Terry Shames's Blog: 7 Criminal Minds, page 111

I confess.... by Cathy Ace

Q: Balancing work and home life, do you work set hours, or do you find the writing work flow demands different time from you depending on where in the process you are?

Looks like it’s confession time for me here again. Here goes: I’m not naturally good at the whole work/life balance thing. I’m one of those people who lives to work, as opposed to the (probably much more sensible) folks who work to live. But that’s me.

That said…Husband retired just over three years ago, and we had A Good Long Tal...

A Husband Leads But a Wife Commands

Balancing work and home life, do you work set hours, or do you find the writing work flow demands different time from you depending on where in the process you are?

From Frank

The title of this post is a line from the haunting Leonard Cohen song, "Nevermind." Cohen has a number of great songs that fit right into the gritty crime fiction arena (though he has some simply beautiful ones, too). This one was used as the theme for season two of True Detective (a great season of crime TV that was only ma...

The True, Actual Life of a Writer Illustrated

 Q: Balancing work and home life, do you work set hours, or do you find the writing work flow demands different time from you depending on where in the process you are?

 

-from a distracted Susan

 

Hahaha…Perfect example: I was working hard this weekend on a synopsis my agent wants yesterday. Not that I have a set writing schedule, but I got into the zone, had a great day of work and woke up thinking I had accomplished my writing goal only to realize  - whoops – my post! I didn’t write my post! 

 

Je ...

Bumbling through

 By Abir

What comes first, the book or the pitch? Put another way, do you develop the larger idea of a book to test out with your agent/publisher, before writing the book? Or do you write the book and then look for the pitch in it? Or?

 

Morning!

 

Friday again! If you live in the UK and you’re wondering what happened to the weather in the last fortnight - how did it suddenly go from unbroken sunshine to clouds and rain and snow and general misery? -  well the short answer is that it’s my fault. A we...

To Pitch or Not to Pitch? from James W. Ziskin

 What comes first, the book or the pitch? Put another way, do you develop the larger idea of a book to test out with your agent/publisher, before writing the book? Or do you write the book and then look for the pitch in it? Or?

With the exception of my first Ellie Stone book, I’ve always written a short pitch for my editor before starting work on the novel. But the pitch was little more than a formality. Something to show to the publisher to ensure the story wasn’t something awful or inappropriat...

Which way to go?

Photo: Andrea Kalteis

What comes first, the book or the pitch? Put another way, do you develop the larger idea of a book to test out with your agent/publisher, before writing the book? Or do you write the book and then look for the pitch in it? Or?

by Dietrich

I like to start with the easy part, writing the novel. It grows from an idea to a first draft, to a second draft, then to a third. Timelines and facts get checked, then the whole thing gets polished until it’s ready to send out.

Then I write t...

Listen to This

Terry Shames here: The question we’re on about this week is, “What comes first, the book or the pitch? Do you develop the larger idea of a book to test out with your agent/publisher, before writing the book? Or do you write the book and then look for the pitch in it? 
 I’ve always wondered how the first stories got developed. It’s pretty easy to imagine hunters sitting around a fire telling those who stayed home the story of their great adventure. How they found their prey, how they stalked it, h...

The Chicken or the Egg?

What comes first, the book or the pitch? Put another way, do you develop the larger idea of a book to test out with your agent/publisher, before writing the book? Or do you write the book and then look for the pitch in it? Or?

Brenda Chapman getting this week started.

Good question.

I'm one of those 'pantsters' who wing the plot on the first go-around. I usually have a crime and motive pinned down, but not much else when I sit down to start a new manuscript. Thus, it would be hard for me to pitch m...

Why would I write a police protagonist in 2021? By Josh Stallings

Q: We are living in interesting times. How has the social unrest and societal perception shifts changed your work?

A: Epic fantasy writer Tad Williams once said that he maps out these huge multi-volume stories while leaving himself wiggle room for who he will be six years down the road when he’s finishing the last book of the trilogy. 

Leaving room to grow as a human, and letting that affect the work is vital. And complicated.

I write entertainments, fast moving crime novels. But Josh the human is ...

A Walk on the Mild Side, by Catriona

CRAFT : We are living in interesting times. How have the social unrest and societal perception shifts changed your work? 

Aren't we just? 

I've been rolling those two phrases around my mind for a while, as I was thinking about this blog - the social unrest, societal perception shifts - because there are so many things each one might mean. 

"The social unrest" might mean people taking to the streets of Minneapolis to protest a filmed murder that didn't look like being punished. Or it might mean peop...