Traditional Publishing. Back in the day, the only way you could get a book published—other than paying a vanity press to print it for you—was to find an agent who would submit your book to publishers. This was a long and frustrating process, fraught with rejection letters. Now, of course, you can publish your work…
Category: Blog
Is Writing Short Stories “Worth It”?
Recently, I had a short story published in the Baltimore Review. I tweeted out my good news, and another writer responded, asking me about writing short stories. He finished his question with “Do you think it’s worth it?” That stopped my fingers mid-tweet. “It depends on how you define worth,” I finally replied. There are…
Jeremy Bannister, or The Ups and Downs of An Aspiring Novelist
Yes, I am back promoting the late Gary Reilly. This July, my partner Mike Keefe and I released Gary’s 15th (all posthumously published) book. It’s called Jeremy Bannister, or the Ups and Downs of An Aspiring Novelist. It’s an unusual book because Gary wrote every chapter the same length–one chapter to a page. It’s about…
Writers and coffee and filters
There’s nothing like a cup of coffee to get the writing juices flowing. Ever the optimist, Albert Camus once posed the burning (or should I say, brewing) question: “Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?” What the oft-quoted prolific writer, who denied he was a philosopher, seemed to say has been the…
Tips for completing my novel this year
I’m a writer who can’t seem to stay with a project long enough to complete a whole novel. I’ve determined to finish at least one of my languishing projects before 2022; to that end, I composed a list of 20 tips for getting it done. Develop a writing routine—even a loose and flexible writing routine…