Negative feedback and rejection are usually considered the worst parts of the writing journey. When your manuscript receives the dreaded form rejection letter from a literary agent or a publisher fails to respond to a pitch—it isn’t easy to view this feedback as “good”. In fact, you might be asking how a form rejection can… Read more »
When the label on a hopeful submission to your favourite lit mag switches from “In Progress” to “Declined,” you know the steps you’ll take, right? If your hopes were high, this rejection might have you sobbing into a bowl of cookies and cream. If you’ve built up more resilience in the submission game it might… Read more »
Reading is an exercise in empathy. When we read an effective story, we identify with its main characters and mirror their emotions. Indeed, the best stories get us to experience the events being portrayed. Studies have even shown that when readers encounter well-told stories, there’s cortex activity in their brains; that is, the areas of… Read more »
Writing is more than a job, a hobby, or an interest—it’s a way of life. Not many people outside our crazy little realm can understand it. Sometimes, you need extra support in order to get things done. Enter, your accountability partner. After months (maybe years) of searching for your soul mate, you’ve finally found the… Read more »
The man-versus-X distinctions we were taught in school are pretty useless. In my experience, at least, knowing that an individual might struggle against nature or man or self or society does little to help me craft gripping scenes. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying conflict isn’t important. It’s absolutely essential. But giving broad labels… Read more »
Snazzy author photo? Check. List of all your books? Check. Alright, you have everything you need for your author website. Time to go live, right? Not so fast! Having an author website is like owning your own little corner of the internet and it’s important to set it up in a way that showcases your… Read more »
When I was out at drinks with a friend a few weeks ago to talk about the first three chapters of my novel I’d sent him, one of the things that kept coming up was the language. Visceral and heavy, paranoid even. These were the words he used to describe it, almost like he was… Read more »
“Critique days” were met with both anxiety and excitement in my undergraduate creative writing courses. The whole class would sit in a circle and, one-by-one, we would each have our writing critiqued by both our peers and our instructors. Talk about nerve wracking. Sometimes the feedback would be helpful and encouraging. Other times, I would… Read more »
Last summer, Alison Walsh from the literary food blog Alison’s Wonderland Recipes sent me a surprising invitation: To write the introduction for her then-upcoming cookbook, A Literary Tea Party. It was an offer I couldn’t refuse. First, it meant having a byline in a published book—and what writer wouldn’t be excited about that? Second, it… Read more »
The first time I heard, “there’s nothing about the main character that makes me care about her,” it felt like someone punched me in the throat. Yes, a bit of a dramatic response, but right then and there that’s how I felt. I sat for days afterward wondering what was wrong with me. Had four… Read more »
