Tools and Craft

We were scanning the long list of articles we have bookmarked, sincerely believing we will a) remember we’ve created said bookmark, b) read the articles, and c) work up the energy to write an insightful post on the article. Let us merely suggest you have been spared far more drivel than you can imagine. No thanks necessary. A surprising number of the articles dealt with reviews; there is a subset focusing on how authors respond to reviews. Not that we’re suggesting anything, but all of those were about authors who check elegance and grace at the door when they encounter […]

We are having one of our very rare WTF moments: we’re scrunched over our keyboard, brows drawn together, scrolling up and down the page as we try to make sense of what we’re reading. It’s been fifteen minutes and the score is (approximately) Text 4, Booksquare 0. This is worse than watching Ted Lilly pitch yesterday (Lilly being, of course, one of the hot young things on our fantasy team). Truly, we don’t know where to begin, meaning we’ll just leap and hope something makes sense at the end of the post. Our confusion started here: How did they do

Prolific writers are viewed with distrust. Nobody should be able to produce so many words in so short a time. It isn’t seemly. It probably isn’t healthy. It surely isn’t literary. It’s like a Tom Waits song. “What’s he building in there?” ‘Round about three years ago, we flirted with the idea of becoming prolific. Do you realize that one cannot be lazy and prolific simultaneously? Let us assure you that this is a fact. Two aspects of the to be prolific or not to be prolific argument bother us. First a quote: Genre publishing has become so fierce that

We are popping all over the bloghood today, borrowing cups of sugar here, pausing for a little conversation there, admiring new posts on various home pages. One would almost think we’re anticipating difficulty posting tomorrow. One would be right, though we will give it our best shot. Moorishgirl discusses her recent retreat at Hedgebrook. First, let us applaud her ability to cut her ties to the world and buckle down and work (we find special joy in those vacations to places without the Internet; it turns out we can survive without constant email access). And to survive in the wilderness…well,

As we’re not sure that blockquotes within blockquotes validate (and heaven help us if we fail to validate!), we are going to simply blockquote this quote we found on Shaken & Stirred: That is the great thing about genre. It’s as much about structures created in the mind of the reader as in the structure or pattern of the text itself. Genre isn’t just a box to be stuck in; it’s also a window to look through. Yes, thank you, Michael Chabon. Structure is not bad. It’s worked for generations of architects. If we may be trite (and, really, who’s

Ever taken a writing class? Ever had your work workshopped? Ever wondered WTF when someone went on and on and on about the underlying meaning of your work? It’s never happened to us, either. Tod Goldberg, however, has encountered more than one writing workshop in his day and has created a long list of carefully considered Rules for creastive writing classes. We will not say how we know he’s carefully considered his Rules, but we believe we have proven our trustworthiness to the point where our word can be accepted without question. Funny thing, though, we’re getting this weird urge

We have a few posts this morning that deal with business issues, specifically the promotion side of running your writing job. Yes, we’re going to talk about websites and blogs. First up, a primer from Suzanne McMinn on things you should know about your own website. We are going to suggest that Suzanne had her nice hat on today. We, of course, do not own a nice hat (though we do own many nice hats). Not understanding technology is a lousy excuse for not running your website as a major promotional tool. The technology, frankly, is not that complex and

We imagine that bootcamp for writers are filled with luscious wines and deep conversation. Or lots of intensive work. We suspect that the Book Promotion 101 workshop (recommended by Beatrice) falls into the latter category. If you’re a Los Angeles area writer and have a published book coming out soon, you need to become a promotion machine. Let Bella Stander get you in fighting shape. Los Angeles Workshop Info (see site for more details): Saturday, May 14, 2005, 9:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m., The Orlando Hotel, West Hollywood; Class limited to 8; Registration deadline: April 30; Price: $395; includes lunch

Day Three. The lack of sleep is setting in. People are starting to talk backwards. The world is filled with crazy notions. At least one person has sworn he sees the future. We dismiss him as crazy until we realize he’s not. We stop and stare. It almost makes sense: Over the last few years, many book authors have discovered that they can increase awareness of themselves and their works by maintaining an online presence, often in the form of a blog. But until recently, the opportunity for using the web’s multimedia capabilities for book promotion has been limited. Now