently about agents from writers who were (or thought they were) ready to seek representation. I tried [...]

A novel idea

After several years of working on my craft but poor showings with my short stories, I decided it was about time to try my had at writing a novel. The funny thing is, for such a mundane and commonplace object, the novel is fairly poorly defined. It's one thing to stroll through a library or [...]

Get in your saddle and ride…now

My journey to digital self-publication is far from original but it almost didn't occur due to an almost fatal (to my career) ability to procrastinate. I'd wanted to "be a writer" for almost as long as I can remember, but the proof is in the pudding (to daisy-chain two clichés together). For years, I managed [...]