People once learned from one another what was worth knowing and doing, and the best of these memes worked their way through the population like a unending game of telephone. It was only with the advent of mass communication technology like printing, radio, and TV that a select few became able to easily influence great numbers of people. But with social media those select few are now finding themselves increasingly drowned out.
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware
Many of the writers who contact me with Writer Beware-type questions seem to be convinced that the process of getting published is equivalent to a crap shoot. There are enormous numbers of people trying to …
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware
How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice.
This old saw applies to writers as much as to musicians. In today’s guest blog post, author and writing teacher Barbara Baig explores the impo…
Self-promotion: a subject much on many writers’ minds. All across the Internet, new authors are urged to be proactive in publicizing themselves and their books–to build a “brand.” But what to do? And how much?
A frequent question, especially among self- and small press-published authors, is how books get into libraries, and what authors can do to help. Today, guest blogger and public librarian Abigail Goben explains how libraries choose the books they purchase–and what authors should (and shouldn’t) do to play a part in that process.
Interstellar space travel. We dream about it. We write about it. Science fiction writers have come up with all manners of interstellar travel, ranging from multigenerational arks, to wormhole generating warp drives that can spit you across the galaxy in a blink of an eye. As wondrous and amazing as all these approaches may be, most suffer from a very fundamental problem.
It’s the nature of writers to fall in love with words, particularly their own. Clever turns of phrase excite us; we beam like proud parents when our protagonists take on lives of their own; a shapely plot twist can turn our heads. There is nothing wrong with indulging in the occasional fling-as long as it stops in draft. When time comes to make that final revision, however, you must harden your heart, sharpen the ax and murder your darlings.
Article by Elizabeth Moon on advice for novice writers. Novice writers have to take some responsibility for their own careers. The good information is NOT that hard to find. The novices who don’t find it–and don’t find it repeatedly–are resisting the truth.
It doesn’t matter if you write fiction or nonfiction. You have to know the basics.
An article on getting science right in SF stories.
If you could go anywhere, where would you go? And what happens to the people you leave behind?
Mary G. Thompson is the acclaimed author of Flicker and Mist, Wuftoom, and Amy Chelsea Stacie Dee, which was the winner of the Westchester Fiction Award and a finalist for the Missouri Gateway Award. Thompson’s short fiction has appeared in Dark Matt
