This morning, on my Twitter feed, a kind gentleman tweeted me with the news that he had just bought the first volume of Fiction River on Smashwords. Then he thanked me for “having good sense to make it easy not to steal.” I know what he meant, even though the tweet was oddly phrased: WMG […]
Continue ReadingI finished my second novel (as an adult) on the day my best friend from high school gave birth to her second child. My friend called me from the hospital to tell me the great news and then, because she was a sweet woman and because she was from the upper Midwest, she reflexively asked […]
Continue ReadingI didn’t read my five newspapers this morning. I’m cranky about that. I love my newspapers. I read them on my iPad, and don’t mind the advertising at all, even though I accidentally click on the ads once in a while. (And please, don’t tell anyone: Occasionally, I investigate the product.) Which is way more […]
Continue ReadingDean has posted the new online writing workshop schedule through September. I don’t teach these onscreen, but I help massively behind the scenes. If you want to see my mug, check out the lecture series. You can take more than one class at a time, but it is a commitment. There’s homework. Also, if you […]
Continue ReadingI’m pleased to announce the final table of contents for the first volume of Fiction River. Dean and I finalized it over the weekend. The first volume is fantasy, called Unnatural Worlds, and will be released around April 15. And here’s the list of contributors and their stories: Life Between Dreams Devon Monk Finally Family […]
Continue ReadingDean has posted new online workshops for March. I won’t be the face on-screen. That’ll be Dean because he’s so much better at explaining things. But I have a hand in both of them–a big hand, in fact, since I’m the one who suggested the topics. They are: How To Plot Your Novel and World […]
Continue ReadingFirst, an anecdote: It comes from the November issue of Vanity Fair. The magazine published an excerpt—if that’s the right word—from Truman Capote’s legendary unfinished novel, Answered Prayers. In an accompanying article, Sam Kashner describes the history of the novel, why it remained unfinished from the 1960s to Capote’s death in 1984, and how it […]
Continue ReadingI spent the holidays seeing movies. I expected to relax. I did not expect to find a blog topic, but I did. Two of the movies I saw, Jack Reacher, and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, came from books. Both films had a different approach to the book’s fan base. In one case, it might […]
Continue ReadingProbably the most popular blog post I’ve written in the Business Rusch series appeared in May, 2011. Geared toward traditionally published writers and new writers coming in, “Writing Like It’s 1999” explains how the many truths of publishing from the last century are no longer truths, but myths. The post gets reprinted often. It’s part […]
Continue ReadingEarlier this week, I sat down with the pile of estate planning books I’d bought to prepare for this series of blog posts I’ll be doing on estate planning for writers. My plan is this: I’ll blog about this topic about once a month as I research it and as I determine how to improve […]
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