-
Chasing, Maybe
When I first started writing, I attempted to emulate my favorite authors (though Arthur C. Clarke and Ernest Hemingway would have struggled to find even the slightest resemblance). This is the way it goes for many writers. We begin our journey to uniqueness by trying to be someone else. Isn’t it the same way with musicians? [Cue “Smoke on the Water.”] It’s only after hundreds of thousands of words, most of which we prefer to forget, that we finally begin to find our one-of-a-kind writing voice.* And then what do we do? We use that compellingly unique voice to tell the stories we think will sell. Not right away. First there’s a season when we write the…
-
There Is No Good
Everyone* knows there’s no magic formula for writing a book that’s destined to become a bestseller. (Did you notice I didn’t write “there’s no magic formula for writing a bestseller“? I did that on purpose. Pause for a moment to think about why I did that.) But that doesn’t stop you from trying to find such a formula – or at least discover a few tricks that can improve your chances of such success. So you reverse-engineer the bestsellers. You study the themes, the characters, the pacing, the writing style. You examine the publishing processes, the marketing tricks. You take everything apart and look for pieces that might fit your…
-
This Could Be a Problem
I like languishing in obscurity. Languishing is my love language. This could be a problem. Well, not yet. But it will be if I reach any of my writing goals for the year, which include: a little book based on my #thewritinglife Twitter updates; the first novel in a YA series; a contemporary adult novel that’s been six years in the making; a few more blog posts; at least one provocative tweet. You can’t have a successful writing career unless you embrace marketing and self-promotion. I get it. If no one knows about you or your book, the book won’t sell. In my past life as an editor in a…