Baseball pitchers rarely rely on a single pitch. They mix things up with fast balls, changeups, curve balls, knuckle balls, sliders, sinkers, and cutters. They consider who they are pitching to, how many strikes they have, how many outs, how…
Think of your favorite movie. Perhaps it is hard for you to narrow down the list. But chances are when you try to think of the best film you’ve ever seen in your life, a few things happen. You remember…
An inauspicious anniversary recently passed; it’s been a full year since I signed a contract with a literary agent to represent my novel. The day marked twelve months of suspense, frustration, and heartbreak at rejection emails worded with such tact…
Once again I’m wrestling with figuring out the genre of my novel. Anyone else who’s run into this particular problem, raise your hand. Yes, I see you all. Seriously, do we really care which category each book falls into, so…
People used to ask, “When is your next book due?” and I would laugh, self-consciously, because I didn’t have deadlines. I wasn’t a writer who had contracts or editors waiting for me to produce anything. In those bygone days, I…
After I jubilantly signed with an agent I met at last year’s Muse and the Marketplace conference in Boston, well-meaning friends and fellow writers began bombarding me with advice. You need more Facebook followers. You have to be more visible…