One of the best pieces of writing advice I have heard was to find the 10th way of doing things. It was in a screenwriting seminar, and I apologize to the wise man who said this, because I can’t remember who it was. Let’s call him Will (after Shakespeare, who no doubt used this rule whether he knew…
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In case you haven’t seen it, J.K. Rowling’s speech to the graduating class at Harvard is quite inspiring. You can find it here. Her messages: We can learn from failure, and imagination helps us not only to write, but to make a difference. The second is about her time working at Amnesty International. Her stories…
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Another blog has written a great review for Sir Newton’s Color Me Hawai’i. Keiki Gift Ideas, a blog offering up ideas for children’s gifts, posted a nice review, and the writer gave the book to her friend, who also wrote up a review. Bonus, two for one! Click here to see the reviews. But one…
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With my focus now on the Sir Newton books, I started making publicity calls for Sir Newton’s Color Me Hawai’i, which launched earlier this year. I’m late in doing promotions (you really want a nice big push when the book first appears in stores – but the beginning of this year was crazy, with a move to…
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I did it. I typed those two words. Yesterday I wrote three pages in the final chapter and today I wrote the last three pages of the final chapter and the one-page epilogue. Done. The End. Goal accomplished: First draft completed by the end of June. Of course, it’s still early in June. But I…
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Success! I had a very productive Sunday. I wrote 10 pages of my middle-grade novel, including finishing the climactic chapter and writing the first half of the last chapter of the book. All I have left is the second half of the chapter and the epilogue. (The book has a prologue, so the epilogue will wrap…
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I’m still having ups and downs with my climactic scene, but yesterday, I felt as thought I had a bit of a break-through. Every so often, you run into a section of whatever you’re writing that you don’t feel as well as other sections. It’s more difficult to get your head around, more difficult to…
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In today’s Writer’s Market enewsletter, readers talked about how well — or not — they are keeping up with their 2008 goals, and one reader offered up what I think is a pretty good idea. (Click here to see the web version of the enewsletter.) Thank you Dawn Herring for her idea of setting up…
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Yesterday I wrote a sentence. That’s it, just one sentence. It wasn’t beause I didn’t want to write. I was tired — I’m always tired 🙂 — but that wasn’t it, either. It was because I was resisting my next step. I’m at the point in my story where I have to write the big climactic scene,…
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“Sir Newton’s Color Me Hawai’i,” the second book in my line of children’s travel books, has its first mention on a blog. Check it out here. With print publications having limited space and lots of news to fill it, websites and blogs are becoming a great way to promote your books. J.A. Konrath lamanted the…
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