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Colons: Don’t Let Them Be a Pain in Your Ass

The Editing Hour is back today with everything you want to know about colons. First, eat lots of fiber to keep your colon clean and, if you’re over 50, consider getting a colonoscopy to test for polyps and colorectal cancer, and oh, wait … wrong type of colon! Let’s try this again.

I’ve always followed […]

BlogHer ’13

Who’s going to BlogHer ’13? It will be in Chicago, Thursday through Saturday, July 25-27, of—you guessed it—2013. Early Bird registration ends Nov. 7. Until then you can register for half the regular price, just $198! No, I’m not advertising for BlogHer. I have no connection to BlogHer, but I really want to go to […]

How to Write Kick-Ass Character Descriptions

I’m guilty of it, too: The description of a new character who has just entered your story as having “big brown eyes and frizzy black hair” or “ginger hair that cascaded down her shoulders and eyes the color of jade.” No matter how creative you get, describing a person according to his or her hair […]

Bisy Backson: The Unsung Value of Idle Time

Happy Independence Day! And congratulations to the winner of the How to be a Writer in the E-Age give-away, Sara Renae. Thank you to Anne Allen for a wonderful guest post last week and to everyone who took the time to comment. I am eager to read Anne’s book, and I encourage you to pick […]

Five Things I’ve Learned About Memoir Writing

1. Your protagonist (you) should be 80-90% sympathetic with only a few flaws.

I used to think that the more flawed a character was, the more people would be able to relate to him/her. I quickly learned that too many flaws make a character unlikable. Readers don’t want to read 200-300 pages about a […]

Do Not Disturb

I’m on a private writing retreat this week—private meaning just me, my laptop, a lot of Coke Zero, and my manuscript. Oh, and Siri. I use Siri to send text messages while driving more than anything else. I rarely ask her where I can find a yoga studio or a place to eat because […]

Author Interview: Melanie Gideon

Today, I am honored to share with you an interview with the bestselling author of The Slippery Year, Melanie Gideon. Gideon’s debut novel, Wife 22, is out TODAY, and the best way I can describe it is Bridget Jones for the Facebook generation. Gideon will be reading tonight at A Great Good Place for […]

Ben Fountain: Author Interview

Today I had the pleasure to meet Ben Fountain, who came to lunch at the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto. Ben’s first novel, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, debuted this month. His short story collection, Brief Encounters with Che Guevara, won a PEN/Hemingway award, a Barnes & Noble Discover Award for Fiction, a Whiting Writers […]

Should You Hire A Social Media Coach?

I teach social media and blogging classes here at the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto. In these classes, I explain to writers how to write a great blog post, how to market their services through their blog, Facebook and Twitter, how to create a community of enthusiastic fans of their work, and how to manage their […]

8 Secrets to a Successful Writers’ Group

Writers’ groups, also called critique groups, can be invaluable resources for writers. They provide the structure and support of an MFA workshop without the high cost of tuition. But not all writer’s groups are equal. Get in the wrong group, and you may do more harm to your writing than good. How do you know […]