If you read my blog entitled “Before You Write” which was about how disorganized I was in my early writing days, you know I had a box filled with various versions of a book entitled Training Tommy which was published by a small press in 2001. It’s not that great…
GET ORGANIZED! PLAN TO STAY ORGANIZED! Someone should benefit from my twenty-plus years of doing everything the hard way. Way back when I started writing novel-length fiction I’ll be the first to admit I had no idea what I was doing. I flew by the seat of my pants and…
Most publishers have “style sheets” which are guidelines for formatting a manuscript for submission. They also might have editing guidelines, which they will provide once a manuscript is being prepped for editing. Copy editing can be a nightmare, by the way. Every word and sentence is picked over and pulled…
Recently, I’ve begun to write poetry. I don’t know where the inspiration comes from, but Dr. Seuss-like rhyming schemes appear in my head in short, quick bursts. If I don’t write them down quickly, I forget them. They are about odd, everyday subjects ranging from the frustration of being a…
Hop over to the Novelists, Inc. blog and read my “Mark Twain Didn’t Twitter” blog posted on October 15, 2010. I’m sure that will be a popular one, especially since it follows right behind an industry professional’s blog whose job is to promote authors and their work. Once I’d finally…
You can see why it’s pointless to offer your ideas to a fiction writer. They’ve already got more ideas than they know what to do with or time to develop.
Nothing about me is memorable. I was quite old when I began to realize this. Thirty at least. It’s why waiters in restaurants don’t hear my order although everyone else at the table remembers my requests. Sometimes I think I’m invisible. It used to bother me. I tried to make myself more noticeable. New hair styles. Vivid eye shadows. I wanted to make a statement, but it didn’t work. Finally I resigned myself to the fact that I am imminently forgettable. I blend in with the wallpaper. Big deal.
? And may I just say, being a best-seller does not always equate to being a great writer. What it means more often is you were the first with a mind-boggling and unique twist on an old idea. Because, as we all know, there are no new ideas.
Get a first draft done so you can type “the end” instead of getting stuck halfway through and never finishing it. You can always go back and fix what you’ve written. But you can’t fix a blank page.
You want to get published? The first rule is, don’t bother writing the book of your heart. Write something’s that commercially viable. If you manage to combine those two and do it well, congratulations. You might become a best-selling author in record time. Or…you might not.
