Writing advice is everywhere.
Good writing advice? Not so much.
My sole point this month is to get yourself connected to Collaborist.
Here’s your portal: https://collaborist.org/
I highly recommend the YouTube chats. Here.
Sample topics:
- Head Hopping in Writing and Reading While You Write
- How Much Description Do You Need In Your Writing?
- How To Know You Are Ready to Query An Agent or Publisher
- The Art of Silence As Writing
And on and on.
The co-hosts are Jason Buchholz and Ben LeRoy. The chat is always calm, low-key, and grounded in reality. Hype factor, as Elvis Costello might say, is less than zero. You might even be tempted to drop a note in one of the comments and ask whether their coffee is caffeinated.
But the tone is actually perfect. These guys keep it real.
Ben LeRoy founded Bleak House Books and Tyrus Books. The latter sold to Simon & Schuster. He’s been in the business for 20 years. I’ve had the pleasure of attending several retreats with Ben and he’s got keen insights into what makes a story work. Or not. Jason Buchholz is the author of A Paper Son, published in 2016. He’s also ghostwritten books and book proposals for a variety of other writers. He’s an editor who he has helped foster the development of dozens of manuscripts.
Yes, they are available for hire. But their advice is free and they are putting it out at a steady clip. The main thing is they take the business seriously.
On a related tip, here’s a podcast that’s more for emerging writers: The Shit No One Tells You About Writing. This one is perky. There’s a good variety of episodes. Query letters and sample pages get evaluated and the discussions range across a broad variety of topics. TSNOTYAW is as breezy as The Collaborist is not. Take your pick.
Or both.
