Terry Shames's Blog: 7 Criminal Minds, page 210

Ask Me Again Next Year...

Q: There’s only so much time, and there’s only so much money, while the opportunities are plentiful. How do you decide which writing conferences and conventions to attend? (ie, what are your criteria?)  I'm afraid this post will be brief, as I have little experience with writing conferences or conventions. In fact most of what I know about them is what I've heard from others, i.e. Susan's helpful post yesterday.
The one conference I attended, back when my big goal was to have five m...

So Many Choices

Q: There’s only so much time, and there’s only so much money, while the opportunities are plentiful. How do you decide which writing conferences and conventions to attend? (ie, what are your criteria?)

- from Susan
A: This is a good question. Attending an out-of-town event is always pricey, commands time and attention, and might mean you have to skip a day or more of real, paying work. Everyone’s going to have a somewhat different, nuanced answer based on their own circumstances, so filter what...

Falling Into Trees

Question of the Week: What lessons did you learn from your first (perhaps, failed) attempt at a novel?

I've had a number of out of body experiences in my life, partly as I'm fortunate to descend from highly spiritual forebears, partly because I was a child who couldn't be contained and therefore experimented with touching live wires, hopping out of moving cars, jumping from tall Chicago trees. And then there's all the violence. While they were mostly bizarre experiences which left me feeling l...

A Lead-Lined Box Comes in Handy

by Alan

What lessons did you learn from your first (perhaps, failed) attempt at a novel?

As you might expect, I made a lot of mistakes writing my first novel. A lot. A really lot. Like so many I couldn’t even count them, believe me. They were yuge.

I overwrote. I dumped backstory. I stubbornly wrote in complete sentences. I used adverbs. I made a million other technical “errors,” mostly because I didn’t have a clue what I was doing.

Here’s what I really learned during this effort: I needed to...

Never quit

What lessons did you learn from your first (perhaps, failed) attempt at a novel?by Dietrich KalteisThe main thing I learned from that first attempt was to just keep going. And I’m still learning and fine tuning the way I write. What I didn’t realize at first is it’s not about getting a story finished and published, it’s about finding a voice, a rhythm to the words. That’s what makes each writer sound distinct, and that didn’t come until I put quite a few more words on paper. Most of what...

The Writing Love Affair

By R.J. Harlick
What lessons did you learn from your first (perhaps, failed) attempt at a novel?
When I set out on this writing journey eight books ago, I had no idea if I could write a book let alone get it published. I only knew I had a burning desire to write one.
My first goal was to see if I could write a hundred thousand words or more. Up until then, my writing, mostly consulting reports and proposals, rarely went beyond twenty or thirty thousand words. A hundred thousand seemed such a da...

I'll never forget my first..

Terry Shames here, musing about what I learned from my first attempt to write a novel. The short answer is “not much.” Let me explain. I did learn a lot from my first attempt. Even though I go back and look at the science fiction novel that was my first attempt and have great affection for it (like anyone’s first born, it has a special place), I knew when I finished it that it had serious shortcomings. I had at least learned that it was probably better to have some idea of what I had in...

Golden Handcuffs

Does marketing your book feel oppressive or liberating?

by Paul D. Marks

So a guy walks into a store and buys a dozen pairs of handcuffs. Maybe he’s a cop. Maybe he’s kinky. Or maybe he has something else up his sleeve. We’ll find out later in this piece.

But the answer to this week’s question is neither really, marketing is not oppressive or liberating. It’s just something that has to be done. And knowing it will help sales helps motivate me. That said, the amount of time spent on marketing can...

The old four, four, four, two.

By Catriona

Well, all I can say is thank God for Cathy Ace - see yesterday's entry. After seventeen years as a fiction writer, I now know the difference between marketing and promotion. (Just promotion and publicity to go . . .)

So. Is marketing (or promotion anyway (possibly publicity)) oppressive or liberating?

First, what do I do in the way of marketing?  Yes, I try to write the best book I can. Today I spent twelve hours reading page proofs out loud with a ruler to follow the lines, mak...

My secret life as a..... by Cathy Ace

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