Lemme tell you something I hate. I hate it when someone comes to a writing group or asks me to critique something and says, “I just wrote it this morning.” Whatever you wrote this morning is not fit to be read by anyone but you. And if you’re any kind of half-decent editor, you won’t like it much. Rough Draft? Don’t Be Daft. The random collections of letters, some formed into words, that fly off your fingertips is not your … Read More »

We talk about the “Publishing Journey” because it would be too awful to call it what it is. Hard Slog. Impossible Mission. Death March. Do Everything Right, See If the Universe Cares Sorry, even if you follow all the querying and pitching advice on all the FWA Blogs and everywhere else, you still face an uphill battle. The most important thing is to produce a high-quality manuscript, so you hired an expensive editor. Also important is to research agents and … Read More »

You have a gift. You have ideas. You have the passion to form words into images, concepts, and aha moments for adoring readers. You can do this! Or, you can ruin it. So, here you go. If you want to fail as a writer… 1. Don’t write unless you feel like writing. Many people enjoy the idea of writing, but actually doing the work takes discipline, and discipline is not always fun. If you really want to write, you need … Read More »

Wikipedia calls writer’s block a “condition.” Sounds serious, doesn’t it? Like a chronic malady that a writer struggles to keep at bay, the threat of a recurrence is always lurking in the dark shadows of that last sentence, paragraph, or scene. It’s something you might get a bit of respite from, but is guaranteed to return at some point. I suspect anyone who writes has felt at one time or another that they are unable to move forward with their … Read More »

Sometimes writing is easy, when you feel deeply impassioned about something and know just how to say it. The words flow.  I think it was Truman Capote who said something like “I’ve always been able to throw words up in the air and have them come down in the right order.” Sometimes we can do that, too. When you’ve emptied the passion bucket, maybe all you have to do is tweak a sentence or two, choose a better word here … Read More »

Working as a reporter at the Pentagon, I learned a lot of fun acronyms. Among my favorites was MOOTW (Pron: MOOT wuh). It’s short for Military Operations Other Than War. When you think about it, that describes much of what the military is called upon to do: peacekeeping, humanitarian operations, disaster relief, dispute mediation, even diplomacy. I want to propose the creation of a new acronym: AOOTW (Pron: ah-OOT wuh)—Author Operations Other Than Writing. Like MOOTW for the military, AOOTW … Read More »