I received a rather salty (unfriendly) comment on an old blog today that read as an author who had been either mistreated by the publishing industry venting or an author who hated published authors and everyone associated with them because they hadn’t been successful in that route. While I understand frustration when the industry mistreats...Read More

I encountered an article published by an author who has (according to this), given up the ghost when it comes to novels. The tone is bitter, angry, and selfish. While I wouldn’t critique someone’s private blog or Facebook rant about their frustrations regarding publishing, this being published in the Guardian is a little different. So,...Read More

I’ve been gone awhile due to my health, but I’m hopefully back now. I’m going to write once or twice a week until I find my stride again, but I haven’t abandoned the blog. Life has just been distracting me from my work here. So, this particular subject created a hotbed of contention in a...Read More

I’m broaching a controversial and sticky subject in this blog, and I want you to stick with me. This post isn’t going to be political because my opinions aren’t something I want to breach on this blog. However, it will touch the subject, and I know this is a difficult subject for us to discuss...Read More

A dear friend of mine recently had an experience at a bardic circle (a musical event where folks sit around a campfire and perform to each other) where a group of semi-professionals who didn’t care that it was someone else’s turn decided to shout her down and sing over her. Now, my friend is a wonderful...Read More

Freelancers, artists, and creatives have this nasty situation where the world thinks we aren’t worth paying because we are “just” artists. I could rant about that for thousands of words, but let’s suffice to say that is utterly and completely absurd. Yes. It’s so absurd it warrants two adverbs. Worse yet, many folks seem to...Read More

If you punch “writing advice” into Google you’ll come back with about a billion results with almost as many opinions. The key here is to research everything and don’t take anything for granted, no matter who it comes fromRead More

I can’t count the number of stories I’ve heard where friends and family of a writer say things like “you should have a real job” or “that’ll never make money”. If we spend our lives told our writing is terrible, and we’ll never go anywhere, we absorb that into our psyche. It’s something everyone in...Read More

There are definitely stupid questions. "Where are my sunglasses?" when I'm wearing them is a stupid question. However, when it comes to writing there are fewer "stupid questions" than we'd think.Read More

While luck does play a certain role in publishing, it's not the primary determiner of success, the primary determiner of success in modern publishing is the author.Read More