Are you thinking of writing a memoir? Some years back, memoirs were hot, hot, hot in the publishing world. These days, they’re not, not, not. But that doesn’t mean that plenty of people still don’t want to write them. (How’s that for a double negative!) And just...
So you think your book is finished and you're done? Sure, you've completed that first draft of your book. Or maybe even the second. How great is that? Despite your splendid accomplishment, odds are that your book is not ready for prime time. Most of us would like to...
If you're a cozy mysteries fan, you'll want to get to know my writing coach client and author, Jeff Hutcheson, and his Lost Key Mystery series. To be honest, neither Jeff nor I initially realized that Going Barefoot, which he published a year ago this week, was going...
Of all the words that describe Moke, my fourteen-week-old English Cocker Spaniel, spunky would have to be right at the top of the list. He is absolutely unphased when his three-year-old brother, Misha, who is easily ten times his size and seven times his weight lunges...
Asking for a book endorsement isn't always the easiest thing for most of us. Now, some people, like my friend and writing coach client David Rosell, just have a knack for it. They either know a lot of high-profile folks, or they simply don't mind cold-calling. And...
Want to get your book in the library? I just put together, with the help of my associate Keri Barnum, a mailing that went out to more than seven thousand librarians. The e-blast contained eleven books, each promoted with a book cover, sales copy, and links to the...
"You've got to let readers know this story has a happy ending," line editor Kelly Byrd wrote me in an email after working on my writing coach client Sam Simon's manuscript. As it turns out, Sam's memoir, The Actual Dance, doesn't just have one happy ending, it has...
I've talked a lot about how writers will never find the time to work on their books. They have to make the time. And I've lived by that. But with my new puppy, I've realized that sometimes you have to seize the moment the second it presents itself. That's pretty much...
Most writers realize that writing dialogue can be a way to show rather than tell a story. Too often, however, they'll take a long expository passage, put quotes around it and let a character make what amounts to a speech. For starters, that's not how most of us talk....
In Judy Blume's MasterClass about writing for younger readers, the mega-bestselling children's book author talks about how she saves news clippings and scribbles ideas for plots, characters and their backstories, snippets of conversation she overhears, and dialogue...
