• The Room in the Elephant

    It lies on the kitchen table like a tipped tombstone, this year of late nights and early mornings, of exhilaration and frustration, of too much coffee and too few showers. The Froot Loops box is prostrate, casualty of another rushed breakfast. The kids are out the door. The dog is bark-begging back in. The spouse is gridlocked, Van Halen blasting him into the past if only for one more exit. His parting word to you, “finally.” You repeat the word in whisper even though you know better. This is just another beginning. But it’s done. Your first novel. Or your tenth. Drafted, redrafted, written and re-written. You run your finger…

  • Give Up Your Publishing Dreams

    If title of this post makes you nervous, you probably shouldn’t read it. Or maybe you should. Before we go any further, I’m going to have to ask you to place your publishing dreams in the box marked “misc” at the back of the room. Be sure to leave all your unfinished queries and How to Get Published books & blogs and all those publishing-related inspirational quotes you taped to your bathroom mirror. Yes, even the quote that says J. K. Rowling was rejected twelve million times before becoming a kajillionaire. Now pick up a blank notebook and a pen. We’re going old-school here. No laptops. No Internet. (Ironic, I…