The 13 Stages of Copyediting Madness

  1. Page 2: Hey, this book isn’t so bad. 2. Page 81: That’s the fourth misspelled word . . . and those are just the ones I caught. Wait, how many am I missing?! 3. Start over. 4. Send panicked email to writing buddy begging for one more reread of...

How To Keep Writing and Keep Sane

There are a billion blog posts out there about how to write a book, how to market a book, how to sell a book. How to up your word-count; how to make your characters pop; how to hook an agent. There’s not so much about how to be happy as a writer. How to live...

The Beauty of Beta Readers

Beta readers: to use, or not to use? I’m a fan, and I’ve found that it’s good to have different beta-readers who you look to for different things. Such as: 1. The Expert. This reader might change from book to book, depending on what you need fact-checked,...

DON’T Write What You Know!

“Write what you know” is probably some of the worst advice for writers ever. Even authors of modern-day fiction have their problems with that old chestnut. Tom Clancy may have set all his books in the same 20th century America in which he lived, but he...

Attention, Readers and Writers Everywhere

Before the Internet, there was a very simple unwritten contract that existed between writers and readers. That contact went simply: “I, The Reader, will read whatever books take my fancy. I am free to disparage the books I don’t like/gush about the books I...