Ten Tips for Losing a Hundred Pages
Writers think about word counts the way dieters think about calories. By the time I finished my YA novel, Half in Love with Death, I’d reduced it from 97,000 to 90,000 words, and I thought it was pretty slim and…
Category: Publishing
Six Months until Publication: Tentative Tips from a Debut Novelist
I just passed my six months to publication date for my debut novel, Gina in the Floating World (She Writes Press). I sent in my last review of my galleys, and my baby is about to be sent to the printer for my ARCs (Advanced Review Copies), the ones sent out to reviewers. It’s really happening. I’d love to be able to sit back and enjoy the ride until my book launch on October 2, but that’s not the way it works in this do-it-yourself day and age.
Young Adult Fiction Round-Up
With so much change for the better happening out there in the world – the #MeToo movement, the March for our Lives gun control rallies, the rise in LGBTQ+ books and authors of color in YA literature, to name a…
The Novel Pitcher’s Playbook
Baseball pitchers rarely rely on a single pitch. They mix things up with fast balls, changeups, curve balls, knuckle balls, sliders, sinkers, and cutters. They consider who they are pitching to, how many strikes they have, how many outs, how…
Potluck Advice: The Search for an Agent
On a recent winter night—dark but not stormy—a dozen writers at various points in their novels gathered over chicken pot pie, roasted vegetables, spinach salad with grapefruit, and chocolate cookies to swap stories and advice about finding a good agent….
Good Times, Bad Times
An inauspicious anniversary recently passed; it’s been a full year since I signed a contract with a literary agent to represent my novel. The day marked twelve months of suspense, frustration, and heartbreak at rejection emails worded with such tact…