Category Archives: Writing process
Report, mid book tour
I’ve now been in the Los Angeles area for a few days and am getting the hang of the book tour thing. It’s been extremely pleasant. Days are spent wandering around hanging out at cafes, with patches of good discussion … Continue reading
Committing to paper: draft 2
After 6 months of steady writing and editing, I finished. I wrote the original draft, then edited the entire thing again. That was the original plan, and I did it. It’s time to commit to paper. Large principle of editing: … Continue reading
Character accents: the deliberation
My first draft is complete. Plot’s in place, the right characters in the right spots, with the right objects. My visit to the story site provided lots of detail for the descriptive texture. I’m currently braiding contextual detail into the … Continue reading
Imagination shakes hands with reality.
I’ve written a complete first draft of a story set in a small town. I used my imagination, and a healthy dose of Google map to figure out the logistics. And then I decided to visit. What a weird trip. … Continue reading
Smell the story
I’ve been working pretty hard on my latest project. Since January, I’ve logged 79,000 words on my latest YA novel. My goal was to have a complete first draft, ugly as a fairytale stepmother, done. Mission accomplished. I’ve written and … Continue reading
Toe crossing, and the current YA market
(Sorry about the picture. It was the only one I could think of to go with this post.) Jay, editor-in-chief of Bitingduck Press, asked me the other day, what makes your story unique? It was time to create another blurb … Continue reading
Editing, dummies for dummies
The editing process has several phases. Once the manuscript has been accepted, there’s a close read for plot and its problems. The details have to be right. Right? In our case, we’re working from a Word file and ping-ponging it … Continue reading
Marketing a book: in with the old & in with the new
As you probably know, marketing of a book is a very big deal. In some ways, like the music industry, the marketing can be a bigger deal than the work itself. It’s also the most difficult for most authors. I … Continue reading
No writer is an island. Not even a writer on an island.
A few words on the importance of the editing process. OK. There was a time when I thought I was so right that editing would have been offensive. But I was a moron for thinking this way. Even the best … Continue reading
Editing the book: getting it “righter”
Let me spend a few words on describing what happened once Bitingduck accepted my manuscript. Editor-in-chief, Jay Nadeau, once the contract was signed, asked me to work on some initial revisions. Now, instead of just one set of eyes on … Continue reading