Unpenned: Turning the Novel Loose
“There comes a time when you have to let the novel go.” “It will never be perfect.” “You can’t fiddle with it forever.” Yadda, yadda. So goes the writing advice about when to finally set a novel free in the…
Category: Publishing
Your Muse and Your Marketplace: The Self-Interview
The first time I heard about self-interviews was during my high school obsession with The Doors. I read somewhere that Jim Morrison wrote self-interviews. Soon after, I began doing one in my personal journal every few months as a way…
Friday Feast: Difficult Fiction, Post-Book Deal Thoughts, Degrees of Diversity, Habits of Highly Productive Writers, and Guerrilla Shelving
This week, we begin with the topic of “Difficult Fiction,” books that challenge the reader’s perceptions and often require a careful reading. Over here at Dead Darlings, we like “difficult,” “easy,” fast-paced, lyrical, and big ole, juicy reads. There’s room…
Friday Feast: Unpublished First Novels, Page-Turning Plots, Picking an Author’s Brain, and Public Readings
If there’s one constant in publishing and reader habits, it’s that taste is subjective and there are many layers to what leads one book to the drawer and one to a bookstore. What’s an author to do? Write another novel,…
What to Do One Month Before Your Book Launch
When I write this, it is five weeks, two days and twelve and a quarter hours before my novel, Idyll Threats, is published. But who’s counting? Me. I am counting. I am also making to do lists. So many to…
Finding the Right Title
It’s almost a rite of passage to have to change the title of your book when it sells to a publisher, and I fully expected that to happen to me. I figured it would be just one more step in…