writing

From July 23 12 noon EST to Saturday July 24 12 noon 2004, we transformed LitKicks into the 24 HOUR POETRY PARTY and created an instant epic poem with the help of writers all over the world. Our goal was to create a single meaningful and coherent work from over five hundred individual contributions. Please read the poem to your left and judge the results for yourself! (The poem isn't awful!)

Before inviting the web to create a collaborative novel using a wiki in 2007, Jeremy Ettinghausen asked, "Can a community write a novel?" The answer is yes but a terrible one!

Final part in the series on what it takes to be a professional writer. Managing the bottom line is crucial in turning an amateur hobby into a professional career. It may seem crude to discuss a creative activity in financial terms but to avoid this priority dooms many writers to failure.

Bad guys and good guys have a lot in common. And who is who may just depend on your point of view in a given situation. So as I reach the middle of my book and one of my main characters has undergone a terrible event, she’s left with questions about being the bad guy and being the good guy and what makes a person one or the other. She’s not quite sure what she is.

And perhaps that’s where it should stay, because not everyone has a good book in them. The ease and affordability of self-publishing means the shelves are, at least figuratively, sagging with the great unreadables. Yet, this same ease and affordability is available to the truly talented as well. So perhaps the occasional gem is worth the overload.

Romantic Times had an article in their recent issue called "Stop the Series!" What the article didn’t discuss in any depth is how strong the pressure can be to continue a successful series - or invent one. I gave [my editor] a whole laundry list of stand-alone ideas in an email. At the very end of this, I added: "Or I suppose I could write a sequel." "Do that," was the response.

Continuing the successful series on The Professional Writer. This week we look at why a new writer should not be precious.

Many amateurs believe it is normal to start a writing career with a first novel or great screenplay, whereas virtually all professional writers spent years as copywriters or journalists or magazine contributors or anything that involved crafting words.

Getting published isn't just about writing a good story--it's also about how you market your story. Inside are some tips on how to get prospective publishers to consider your writing.

It seems like fear of failure is one of the most common causes of writer’s block. We’re so afraid to fail that we get stuck, unable to write at all. Please consider this your permission to fail. Heck, if you really want to, you can even post your failures for all to see! Aim high, crash big, and keep right on writing.

When industry feedback tells you to make substantial changes to your story, how much change can you make before losing the very heart of your story? Discussion on feedback and story evolution.