January 2015

The Snarkology blog’s next guest, Maureen McGowan, had a circuitous route to publishing that includes stalled agents, defunct publishers, and an unexpected genre change. I won’t summarize further – you’ve just got to read it. Maureen has a great quote that I feel is super-worthy of being addressed separately. She writes: “My first manuscript wasn’t…

Read More Paths to Publishing – Maureen McGowan

Realizing I have to drastically trim my vivid, heartbreaking, meticulously-plotted, and character-defining 9-page battle scene. Author note 1-12-2015: It’s now down to one page. Sniffle. I’m keeping a copy of the old version, just for me.

Read More slash-n-burn revisions

Today the Snarkology blog features Kayelle Allen, a powerhouse of a M/M romance author, talking candidly about her own path to publication. She started publishing in her fifties, but she backed up her solid writing with previous decades of worldbuilding-as-a-hobby in a vast science-fiction and fantasy setting. Her website proves it, by the way. (No,…

Read More Paths to Publishing – Kayelle Allen

Today on the Snarkology blog, Judy Ann Davis shares her tips on how to follow your writing dreams while understanding constructive criticism, weathering bad reviews, and adapting as a writer – without crippling your creativity or ego. I’ll share two really important observations from her essay: Some people think that reading cereal boxes makes them…

Read More Paths to Publishing – Judy Ann Davis

That’s ‘I am Charlie!’ in French, if readers have been under a rock the last twenty-four hours. Earlier today in Paris, three masked gunmen brandishing AK-47s and shouting “Allahu Akbar” stormed the offices of the satirical* newspaper Charlie Hebdo. They murdered twelve people – the editor, cartoonists, journalists, and police officers – before fleeing in two stolen automobiles. Police…

Read More Je suis Charlie! (harsh language)

I tend to write secondary-world science fiction and fantasy. That means it’s probably a made-up world and culture that may have nothing to do with our Earth. Often, ‘true humans’ like us aren’t even in the cast of characters.

I have not written YA, NA or adult urban fantasy set in contemporary locales (though I love some of the genre), or paranormal romance drawn from the new ‘conventions’ of vampires, angels/demons, Fey Folk, or werewolves. There’s also a whole sub-genre of erotic fiction dealing with shapeshifters that I approach judiciously, because many of those writers deal in the same familiar contemporary vein.

I’ve stopped seeking out beta readers who’ve only read those genres. Because I can explain something only a certain number of times before losing my cool:

paws for blog

 

Over on the Snarkology Blog today, Helena Fairfax talks candidly about her journey as a published author: her first wistful dreams about escaping office work to write, her early contest win, the dreaded ‘it’s good but not right for us’ publisher letter, and her return to writing in the aftermath of a terrible tragedy and…

Read More Paths to Publishing – Helena Fairfax

Recently on an online writers’ forum, a pulp writer I know offered the following snarky-but-sadly-accurate list. It’s distilled from his years of reading the typical ways authors defend their substandard, clueless, or frankly predatory publishers. Upon talking to veteran authors, editors, and agents, I realized we’d all seen these excuses. (Our usual responses in parentheses.)…

Read More when writers defend iffy publishers

And somehow, I’ve ended up with a third marketing post. But this one might be useful to a few people, so bear with me. Wu Wei is the Chinese term for ‘effortless action’, the attainment of a purely natural way of being. It is often physically represented by a loose, graceful circle: In the NYTimes, John…

Read More Try, but not too hard

There’s an old saying: I wouldn’t join any club that would have me. I’m considering all sides of that argument, right now, for reasons I’ll clarify in this post. A very kind and enthusiastic reviewer just nominated my M/M erotic romance space opera Moro’s Price for the 17th Annual Preditors & Editors ™ Readers’ Poll.…

Read More Moro’s Price up for an award!