writing advice | Heart of the Dreaming

Tag Archives: writing advice

Jan

Square Peg, Round Hole

I was chatting with one of my friends the other night about writing – me, looking over revisions from my agent and trying to organize my thoughts on them. (And incidentally, I usually take a few days of NOT doing anything with revision type notes or suggestions. Better for me to let them sink and decide how I want to proceed.) So I was mulling. My friend, however, was disheartened at a rejection she’d just received. And we talked about that a bit. It was an interesting sort of rejection – the editor in question indicated that her short story read more like the first chapter in a novel – that there was more potential than what the current length was able to provide. It was upsetting to her because she was trying to follow the advice of writing short stories as practice. It’s common advice – hone your writing… Read more

Aug

Author Q & A: Things You Should Know. And Maybe Shouldn’t Ask.

Posted in blog | Tagged a little bit ranty, things to know, writing advice | 6 Comments

Sometimes being a published author is a bit like being an animal in a zoo, particularly when it comes to family and friends. And I get that. There’s a certain mystique to being published – one that’s being eroded on a daily basis, but for people who aren’t in the book industry in some fashion, it seems more mysterious as it is. But it also leads to questions and assumptions that are sometimes difficult to answer. Moreso because a lot of people don’t really want the whole truth. They want to hear about how there’s some magical formula that leads to instant success. Anyway, here’s a few I’ve run into – and I’m sure many of you have too. 1) How did you get published? On the surface – this should be easy to answer. I wrote a book and then I: a) self-pubbed b) queried/pitched to an agent/editor c) sacrificed 10… Read more

May

Writing Advice: Do the Rules Still Apply?

Posted in blog | Tagged IDK, rules, self-pubbing, trad pubbing, writing advice | 2 Comments

I’m always a bit cautious about giving out writing advice. After all, what works for me might not work for you. I’m hardly in a position to sit up on the mountain to dictate what people should do to get published or how to write better. And the fact of the matter is that the game is changing – self pubbing and indie pubbing have opened doors to writers whose books don’t fit into nice little genre niches. (Which is one of the complaints I’ve seen from agents and editors – eg – “the writing is fabulous, but where would it be shelved??”) Sometimes that just means the book is before its time – after all, it used to be that vampire books were barely a blip on the radar…and then the UF/PNR genre exploded – and now we have whole shelves dedicated to those sorts of stories. Sometimes it… Read more