by Roxanne Rustand When someone refers to their “writing journey,” I think back to my own journey and my own misconceptions back in the early 1990’s. It all seemed so clear back then. Write. Be dedicated. Absorb everything I heard at writers’ conferences, study my books on writing and the scores of writing workshop tapes I listened to endlessly. It …
Tackling the Small Stuff
By Sarah Hamaker I’m a details person, which translated well into my chosen profession of writer and editor. I notice things like misplaced commas, wrong usage of apostrophes (don’t get me started on how years can’t be possessive!) and subject/verb disagreement. It used to drive me crazy when I encountered grammatical or word choice mistakes in the real world, like …
Love Your Editor
By Ian Acheson It was finally finished. I’d just typed “The End.” Now what do I do? September 2003. Yes all those years ago. I’d set out on a mission to write that novel that I was always going to write. The previous December I’d read Stephen King’s “On Writing” (it’s excellent BTW – part memoir, part lessons on writing). …
Never Underestimate the Value of a Power Edit
By Dianna Booher My most valuable learning experience in graduate school also happened to be my most humiliating. Having read the first hundred pages of my master’s thesis, one of my thesis directors, a literary prize-winning novelist himself, handed back my novel with downcast eyes and mumbled something about “needs to be tightened.” One line of his review of my …
Twelve Tips for Maximizing Your Appointments
By Bonnie Doran It’s conference season! If you’re heading to a writer’s conference, you probably have appointments with editors, agents, or other professionals. Here are some tips for making the most of those fifteen minutes: 1. Arm yourself with business cards. They don’t need to be fancy. I suggest your name (duh), head shot, email address, and social media links, …
Where Do I Fit?
By Ramona Richards A few weeks ago, I asked my Facebook followers a simple question: If you could ask an editor anything, what would be? The responses, for the most part, reminded me that editors don’t often communicate much about their side of the desk. For instance, this one from author Kellie Coates Gilbert: What is the single most critical …
“Technology is what existed before you were born.” (Alan Kay)
by Julie Gwinn B&H Publishing Group We had a digital summit at B&H recently to try to get our heads around the changes taking place in the publishing industry. It was two days of information and presentations with some startling statistics: In 2006, there were 296,352 books published. In 2010, that number jumped to 3,092,740. Thank goodness I am in …
Pitch Sessions: An Editor’s POV
by Ramona Richards Abingdon Press Sue Brower had some terrific advice last week about preparing for a writers conference, especially ACFW. One piece of advice she gave made me want to give her a cheer: • DON’T go to editor and agent appointments unprepared. Now…that may sound like common sense for most of you, but I thought I’d share a …
The Writers Conference – Make it a Life-Changing Event!
by Sue Brower Zondervan, Inc. I have just returned from a great week at Blue Ridge Christian Writers Conference. Alton Gansky and his team provided an experience that I know changed the lives of many writers. We had writers from beginners to bestsellers, those that write 500 word blogs to those that write 100,000 word novels. What we all had …
The Kryptonite Questions by Publisher Allen Arnold
I’m a huge Superman fan. His strength is legendary. So is his greatest weakness — Kryptonite. Your greatest strength is your story. In the end, it always comes down to the story. But your greatest weakness — whether you’re a best-selling author or brand new writer — may be the questions you’re not asking. I call these the Kryptonite Questions …