Ever finished a book and wondered how the author managed to pull it off? It's usually because they were working with a great editor. Hiring an editor isn't like pressing the Easy Button, however. Self-editing your fiction is an invaluable part of the writing process, one that too many aspiring authors are quick to skip … Continue reading How to Self-Edit Your Fiction: 3 Issues to Tackle First
In the eight years after my Behçet's Disease diagnosis, I'd had plenty of time to rage, cry, and contemplate my situation. What I neglected to realize was how obvious my condition was to other people.
In October 2019, I took the plunge. I made my first short-story submission to a paying market. The rejection came twelve days later. It was a higher tier rejection—the best kind, short of one bearing a personal note from the editor. I felt energized. I was—to steal Mur Lafferty's phrasing—a working writer. Let me back … Continue reading Becoming a Working Writer: The First, Terrible Year in Review
So you want to write a novel — now what? Well, unless you plan to pull 100,000-plus words from where the sun don't shine, you're going to want to do a bit of plotting before you begin. It's ultimately up to you to decide how to plot your novel, but I've picked out five methods … Continue reading How to Plot Your Novel: 5 Ways to Write Your Bestseller
A few writing books have become must-reads for any aspiring English-language novelist: Stephen King's On Writing, Ursula K. Le Guin's Steering the Craft, William Zinsser's On Writing Well. This year, Colum McCann's Letters to a Young Writer: Some Practical and Philosophical Advice joins that list. Consisting of 52 essays crammed with no-nonsense advice, Letters is … Continue reading Letters to a Young Writer: A Review