Taking Your Shot at Success
A few days ago I made an ill-considered remark that might have offended some of you, and I need to apologize. I had read some articles on a recent survey of authors, and one article said that 55% of those who consider themselves full-time writers last year had no writing income. I wondered how that […]
Avoiding Terrible Advice
There’s a lot of bad advice floating around out there. Some of it is bad for everyone, but some of it might just be bad for you. For example, here’s some terrible advice. “Write the kind of novel that you love. Don’t worry about anyone else’s hopes or dreams or expectations. You’re not them. You […]
Protecting Your Working Capital
Starting a writing career is tough. Generally speaking, you will have to write your first book—or two or three—on the side while you are working at a full-time job. When you do it, remember that you are “investing in yourself.” Don’t whine about it, please. Most of us writers have done it this way. When […]
Writing For a Living, First Principles
When you are starting out, many authors hope that they will get a big advance right out the gate. That’s natural. You need time to write, and it’s a lot easier to make the time when you have some money to live on. In fact, I see writers all of the time who write half […]
Don’t Be A Starving-Artist
I read an article the other day by a writer who, out of one side of his mouth, suggested that writers aren’t paid enough. We are often “forced” into taking secondary jobs like teaching or writing nonfiction, because Amazon’s policies “force” publishers to artificially raise their prices and “force” and “force.” The net result is […]
The Deepening Sea
There seems to be a disconnect between authors and readers right now. Many publishers are having a hard time finding the readers. In fact, a recent article from the Author’s Guild stated that “The Authors Guild’s 2018 Author Income Survey, the largest survey of writing-related earnings by American authors ever conducted, finds incomes falling to […]
Learning to Write in Workshops Versus Universities
Today a young writer asked what the advantages are of studying writing at a university versus at workshops. Now, I’ve taught in both settings, so let me suggest some of the advantages of each. Universities—the Pros and Cons When I studied writing, I did it at a university. I created my own degree program at […]
Finding Your Theme
In brainstorming a work, you will often find that you want your characters to behave in certain ways. And as they grow and develop, you may even find that you need to justify why they do what they do. If you get deep enough into their thought processes, you can almost imagine them arguing with […]
The Heart of Your Story
I was asked to read a screenplay a while ago. It opened with two minutes during which it explained what a common household device was, showing how it was made in a factory. Then for three more minutes, it had characters eating breakfast talking about their cultural heritage. I began to wonder when the story […]
Recognizing Your Own Skill
When you write a story, you often have to ask yourself, “Is this tale good enough to send to editors or agents? Is it ready to publish? Could it be a bestseller?” Oddly enough, you as the author may be a terrible judge of your own work. This principle was brought up to me years […]