How to Write and Publish Children's Books
I’m reading this great book called HOOKED by Les Edgerton, out from Writer’s Digest Books. It is awesome. Not only does Les have a great teacher’s voice, he gets into the nitty gritty of just why beginnings are so important, and then tells his readers how to nail this crucial part of their novels (he …
Continue reading “The All-Important Beginning and a Call for Submissions”
There are two main issues with writing description that I’ve been seeing in manuscripts. As I said in my post on Mimetic Writing, a writer uses writing description to curate the story and direct the reader’s attention. Writing description is a tricky thing to pull off in writing, and it’s also a very subtle thing, …
I’m a huge believer in setting goals and declaring intentions, especially during the holidays, when the whiff of impending change is in the air. This has been a fantastic year for me, and I’m happily looking back at all my travel, at all the great new books that I’ve gotten under contract this year, all …
This post is for my picture book illustration friends out there, and the question comes from Siski: I’d like to know more about agents and how they go about representing picture book illustration clients who also write. I read an awful lot about query letters for authors but how does an author illustrator query? As …
Continue reading “How Literary Agents Work on a Picture Book Illustration Project”
Can you believe Thanksgiving is upon us?! I certainly can’t. My mind is still halfway in sticky NYC August or cool, colorful September. What are these boots and jackets? What is this Christmas music piping into the coffee shop? Why are stores opening at 3 a.m. this Friday (!!!) to entice shoppers with big bargains? …
If you want to know how to start a chapter, it’s important to consider “grounding” the reader. I touched on this concept briefly in my post on how to start a book, and now I want to delve deeper into chapter structure. The reader is someone who picks up a book to read a story …
Continue reading “How to Start a Chapter: Ground the Reader”
This email about giving up writing comes from an anonymous blog reader, and I think we can all relate to this concern: Lately, I have been having trouble finding inspiration and the drive to actually write something. Instead of writing when I sit down with my computer, I end up checking my email, surfing the …
Writing is hard and intensely personal, which is why writers have a habit of taking criticism — any criticism — to heart. There’s a funny side effect of being an agent who blogs. On more occasions than I care to mention, I’ve gotten emails from my clients after a post, asking if the post was about …
This post is all about how to identify genre and determine which book genre or publishing category you’re writing in. I’d like to preface this post by emphasizing that I’m not trying to stifle your creative genius. I’m really not. But, as I’ve said before, you should probably learn the rules before you break them. …
This is a submission from Livia Blackburne, for her YA fantasy. Here’s what she has to say: I’ve had this project reviewed by several agents/editors, and the feedback has mostly been positive. I still think though, that it’s missing something. While nobody found anything glaringly wrong with it, I don’t think it would stand out …