I first met Susan Marlow at a writers’ critique group, where we took turns critiquing one another’s book excerpt or short story. I immediately “took a shine” to Susan. She was down-to-earth, insightful, and funny, her writing strong and resonant. Although at the time she’d not been published in the book publishing world, I felt [...]
May 20th, 2009
Ten Ways to Make Your Editor Love You
1. Be personable, yet professional – It’s a fine line. If you met face-to-face with your editor today, you’d probably have lunch, coffee and dessert, laugh, talk shop, and then leave feeling like you’ve discovered the secrets of levitation and everlasting bliss. But remember you are also in a professional relationship: you have deadlines to [...]
April 1st, 2009
Jumping Jacks for Writers
Like most writers, I dread the blank page. Some particularly nasty blank pages have stared at me for hours while my brain slowly disintegrated. Yet, like diarrhea after a double dose of Ex-Lax, a blank page is, alas, unavoidable. After all, every printed page in existence was, at one time, nastily blank. Enter jumping jacks [...]
March 23rd, 2009
To agent or not to agent . . . that is the question
We all know the old Catch 22: in order to get published you have to have an agent; in order to get an agent you have to have been published. Sounds like an impossible dilemma, but there is hope for aspiring writers. First of all, I don’t believe the first statement is entirely true. I [...]
March 11th, 2009
Mashed Loblolly
Words evolve. They come, they go. There was a time when, if someone called you a “rascal,” you would have run them through with your sword to avenge your honor. Now though, we just laugh with incredulity that anyone would use such a word. “A rascal!? Oh, ho ho, ha ha. That’s rich. Ha ha [...]
