First, a bit of history. In April of 2009, Perry Chen, Yancey Strickler, and Charles Adler started Kickstarter, a crowd-funding platform aimed at helping creatives of all types fund projects that—back in the day—couldn’t be funded through the normal arts venue. The concept is a fairly simple one. A person puts a project on Kickstarter […]
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I just saw an article this morning—which of course, I can’t find now—comparing the amount of news pouring at us right now to a DDoS (denial of service) attack. There’s so much news, every hour of every day, that we can’t keep track of it. I’m keeping up, as best I can, on the virus […]
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And so it begins. I received three different emails this week from writers, wondering what to do about delayed or non-payment. These writers are smart enough to ask. I have no idea how many others aren’t asking at all, but believing all will be Just Fine Eventually. At the end of April, I wrote a […]
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In the summer between my sophomore and junior years of high school, I was in a serious car accident. A tow truck, racing another tow truck, went the wrong way on a one way street, blew a stop sign, and slammed into my boyfriend’s tin-can of a car. I can still tell you many, many […]
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Shortly after the lockdown started here in the U.S., I asked my readers and Patreon supporters to send me examples of creativity going on while artists were stuck at home. In the first week or so, it was pretty easy: Patrick Stewart reading sonnets, musicians playing with their fellow musicians on Zoom, artists giving master […]
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Finished my morning routine an hour or so ago, thought a lot about what I was going to write for my weekly blog, and grabbed the laptop, heading to one of my favorite chairs. I set the laptop down so that I could take the teabags out of the cup of tea that I had […]
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They worked in Manhattan, which was too hot in the summer, and too cold in the winter. They didn’t make enough money to buy their own apartments downtown, but they’d never think of moving to Brooklyn or Queens or any of the outer boroughs. Mummy and Daddy had the money, boatloads of it in many […]
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For the next 48 hours, you can get 12 different writing ebooks, on a variety of topics, as well as an online writing lecture for $15. Yep, it’s a Storybundle, and it’s nearly run its course. (I got behind on promotion!) Those of you who want to give my Rethinking The Writing Business to friends […]
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It’s the uncertainty, really, that’s driving us all crazy. Yes, many of us are dealing with incredible fear, and some with horrible loss. A number of us have gotten sick or, in some instances, have had to ignore our sicknesses and treatments while hospitals handled COVID patients and emergencies only. But behind it all is […]
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I’m sure you’ve all gotten the question lately: How are you going to survive as a writer with the crisis in the publishing industry? Every news outlet —well, at least every news outlet that reports news other than the latest virus statistics—has done at least one story on the decimation of the publishing industry. And […]
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