Over the course of this year’s ThrillerFest, the highs and lows of the writer’s life—both as a craft and as a business—were discussed at length. In one-on-one interviews with genre titans Mark Billingham, Charlaine Harris, and Thrillermaster Nelson DeMille, as well as in a number of breakout panels, many of the participating authors shared about… Read more »
Writing full time. Every writer’s fantasy, right? It’s our ultimate goal, isn’t it? Selling enough books to quit the day job. I’ve been testing the theory over the last four weeks on an extended break from my day job, and I have to confess, I’m not sure if it’s my ultimate fantasy anymore. I know…. Read more »
I just read Playing the Short Game, by Doug Smith. It had some very valuable insight about the short story market. Over the next few articles, I’ll be distilling some of his insights about short stories, as well as adding a few of my own. This week I’ll be preparing the soil, so to speak,… Read more »
Happy almost Independence Day! I know it’s not Friday, but I was so excited to share this post, I couldn’t wait until tomorrow. Plus it’s a holiday week, so here’s our regular #5onFri column, this week on a Thursday. We’re deep into summer now, and everyone’s minds are on barbecues and beach trips. But here… Read more »
I have a confession to make. My two daughters loved Junie B. Jones when they were little. Adored that whole (giant) series by Barbara Park. And I hated those books with a fiery passion. As a narrator, Junie B. was rude, impulsive and disobedient, with poor grammar and misspelled words to boot. She was my… Read more »
OMG, I have been holding onto this secret for weeks now and I’m so unbelievably excited to share the news. Drumroll please… DIY MFA is hosting its first ever online writing conference! I have been a combination of nervous and excited about this announcement and I haven’t been able to keep my head on straight for the past few… Read more »
So far in our series Developing Themes In Your Stories, we’ve covered how understanding your protagonist’s character arc and developing your story’s premise sentence can help you consciously nurture literary themes. Today we’ll discuss a third way of mining for themes by looking outside your characters and studying the external conflict. Like with the previous… Read more »
In his early 20’s my dad was a beat reporter for the Kettering-Oakwood (KO) Times, a small local paper near Dayton, Ohio. It was there that he learned the proper way to dangle a Viceroy from his lips while yelling out of the corner of his mouth and pounding on a typewriter. He was ambitious,… Read more »
In the last four months, I’ve gone from a writing obsessed hobbyist to a querying hobbyist to an agented writer to a writer with a book on submission. Seeing my endless hours of toiling bear fruit is exiting and wonderful. But it’s also terrifying. Giving up control of my book has been hard. I never… Read more »
One of the best parts of BEA is all the free stuff. I mean, let’s be honest. It’s a bookworm’s dream. You get to meet your favorite authors, and get free, signed copies of their books. In some cases, these are ARCs (advanced reader copies). In other cases, they’re the actual, finished books. Yes. For… Read more »
