Personal Artifacts: Researching Your Own History
I was on the phone with my dad the other day, and just before we hung up I said, “Yalla, bye!” This was strange for a number of reasons. First, “Yalla, bye” is a weird phrase. Yalla means “let’s go”…
Category: The Writing Life
Searching for the Perfect Query Letter
Go Figure: Musings from the Mind of Rob Wilstein Fellow writers, I am sending out query letters for my novel and was hoping for some feedback from the community on my approach. I’d appreciate any advice as to whether what…
The Journey of Writing: Ten Common Ground Rules for Travelers and Writers
Since age 20, traveling has always been a major part of my life. I’m not someone who is content with an annual vacation to Cape Cod. Rather, I like to experience something new (although some places, like Hawaii and Paris,…
Friday Feast: Shed Your Leaves, Apples, Words, Sentence Diagrams and More
Ah, mid-October. Time of endless apple-picking social media posts, picked over apple pies in workplace kitchens, apple pies and apple butters and assorted apples in jars that you don’t know what to do with so you give them away as…
Happy Indie Story, Part Six: What’s Next?
It’s the question President Jed Bartlet always asks after every crisis gets resolved on The West Wing. And it’s the question you’ll be asked in nearly every interview and conversation you’ll have while promoting your current book. Your agent will…
Some Thoughts on Time and Structure
I had planned to write an instructional post on the use of spreadsheets in writing a novel, but life happened this week. Right after the deadline for this post got moved up, my whippets decided that this was the perfect…