Archive for the 'Writing--biz' Category

Weekend Question: Novellas

Friday, March 7th, 2008

I’ve written several single title length romances that have all been rejected and I’m tired of investing so much time in them so I’m trying a novella instead. I have a couple of questions, if that’s not cheating.
How do you break up the chapters in a novella? Are the about the same length as in […]

Weekend Question: The Query Letter

Friday, February 29th, 2008

I’ll be forgoing the actual question this weekend. My reason for that is here. Instead I’m posting a mock query letter and I hope any authors who stop by will check it out, give a quick comment on what you think works or doesn’t, what’s worked for you, etc.
NOTE: I’m not asking for critique […]

Snow, earbuds and query letters

Wednesday, February 27th, 2008

Another foot of snow. That’s one good thing about being on winter break—we’re not getting dinged for yet another snow day.
Scalzi has confessed to having non-earbud-friendly ears. It’s so nice not to be the only person who can’t pull off that hip and sleek earbud look. I have to use full headphones, dammit.
I’ve been following […]

Weekend Question: To stet or not to stet

Friday, February 22nd, 2008

The question for this weekend is…
Would telling my editor where to shove her red pen kill my career? She corrected my grammar and caught my typos and pointed out plot inconsistencies, but then she goes on to “suggest” rewrites that change sentence structure. She likes long flowery sentences and this is a romantic suspense. Another […]

Something new—the Weekend Question

Tuesday, February 12th, 2008

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, so I guess I’ll just get on with it.
One of my favorite things about the romance community is how generous authors are in sharing their experiences, advice and such. I can’t even begin to quantify the impact authors such as Karen Templeton, Patricia McLinn, and Deborah […]

My branding iron’s bent

Thursday, December 15th, 2005

Charli’s talking about branding again: Careers, branding, labels. It’s a great post, but it also makes me want to crawl under my desk with a blanket, a bag of Doritos and several Dunkin Donuts iced coffees.
This is one of those “I’d rather talk about jock itch” discussions for me. I know about branding. […]

Non-writing writing stuff

Tuesday, December 6th, 2005

I’m doing the art sheet for 72 Hours, and I’m realizing that—yet again—I’ve managed to write a book with very little, if any, description of the hero and heroine. I like very little description as a reader because I make my own images and no amount of description on the author’s part is going […]

Ebook advances and a banner

Friday, October 14th, 2005

I absolutely love the animated banner that the Goddesses of Promo made for Twice Upon A Roadtrip. Unfortunately, my “posting” area is 18 pixels narrower than a standard banner width, but if you want you can check it out here. (In the spirit of less coveting/more working my ass off, I’m not going […]

RWA. Rinse. Repeat.

Saturday, June 25th, 2005

Redefining romance. Again. Fortunately, since my RWR comes a day or two later than others’, y’all know the backstory. (Bolded parts below were underlined in the survey—emphasis theirs—but I underlining escapes me at the moment.)

Option A—”Romantic Fiction” or “Romance” means a story in which a predominant part of the story line […]

Oh, and the most fabulous Barb

Wednesday, June 15th, 2005

No, not Streisand.
I meant to mention toward the beginning of the recent lull in the RWA Great Annual Brouhaha, that Barb, the president of the Chick Lit Writers RWA chapter totally rocks. Throughout the goings on (mostly on rwaorg), she spoke against the GS rationally, intelligently and eloquently.
I swear, […]