The two most popular categories are those labeled “Sci-Fi, Fantasy & Horror” and “Romance & Erotic Fiction.” Part of that, suggests Baty, has to do with the fact that sci-fi writers have taken to the Web easily. Another element may be the fact that romantic fiction is highly formulaic and therefore easy to write in a month. Speed Writing: With One Month to Pen a Novel, a Faster Piece Is Better Than a Masterpiece
We inadvertently took this weekend off. All manner of things had piled up over the past few months, and we tackled some long overdue projects. Yes, finally, we got a haircut. Also, we made a huge mess in the kitchen right after the husband scrubbed the whole room to a suspicious gleam. Life was good. Now it’s Monday, and we’re recalling why this particular day is greeted with such dread: the human mind, while amazingly resilient, adopts to “I’ll never have to work again” in just one day. Undoing the damage takes approximately five. We’re entering Week Three of the
Today was a bit exciting for us — it marked the third day we hit the gym this week (lack of exercise makes us dull and chubby). More to come on this. We also cleaned out our inbox. Usually we do this on Friday, but, well, see previous about the NaNo Villain in our life. We accomplished all sorts of tasks, big and small, and still managed to exceed our page total. Once again, the weekend looms, and we don’t have high hopes for repeating what happened last Saturday. There is rain on the horizon and even spiders must hide
First, we agree there isn’t enough silence in this world. We especially direct that thought toward chronic cell phone users. You know who you are and you know what we mean. And we agree that too much of good thing can, depending on the good thing, be a) wonderful, or b) overwhelming in a scary way. While the article linked below focuses on music, the same can be said for books. Who doesn’t feel a bit anxious when confronted with piles of books still unread even as the UPS driver is delivering another box from Amazon? Perhaps it’s our natural
In 2001, near the end of her two-hour extravaganza at the FleetCenter, Janet Jackson left the stage for five unforgivable minutes before returning to perform an encore. Was she having zipper trouble? Was she topping off her chakra with fan love as required by her life coach or choreographer? A novice concertgoer would have been led to believe that if only the fans clapped loudly enough, if the urgent desire for a few more sublime notes were made plain, the pop star would be compelled to reward the impassioned throngs with the spontaneous gift of extra song. Of course, there
We were very interested in the National Endowment for the Arts’s project focusing on writing projects for soldiers involved in the Iraq war. The NEA has expanded its Operation Homecoming project and has expanded its workshops to more military bases: “The program has been an overwhelming success. I don’t think the NEA fully appreciated the need and demand for the program when we first launched it,” [Dana] Gioia said. “We have doubled the size of the program.” NEA Expands Writing Project for Returning Veterans
Previously, we established it was a given that all literary agents are seeking quality, innovative work. Frankly, this makes our job much easier — we can start to focus our thoughts on what distinguishes one agency from another. One would think this is easy: they all have different names, ergo they are all different. Not so fast — when we talk about different, we mean the subtleties not easily discernible with the naked eye. Yes, the stuff we like to call reading between the lines. Let’s take, for instance Andrew Stuart and Jeffrey Kellogg of The Stuart Agency. Both are
Kevin was understandably thrilled to learn he was villain number one as we fight against the clock. And, yes, there was some discussion about whether the clock might also be working against us, but we see it as more a plot device. A villain surely counts as something designed to destroy the calm, linear progression of writing an entire novel in a single month. Knowing we’ve been thrown off our stride emboldened him, and now we find we must be more devious than ever before. This is difficult when going up against a master villain. We started by stumbling home
We have heard that, contrary to what was previously announced, Harlequin will continue to publish its Historical line in North America. Recent changes at the publisher had left this line in mail-order-only limbo. While acquisitions will continue out of the U.K. office, the following contacts have been established: Mary Theresa Hussey and Ann Leslie Tuttle (New York) or Karin Stoecker and Linda Fildew (United Kingdom). Also, after a period of suspending acquistion, it appears the American line has been resurrected (okay, it really wasn’t dead, but it surely wasn’t looking good for recovery). the line will be coordinated through Toronto
If you’re looking for a bit of a reality check, continue reading. If you prefer to live in blissful ignorance (and we cannot blame you), skip to the next item. Take our word for it. We often joke that we’re the only person in the greater Los Angeles area who is not working on a screenplay. It could be so cliche, and we can’t have that. Plus we don’t have cinematic vision, whatever that might be. Writing and submitting novels is rough. Writing for motion pictures? Something tells us that people look at all that lovely white space and think
