28,000 subscribers

I’m someone who does not believe in writer’s block. However, I have to admit that everyone, sooner or later, is touched by Imposter Syndrome. For those unfamiliar, it’s when you believe you cannot write up to the standard to be taken seriously, you feel you cannot fulfill a task, or you feel like a fraud. One tends to feel this when: 1) They are starting out and pitching to editors/publishers/agents. 2) They are attempting a bigger or more complex project than they have attacked before. 3) They have done a lot of writing and get sideswiped by the feeling that regardless what they’ve accomplished, the luck is gone. Notice something in those three examples? The truth is that imposter syndrome can flare up at any time in your writing career. I have written hundreds of articles, appeared in many Writer’s Digest events, spoken at dozens of conferences, done hundreds of book signings, and written 19 novels. Every once in a great while, as I am seated at the computer about to launch into whatever project stands before me, I wonder if my material is marketable or if I’ve been lucky. . . and the luck is about to run out. More

In having coffee with a local writer, we started talking contests. She has a goal of entering one per month with her works in progress. She writes mainstream and romance, so she has to select contests open to other than literary fiction (which makes up a lot of contests). She’d heard me say that I once entered contests, before being published, in order to take measure of how well my writing had advanced. I felt once I started placing or winning contests, I must be improved enough to risk pitching agents and publishers. It was a good challenge and, actually, the agent who signed me up said my contest wins had helped show her that I was serious about this writing thing. This friend of mine was hoping the same would happen with her. Try harder, submit, try harder, submit. Additionally, she was entering contests that gave critiques and feedback, to help her along her journey. Contest turn-downs are less painful than those of agents and publishers, for some reason. Most of the time you only know you didn’t win when the winners are announced. However, the critiques are worth the rejection, IMHO. Keep that in mind when scrolling through More

Whether you write poetry, nonfiction, gardening books or novels, writing book reviews is an excellent way to expand your writing practice and your publication credits. The task sharpens your skills, deepens the reading experience, and helps support the writers’ community. The niche also separates you from the crowd: literary journals are besieged with poems and short stories, but not, it appears, with reviews. Just to be clear, the reviews I discuss here are not ones people leave on Amazon. Although there’s nothing wrong with doing Amazon reviews, that type of review doesn’t increase your list of publications, therefore, aiding your resume. Paid reviews are more distinct pieces of writing, published in a magazine or journal. Literary magazines, the genre I write reviews for, usually have a section on their guidelines pages asking specifically for reviews. Here you will find word counts, genres, deadlines, and pay scales. Some magazines also maintain a list of recently published books, and prefer that you review one of them. Most magazines ask for the completed review, while a few require a pitch. If this is your first time submitting to a particular magazine, you might have to include a link to previous work. If you More

I am a fan of The Marginalian newsletter/website, aka Maria Popova. She is insanely well-read and looks at humanity through the lens of many classic creatives. Recently she wrote on normalcy. . . and its affiliation with rejection, or in the case of those frequently rejected and distraught, breakdown. https://www.themarginalian.org/2021/10/13/alain-de-botton-normalcy-breakdown/ The world comes at us with pressure to be normal. Be unique….but keep it between the lines or you, as a writer, risk being cancelled, chastised, or review bombed. More than ever, people not only think they have a voice, but they believe it has to be heard. . . and heard loud. We are fearful of being the object of that obnoxious noise. The result being we often reign in our attempt to be a unique creative for fear we are too unique and, therefore, too subject to public embarrassment. We are afraid that the loud, dynamic, mouthy reviewers who get off on tearing into why they didn’t like a book will target us. Being unique draws attention, and it can can make you or break you. (When Goodreads reviews go bad https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/feb/17/god-forbid-that-a-dog-should-die-when-goodreads-reviews-go-bad) So when I read Maria’s latest Marginalian post, I had to bring it forward to you. She wrote More

According to a 2022 article in Publishers Weekly, “shivery tales are proliferating.” Middle grade horror stories are having a moment, and for good reason. These books can do both things a great kids book sets out to do: entertain and enlighten. Horror stories keep kids engaged and turning the page. R.L. Stein, the king of middle grade horror, writes brilliant books that master engagement. But middle grade horror can also provide a metaphorical lens through which kid readers can deal with real life trauma. Books that do this well—Patrick Ness’s A Monster Calls, Christian McKay Heideker’s Scary Stories for Young Foxes—have even won the coveted Newbery Award. This market growth shows no signs of slowing down. If you’re a middle grade writer, how can you tap in? Use the wealth that’s already there. With the rise of shows like Stranger Things and Wednesday, kids are already tuned in to the spooky, monstrous zeitgeist. Take something familiar and put your own twist on it. Want to write a ghost story? Check out City of Ghosts by V.E. Schwab, Ghost Girl by Ally Malinenko, and Ghost Squad by Claribel Ortega. All ghost stories with a unique twist. All very successful entries in the booming middle grade horror market. Think school visits. From the beginning, More

Well known mystery/suspense author Lee Goldberg received a call recently from a gentleman professing to be with a literary agency. He and his organization would assist him in getting his book promoted at the Los Angeles Festival of Books. Mr. Goldberg recorded the conversation and you’ll enjoy listening to this renown traditionally published author mess with a scammer. https://leegoldberg.com/the-new-age-literary-agency-scam/ Someone calls me every month or two want to promote me at some book fair or another. Most of the time they ask to represent The Shy Writer Reborn, a nonfiction how-to book I self-published last in 2014. Sometimes I talk to them. Other times I do not. I have messed with them like Mr. Goldberg, too. A FundsforWriters reader recently wrote me, asking for assistance in finding grant funds to pay a literary agency that called him, seeking to promote his book at the Frankfurt Book Fair. I warned him to avoid these scammers, and I really think I took the wind out of his sails. He was hoping this was a break for him and his book. If a caller seeks you out, making promises about publishing and marketing your books, do not take them seriously. They are not good More

Congratulations on your endeavors, authors. You are part of an elite group of caring individuals. You care for your words, characters, worlds, and subjects. Yet, caring for your computers? Not so much. I read too many complaints in writing groups that go something like this: “My computer is slower than a sloth working a fast-food counter.” “I can’t save the 700th novel draft on my hard drive.” “Oh, no, my laptop crashed. I lost the only copy of my 500-page, coming-of-age, cyberpunk dinosaur romance.” The Common Problem Trifecta As a writer and IT administrator, I’ve repeatedly seen these issues across many industries. On the one hand, I sympathize with your difficulties. On the other, I grind my teeth and softly scream into my mouse pad at your issues. The fact is these problems are solvable. A trio of circumstances causes the most common problems: 1. You haven’t updated your operating system (OS), firmware (hardware programs), or security patches. 2. You leave multiple tabs on your internet browser, causing excessive use of memory and processing time. 3. You don’t back up your material, and your hard drive is near capacity, causing file saving to fail. Additionally, one or all these issues More

Last week, in mentioning my hardline distain for AI in the creative universe, someone labeled me naïve in thinking AI wasn’t here to stay, mentioning technology. Admittedly, AI already has been in existence for a few years in that department, but now it’s crossing into creativity, and that’s utterly insulting. In my not-so-humble opinion. it will deteriorate writing, art, and music. Unless we handle it astutely. My suggestion is this. Make it a requirement that an author post whether or not AI was utilized in the creation of the words or cover. Our food has consumer laws mandating a list of ingredients so the consumer can make an informed decision whether to eat that many carbs, consume red and blue dyes, or allow preservatives into their system. When I, as a reader, want to purchase a book, I want to insure I get value for the dollar invested. It’s why I, and other readers, read reviews. I will even read about the author if I’m pondering whether to read someone I never have before. Personally, I want to support the author because I fully understand how important that support means. I also prefer to read something organically human, from the More

We all want to write that perfect script. One that will blow the reader’s mind and convince a producer to shovel copious amounts of money into our creation (but only once the strike finishes, of course). Unfortunately, this is much easier said than done, as the majority of screenplays fall well short of perfection. I’ve spent the last year pouring through scripts of all kinds like my life depends on it (it does actually); new ones and classics. You name a type of script, I’ve read it twice.  Therefore, I’ve decided to lay out the three biggest issues that newcomers tend to make when trying to crack into the industry as I see it. Confusing Screenwriting with Prose Writing: Novelists have always resented screenwriters because we seem to have less work to do. As you know, your screenplay is not written to make the New York Times Bestseller list; instead, it exists as a manual of sorts for filmmakers and their crew to breathe life into. Since pages from a screenplay generally have much more white space than those from our counterparts, you’d think that we screenwriters would revel in this fact; however, some still seem unaware that they are More

When we start anything in our lives, we stumble through it. Yet, for some reason, we don’t want people to know that we are stumbling. In fact, everyone in the world is stumbling through their lives, because the only way to grow is to proceed through trial and error, and you know what? We haven’t done most of this before. But a lot of people stop pursuing their dreams because they dislike the stumbling part. They are afraid of appearing novice when everyone has to go through that stage. They are afraid of making mistakes, when the only way to learn is by making them. So they stop in the middle of all the learning because it is painful to feel stupid. The successful continue to muscle through that phase (or multiple stages of that phase). Social media exposes a lot of stumbling. 1) We feel we must post our attempts on social media or we feel like we aren’t doing anything. 2) We feel we need pats on the back for just trying. 3) Trolls feel the need to demean our attempts, failures, struggles, and choices. We don’t have to post our attempts. We can just push through our More