The Scariest Thing You Will Ever Do as a Writer

The Scariest Thing You Will Ever Do as a Writer by Susan Kiernan-Lewis This is a great post about something all writers should be able to do. Luckily for me, I’ve always been pretty fearless about public speaking. Early in my career I showed up to talk to a college Creative Writing class with no [...]

JCF TV #2: The Most Important Muscle in a Writer’s Body

Who’s That Writer…

…who hadn’t released a new novel in seven years… and then as of December 13th of this year, will have released his third novel in twelve months? Each with a different ghostwriter? The answer, with some possible excuses for his behavior, can be found in this old post of mine from June of last year.

To Thine Own Writing Be True

It’s been an interesting experience getting The Mushroom Shift ready for publication. I mean, here is a novel I wrote almost 25 years ago, and as I’m reading it, and as I’m having my Kindle read it to me as part of the proofreading process, I’m discovering something about it that I hadn’t expected. It’s [...]

5 Ways to Create Red Herrings in a Mystery Novel (via Global Mysteries)

If you’re an aspiring mystery writer, or an aspiring writer in general, you should make Nancy Curteman’s Global Mysteries blog a regular stop on your social media rounds. She has great topics, posts more regularly than I do, and doesn’t dither like me. Here’s her latest, another ball knocked out of the park. Red herrings [...]

Exclamation Point Points

After thirty years of my wife insisting, I am now reading Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean Auel. And it’s a wondrous thing. For a first novel, Auel created a rich world based on sound (at the time) scientific speculation, bent the rules within acceptable parameters, expertly manipulated plot twists and turns for maximum [...]

Piracy on the High E’s!

I’m not sure where you come down on the issue of piracy. Not the Somalis in a speedboat with some vintage Soviet RPG type. The new-fangled method of copying intellectual property that has been the bane of folks from the members of Metallica to J.K. Rowling. And to show that nobody is safe, even I [...]

Sometimes it’s the Journey

Longtime readers know that I’m a proponent of The Power of the Ending. In other words, if you have an appropriate, satisfying and strong ending, your readers will tend to forgive some of the gaffes you may have committed in the middle of the book. So if you’re all about commercial fiction, you’re all about [...]

How to Avoid “Automatic Rejection” of Your Mystery Novel (via Global Mysteries)

More great advice from Nancy Curteman that actually applies to any novel. And as always, she says it in a lot less words than I would have. When you submit your mystery novel to an agent or publisher you hope to some day see it on a bookstore shelf. Then why do so many excellent [...]

How-To Books and You: A Concise Guide to Whether or Not You Should Read a Book on How to Write

Okay, it’s pushing past 4am. The Benadryl I took to settle my allergy has long since kicked in, but the email I decided to write to pass a few minutes turned into a monster, and so I’m going to recycle it here. A friend writes: I wanted to see if you thought that a prospective [...]

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 28 other followers