This is my second year serving as a judge for the Colorado Gold contest (which I highly recommend, for a number of reasons—but that’s a story for another blog post). After judging a dozen or so entries, I noticed I was making the same comment on almost every single manuscript: I didn’t feel grounded enough. Lack…
Category: Blog
I Won!
I did it! I’m the best. Problem is, I won the Writing Procrastination Award, hands down. I’ve managed to find about four hundred different reasons not to write – at least not what I was supposed to. Some of my excuses are good ones – I submitted to the RMFW Anthology, I submitted to Gold,…
Writers: Learn to Love Revision
When you look at some of the writing advice out here in the great etheric wonder that is the internet, what you’ll see is a lot of the same information repeated over and over. This is because writing isn’t a science, it’s a very subjective process which looks similar to lots of different people, but…
Writing Decisions That Affect Readers and my Reader/Writer Hats…
First, this article is for Working Writers WHO WANT TO SUPPORT THEMSELVES BY WRITING. My Reader Hat: I buy books that sound good, mostly romance (all sub-genres), fantasy (most genres), some mysteries and YA. Less often I download a sample. And I rarely read something NEW when I’m far behind deadline, as I was from…
Protecting Your Merchandising Rights in a Publishing Deal
In publishing, “merchandising” refers to the right(s) to create, market, and sell products (merchandise) based on a book or its characters and settings. A good example is Bertie Botts’ Every-Flavor Beans, which appear in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series and also on many convenience and candy store shelves. Since Rowling invented the candy in her…