Some writers embraced it from the beginning. Others of us have been skeptical, but we can’t fight it anymore. Like it or not, social media has become firmly entrenched in the lives of writers, and it’s here to stay. It can be an overwhelming proposition to jump into social media or try out a new… Read more »
This week we’ve discussed how to submit your work. While we’ve focused on submitting to literary magazines and online literary markets, many of the same ideas also apply when querying agents. Today’s prompt works equally well, whether you’re a writer of short fiction or poetry and looking for markets for your work, or if you’re… Read more »
While I was in grad school for my MFA, I spent the first year working on campus literary magazine. For the staff, the primary responsibility was to read submissions and decide what went in the magazine. That year, I learned a lot about submitting work to literary magazines, and applied what I learned when submitting… Read more »
Publishing is a subjective business. It’s easy to forget this. Writers often get so caught up in fear or rejection that they avoid submitting work altogether. This is understandable, of course. It’s much less frightening to tinker with one’s work until it’s perfectthan it is to send the work out into the world. It’s a… Read more »
I first learned to sketch out a story in a novel-writing class. The purpose of the sketch is to provide a snapshot of your work-in-progress (WIP), capturing all the important information on one page so that you can see it all at a glance. This technique is especially useful when you need to give a short excerpt… Read more »
As you might have noticed, I’m really into design. A graphic designer and product manager in a past life, you could say I’m a little bit obsessed with clean lines and balanced designs. I love problem-solving so that form and function work together seamlessly. One of the areas that most fascinates me in design is… Read more »
Remember back in grade school when we used to cut up magazines and glue the pictures on a board to make beautiful artwork? Believe it or not, collaging is a great way for writers to explore and express the mood of their project. I learned the benefits of this technique when I was in design… Read more »
Sometimes writer’s block is inevitable. Suddenly–without even knowing how–you hit the wall and there’s nothing to do but try to break your way through it. So what do in that situation? Do you just sit and wallow in your inability to write? The secret to getting through writer’s block is write your way through… Read more »
Writers hurt when they can’t write. They may not realize it, but their behavior speaks volumes. Often, writers will go through a series of stages before they are ready to write again and these stages are similar to the Kübler-Ross stages of grief in psychology. In other words, when writers can’t write they grieve, so… Read more »
Every so often, writers hit a road block. Sometimes we’re zipping along that writing highway and suddenly we take a detour and we’re off on a side road and boom! We run into a herd of cattle hanging out in the middle of our path. Sure, we could off-road it and drive through the pastures… Read more »
