Three years ago, I decided to try Ray Bradbury’s challenge to new writers to write a story a week for a year. I’ve seen other people do it, although most of them were writing pretty short pieces. I averaged 3,595 words per story, with 186,937 words total by the time I finished. The challenge was…
Tag: rejection
The Business of Patience
This one is about patience. Patience, that is, and hard work. Later this summer, Lake Union Publishing (an Amazon imprint) will publish The Swing of Things. The book represents five years of work by co-writers Linda Hull (former RMFW Writer of the Year) and Keir Graff, an award-winning writer, editor, and big cheese at Booklist. Together,…
Spring is almost here. Time to prune.
March is upon us, my friends. Which means spring will soon be here. Over the last couple of weeks, I have found myself wanting to start my spring cleaning a little early. For me, the verb to prune has been constantly on my mind. I guess it all started when I began wasting time watching videos…
Coping with Rejection: a 12-Step Program
Rejection can take many forms. For some of us, it’s our short fiction being turned away by one magazine after another. For others, it’s agents rejecting our novels at the query letter, partial, or full manuscript stage. And if you go the indie route, it can rear its ugly head as poor sales or harsh…
Hit Me Baby, One More Time: The Art of Rejection
You think the last rejection you got was bad? Well, yeah, it probably was. Rejection sucks no matter how you think about it. Some people put a positive spin on it, declaring each rejection is one step closer to a yes. And they’re right. Other might look at rejection as spirit crushing. And yeah, they’re right…