Posts Tagged "writing"

I was going to start off this post by saying that this time of year is perfect for sitting in (or near, if you aren’t quite as tiny as Amber here) a sunny window, but as I look at my window today there is no sun in sight, just gray clouds and rain. As every school kid knows April showers bring May flowers, and May flowers bring pilgrims. So, what do March showers bring? Well, ear infections and floods, but I see a bit more green out there and hear a lot more birds so there are some positive effects as well. I’m hoping that today you are able to find a sunny window of your own, and if not a literal sunny window at least a metaphorical one. Today I’m over at Adventures in Children’s Publishing for their WOW Wednesday feature writing about...

I’ve just sent out the January issue of my newsletter, on time I would like to proudly point out. For those of you who subscribe you should be receiving it in your inbox shortly, for those of you who don’t subscribe you can still read it on the web here. Of course, subscribing means you have a chance of winning a prize each month. Speaking of prizes, each month’s giveaway will now be a fun prize pack of goodies with fun stuff for writers and book lovers and the other generally cool sort of people that read my newsletter. Another change for 2011, is a special section I’m adding called Subscriber Spotlight, and I want your help. Have a writing or book related tip to share? Have a burning writing question to ask? Just want to do some shameless...

The Elevensies group which I am proud member of has begun a new ask the writer feature in which someone asks a writing-related question and all of us writers throw in our two cents. This is a Tuesday feature, and since today is Wednesday that means I’m a day late and a dollar short. (Actually, I’m 50 cents short thanks to the vending machine that refused to give me my change yesterday, but I digress.) This week’s question is: What do you wish someone would have told you when you started writing? Here’s my answer: I wish someone had told me to stick to one thing and see it through to the end. It’s lot easier to finish something if you aren’t constantly getting distracted and starting new projects. Cruise over to Elevensies and...

If you’ve seen less of me online the latley, that’s because the internet stopped working at my place for a few days. It’s back now and I am scrambling to keep up with everything I missed and fell behind on. I feel like I am just about caught up, but it makes me wonder what we did before the internet. I’m thinking the life of a pre-internet writer pretty much consisted of sitting at a desk and writing. If they needed to look something up there was probably a dictionary close at hand. Something requiring more research might have involved a short note and a trip to the library at some point. Modern writers have a wealth of information at their fingertips. Unfortunately, all that information can be a bit distracting. When I need to look...

This past Saturday, I had a chance to attend the first ever Monroe County Book Expo hosted by the Eastern Monroe Public Library in Stroudsburg, PA. It was a fun opportunity to meet some local authors and to catch up with some I already know. I also had the opportunity to sit on a panel with two other authors. One of the things I found interesting about my fellow panelists, is that each of them had a different story of publication, and that along with me none of us has had what might be considered the “traditional” story of publication. I don’t know if there is any one traditional publication story, but in writing circles the the most traditional publication story is that after completing and polishing a manuscript one goes looking for an agent....