My primary association with Friday the 13th — as is the case for many of us, I suspect — is Jason Voorhees. But there are also those who are superstitious about making travel plans on this unluckiest of Fridays. Many…
How Not to Write I used to keep a book on my shelf to remind myself how not to write. The book, call it Stricken, consisted of a collection of essays on the author’s recent widowhood. She had written it perhaps…
You’ve just published your first book. You’re brimming with happiness, ready to send your darling out into the world. You know that publishers don’t have time to devote their full attention to each and every book they publish, or perhaps…
I don’t have nightmares about showing up for a college exam having not studied. My palms don’t sweat at the idea of getting onto an airplane. Spiders don’t send me into a conniption fit. But ask me what books would…
Feeling a bit of cabin fever? Try coming up with a theme song for each major character in your novel. Fellow incubee Anjali Mathur gave me this idea last spring when she said she put on certain songs when she…
There’s not a lot of advice I can give to other writers about how to be successful. The problem is that there are too many individual interpretations of “success.” To me, success looks like this: I can pay my electric…