If you know me at all, you know I get a bit twitchy when it comes to what I like to call ‘faux medieval fantasy.’ It’s not that I have a problem with dragons, magic, or even princesses-in-disguise (okay, well, yes, I have a problem with that). What makes me turn into a biter is…
The editor. The dreaded arbiter of your writing. The judge and jury of your style. The only thing standing between you and publication. The unrelenting taskmaster. The sensei of craft to your grasshopper of words. An editor should be all these things, yet all too often, many freelance editors are not much more than glorified…
We’re two weeks into NaNoWriMo, and I’d wager that a bunch of us are stuck in the morass that I like to call the ‘Sticky Middle.’ We have made it through the first heady 5,000 words. Maybe even 15,000 or 20,000 words. But, now? The words are coming slower. The ideas are coming even slower…
Writers get advice all the time not to listen to their Inner Editor–that snarky, perfectly manicured voice that has always has good hair and has probably never done a sniff test on a t-shirt in her life. But, there’s another voice we need to worry about: the Inner Pushy Stage Director. Who or what is…
Full disclosure: after I post this blog, I’m probably going to go day drink and listen to Aretha’s “Respect” on repeat. Mansplaining romance and erotica has a way of doing that to me. Yesterday, Robert Gottlieb wrote a round-up of romance novels in the New York Times Book Review. Frankly, it’s more like he herds…
I am insatiably curious. This has led to a slight issue (some might say addiction) with buying books. Non-fiction books. For an author, my actual collection of fiction is quite small. That’s probably because I’m such a picky bitch about the caliber of storytelling and writing I will read. But, non-fiction? OMG, it’s a real…