Category Archive for 'Publishing'

In the comments section of my post on How to Critique Other Writers’ Work, a debate ensues. When using the sandwich approach (two slices of positive feedback with a glob of criticism in the middle), do the positive and critical parts of your sandwich need to be equal? If a manuscript needs a lot of [...]

I read a great book recently, Snow Mountain Passage, about the quest and fate of the Donner party as they traveled from Illinois to California in the mid-1800s. Until then, my familiarity with the Donner party had been limited to driving through Donner Pass to rock climb on Donner Summit overlooking Donner Lake (near Truckee [...]

iPad Update

So now that I’ve had a little more time to read books on the iPad, here are some thoughts:
Pros
It’s VERY easy to buy a book. It’s easier through iBooks, but it’s not difficult through Amazon either. I haven’t tried the B&N app yet. Just one click and you own it. And you’re reading. Right there [...]

Many people think they never get writer’s block. They see writer’s block as this weird disease that only people like Hemingway got once they had published ten books and had run out of things to say. But almost every writer I know has days when she sits down at her computer and doesn’t want to [...]

Link Love

Links!
The Wall Street Journal has a great article about vanity press going digital.
Meg Waite Clayton has a great series of posts on how writers get started. Start with Part I and read all six!
After the New Yorker released its 20 Under 40 list (I’m honored to know three of them—Daniel Alarcón, Yiyun Li, and ZZ [...]

My Writing Journey

Some of my earliest memories are of my mom and dad reading books—my dad political fiction and biographies and my mom historical fiction and romance novels. I think my mom spent every minute she wasn’t cooking a meal or cleaning the house lying in bed with a book. At the age of six I remember [...]

Your Writing Props

Two posts, one in which Christi Corbett asks What Inspires You While You Write? and one in which Christine Lee Zilka asks What is your writing uniform? got me thinking about what rituals people perform before they settle down to write. One writing colleague of mine wears tape on his eyebrows when he’s writing. I’m [...]

Personal Branding

When I was a kid, I ate a lot of peanut butter, always creamy smooth Jif. I didn’t like Skippy or any other brand. Only Jif. When I moved to Paris, this small American grocery store run by a Lebanese couple near my apartment was the only place I could find peanut butter, but it [...]

Last month, Rachelle Gardner over at Rants & Ramblings wrote a great post on what we give up as writers, which got me thinking about the things I give up every week so I can work on my WIP:
1. Sleep
2. Watching movies
3. Going on dates with my husband
4. Reading more
5. Making more money
6. Spending more [...]

Link Love

It’s been three weeks since I posted links! So here we go …
In random tech/social media news: Here are 10 Tips for being awesome online, a post on how to get more Twitter followers, and the best book editors on Twitter.
In all things iPad: From the New York Review of books, the iPad vs the [...]