Category Archives: Writer’s Problems

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 [...]

Curious Affectation

Okay, somebody explain why in the heck I do this. It’s something I’ve been conscious of for years, and it never seemed to bother me until a week or so ago. That’s when I got an email that inspired this recent post. At one point, the correspondent said, I go out and buy notebooks and [...]

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 [...]

Writers Beware

There’s nothing like getting a bit of information just in the nick of time. A week or two ago I was approached by someone who said he was doing a book of interviews with Science Fiction writers, a state-of-the-genre and art-of-the-craft sort of thing. I thought about it, Googled the guy but didn’t look in [...]

Curteman on “Show, Don’t Tell”

Frequent readers of this blog will know that I often invoke “show, don’t tell” as one of the early steps to take in becoming a good writer. Now mystery writer Nancy Curteman has taken all of the, um, mystery out of doing this, explaining it in a much more concise way than I could. Hat [...]

The Cold Reptilian Eye

Jodi over at My Literary Quest has made a shocking discovery. In her latest post she describes her discovery that the first draft of her novel will need a lot more work before it is presentable to an agent or editor. And that discovery is unnerving her. Take heart, Jodi. That’s a good sign. It [...]

Because I’m A Lousy Friend

Tonight we wrapped up my VBS play “The Amazing Secret of the Castle Omi La” (except for an encore performance on Sunday night for those who missed episodes or want to see it again). Now I can now turn my attention back to some other pending literary projects – picking up work on converting A [...]

Ghostwriters in Disguise, Part II

So if you’re often deprived of glory on the cover of a book, why ghostwrite at all? I think that’s all explained in this excellent article on NPR. But I can see from the look on your face that you won’t click the link and read the article. You want me to tell about my [...]

The Writer and the Day Job

So… as I said recently, the Stephen Kings and J.K. Rowlings of the world get advances in the tens of millions of dollars, and their publishers don’t make their money back on the deal. But they have a star to hang in their firmament. And the mid-listers – the ones you see on the bestseller [...]

Spellchecker Blues

We interrupt our regularly scheduled blog post, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Class of 2006 (And What The Sex Pistols Mean To Me), to bring you this important message, courtesy of an understandably anguished e-mail I received this morning. Since the author is in a position I was once in, I suspect that [...]

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