Thanksgiving is coming and thoughts inevitably go to celebrations of food and family. Unfortunately, an alarming number of families in the U.S. experience hunger and food insecurity. It’s become even more dire due to the pandemic. Enter #AuthorsAgainstHunger. #AuthorsAgainstHunger is designed to raise awareness and desperately needed funds. The people who need it most often […]
For some reason, the idea of creative risk-taking keeps coming to mind today. I usually think about it when I hear Bohemian Rhapsody and remember what Queen’s agent said to the band (in the movie) when they wanted to record it as a single: “Opera? Six minutes long? No radio station will ever play it.” […]
One of the great joys of speaking at a writer’s conference is meeting new authors. Many are starting their writing career, and they’re often seeking advice. While I’m certainly no expert, I seem to have a firsthand grasp of the pitfalls. From my experience, this is my advice. On How To Start: If you haven’t […]
Even as I type out that headline, I can’t believe it. My modest self-published thriller—who would’ve thunk it? The thing that caused years of frustration and disappointment is now responsible for unexpected squeals and ripples of joy. To mark this occasion, I recently sat down to answer some of my most frequently asked reader questions. […]
Someone said this to me the other night at an event I attended for people who have consulting businesses. This guy is a consultant with a compelling personal story, and he’s been told numerous times that he should write a memoir. Earlier in the evening, I told a group of people my own professional […]
“You do not need to leave your room, remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait, be quite still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice. It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.” Franz […]
On a Facebook writers group I’m a member of, someone started a discussion by asking who among us were Indies, who were traditionally published, and who were “authors in waiting.” I suspected the term “author in waiting” to be someone with a completed manuscript who was waiting to either secure a literary agent, or a […]
Some scenes are too hard to write. Sometimes your brain starts to hurt just thinking about what should happen next. Most of the time it comes down to those pesky characters. What are they really feeling and thinking, but saying otherwise? People are so damn complicated. Yesterday my manuscript was torturing me. I couldn’t move […]
In case you couldn’t attend, here is a wonderful recap of the Writers Circle Speaker Series talk I gave last weekend about self-publishing.
Every story needs a bad guy, right? The badder the bad guy the more compelling the read. But what about the protagonist? What if she’s unlikeable? There are many readers who will say, heck no to that book. There are readers who will stop mid-book, or earlier, if they deem the protagonist unrelatable. I […]