Can a course teach you how to write a bestseller?
inews.co.uk – Thursday May 11, 2017
Two industry players are offering novel-writing courses. They don’t guarantee you’ll get published, but they can teach would-be authors a lot. Sophie Morris reports.
7 Things I've Learned About Writing From My Work As An Editor And An Author
bustle.com – Wednesday May 3, 2017
For many years, I worked as both an author and an editor, which always felt a bit like being a double agent. I’d spend the days considering other people’s manuscripts and the nights working on my own, which was something of a balancing act. But I always felt really lucky to have the perspective that comes with being on both sides of the desk. I mean, how many people find one job they love, much less two?
A couple years ago, around the time I started working on my new book, Windfall, I left my job as an editor to write full-time. But if there were unlimited hours in a day, I probably would’ve continued to do both forever. Being an editor absolutely made me a better writer, and being a writer undoubtedly made me a better editor, and I’m still so grateful for all that I learned along the way. So I thought it might be helpful if I shared of few of those lessons with you....
The 9 Emotional Stages Of Reading Your Childhood Writing
bustle.com – Saturday April 29, 2017
Have you ever stumbled upon an forgotten journal or notebook and read through your old stuff? If so, than you know the many emotional stages you go through when you read your childhood writing. It's a roller coaster ride, to say the least.
From the poetry of my childhood to the Harry Potter-inspired stories of my adolescence to the emotionally-charged journals of my teen years, I have been writing one thing or another for as long as I can remember. If I wasn't up late at night reading with a flashlight under my covers, I was jotting down all of my thoughts, feelings, and ideas, convinced each one was as brilliant as those of the professional writers I looked up to. Whenever I wrote, whatever I wrote, I was always so sure that anytime I put my pen to paper, I was recording a *very important* story that was pure gold. Now that I have a solid decade, not to mention a writing degree and years of experience as a professional, between the writing of my youth and now, I can see clearly now what I couldn't then: I was no Sylvia Plath.
Giles Foden on the art of writing
irishtimes.com – Thursday April 27, 2017
The foreword to The Ogham Stone, UL’s journal of creative writing, explores what language can do and the craft of its featured writers.
Need Some Writing Inspiration? 7 Poems To Get The Creative Juices Flowing
bustle.com – Monday April 17, 2017
Often, people look for ways to avoid distractions, especially during important work. And, really, what could be more important than your writing? The process of transforming your wildest ideas, your most daring stories, your most beautiful daydreams — well, that's worthy of all your focused energy and then some. Though most of us know the above, that doesn't make it any easier to combat the kagillion-horned monster known as Writers Block. Fortunately, spending a few short minutes with a good poem can get you back at that keyboard — and more synched in with your writing than ever.
Writer seeks Kindled spirit: Six novelists reveal how to self-publish successfully
dailymail.co.uk – Sunday April 16, 2017
The dawn of the digital era means that authors can self-publish their books – and make a fortune. Laura Silverman asks six independent novelists to reveal the secrets of clicking with your readership.
Kameron Hurley: How to Write a Book in a Month
locusmag.com – Monday April 10, 2017
We all want to learn how to write books faster. The pace of the news cycle today has heated up to such an extent that for those of us who aren’t in the 1% of writers, if we don’t come out with a book a year, it feels like the world has forgotten us amid the buzz of ever more intensifying world horror. I’m not immune to this pressure. Juggling a day job, a book a year (writing), a book a year (promoting), and completing various freelance articles like this one takes its toll. Stuff goes out late. It’s pushed out. It squeezes in just under the wire (like this column). At some point when you’re on the writing treadmill, it feels like you’ve gotten so behind that you’ll never catch up again.
Is Book Publishing Too Liberal?
publishersweekly.com – Saturday April 8, 2017
When Simon & Schuster announced in late February that it is canceling Milo Yiannopoulos’s book, Dangerous, many in the publishing industry reacted with a sigh of relief. The six-figure book deal that the right-wing provocateur landed at Threshold Editions, S&S’s conservative imprint, late last year caused a wave of criticism—from various factions of the media, the public, and the house’s own authors. And, though it’s still unclear what ultimately motivated the publisher to yank the book, the fervor that the alt-right bad boy’s deal caused put some on alert. Could other publishers be pressured into canceling books by controversial conservatives? Does the industry have a double standard for authors on the right? Does it matter?
‘Just five more minutes …’: the joy of writing for children
irishtimes.com – Thursday April 6, 2017
There’s something magical about writing for 9-12-year-olds. I have loved books all my life, but it was at this age that I remember most clearly the overwhelming compulsion to keep reading, to find out what happens next, just one more chapter, just five more minutes. It’s the age when you first discover the joys of reading by torchlight under your duvet, the rest of the house quiet, hoping you won’t be caught before your hero escapes from the bad guys.
Writing in the time of great editors
mysanantonio.com – Tuesday April 4, 2017
Editors are the invisible hands that guide publishers and help writers strengthen their craft to achieve greatness. When thinking of greatness, I am reminded of Malvolio’s soliloquy in Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” when he says: “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em.”
Scrivener & Sons’ editor Maxwell Perkins was one of those born great. He edited Ernest Hemingway’s liberal use of salty language and fear of semicolons, resolved F. Scott Fitzgerald’s hesitation for book titles (Perkins replaced “Trimalchio in West Egg” with “The Great Gatsby”) and hacked off Thomas Wolfe’s purple prose and redundancy.
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