As of the writing of this post, I have not yet seen Season 4 of Stranger Things. I decided in May to wait until the entire series dropped so I could binge it. Then I found myself busier than I expected. Dean doesn’t watch Stranger Things, so I need to find time away from reading […]
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I recently read a novel by a traditionally published writer who’s been a favorite of mine for forty years. The novel was good—her work is always good—but it lacked dramatic tension. At one point, Dean asked me what genre the book was, because the cover didn’t communicate a genre clearly. I was about 100 pages […]
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Artists: I want you to pay attention here because this post is for you. The rest of you, those who love business, please read because you might find some inspiration here. But I’m talking to the folks who seem to believe that practicing art is something that is divorced from business and must remain so. […]
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This is another one of those deceptive titles, like “Money.” Because when most writers read “Competition” as the sub header here, they think, Yep, there’s just too much competition out there. A handful of writers win, but the rest of us lose. Um…no. Readers are a fascinating bunch. They’re terribly unpredictable. Just because something is […]
Continue ReadingJuly was a good month for reading, only I can’t share much of what I read. I read wonderful manuscripts in my Romance Spies in-person class. The class was an advanced class, so all the writers were good. They were just trying a subgenre that some of them were unfamiliar with. I read incredible stories, […]
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Note: I wrote this at the end of July. By the end of the first week in August, the doomsayers got confused by the stellar jobs report here in the U.S. A lot of the analysis is a confused “this doesn’t fit into our models,” rather than a discussion of how to find new models. […]
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Two weeks ago, I posted about agenting changes, and linked to a Hollywood Reporter piece about the new writer/agent relationship. Many of you had sent me that piece, because it is shocking in its happy talk about what is, essentially, a predatory scheme. I promised you all three posts inspired by this piece. The agenting […]
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This summer, Kate Bush broke three Guinness Book of World Records: Oldest Female Artist To Reach Number One, Longest Time For A Track To Reach Number One On The UK’s Official Singles Chart, and Longest Gap Between Number Ones. She did all of this with the song, “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God),” […]
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This past week I got one of those letters. Someone wrote to me to tell me how great his agent is and what a great deal his agent got him. Not for his novel, but for his movie option. I get “my agent is great” letters all the time, but usually they’re about book deals. […]
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Lately, I’ve been stuck in words. The right word, as a matter of fact. As some of you know, I’m studying Spanish, rather intensely, truth be told. I’m slowly moving away from being functionally illiterate in Spanish (where I know every word except the important one) and moving toward marginally literate in Spanish. But you […]
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