Today’s clever short movie is called The Black Hole (less than three minutes long).
I’ll admit, I laughed at the end.
What would you have named this if you had written this short story? (A story without words.)
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Helpful Writing Rituals
I’m a firm believer in helpful habits, systems, and rituals. Such things can grease the writing wheels, so to speak. That may not be the right metaphor; but you catch my drift, right? So not long ago I asked some writer friends (I have friends, I really do. “Mom, they’re picking on me again!”) to tell me about their writing rituals, in the hope that readers of this blog might find the information …
Not Everyone Is Your Reader
As part of my voluntary continuing education, I’m reading books by authors celebrated during the past century. Many of these authors won significant literary prizes. Most sold millions of copies of their books while they were still writing. Yet, I only enjoy the work of some authors I’ve explored. Perusing the shelves of my local used bookstore, I have read the back cover copy of an …
Story Structure Part #1 – Be Wise When Crafting Your Fictional Foundation
When you were a child, did you sing that song about the wise man and the foolish man? The foolish man built his house on the sand, and the wise man build his on the rock. So when the rains came, the wise man’s house was still standing; but the foolish man’s house came tumbling down. It’s the same with story structure. If you build your story with a firm foundation, it will stand; but if the …
P Is for Preemptive Offer
It can be exciting if more than one publisher is interested in your book. The publishers gather their calculators and prepare to make their offers on the book. Depending on how many publishers are involved in the bidding process (we’ve had as many as nine at once for a property), it can quickly become complicated. (I talked about the “auction” in a previous post.) Some will bid solely …
Fun Friday – October 13, 2023
Let us watch today’s video as a metaphor for writing a book. Piece by piece. Nail by nail. And you have to know what you are doing, or it all collapses. This is why you get annoyed when people say to you, “I’m going to write a book someday,” as if it were easy. Note something about the video. Your foundation has to be absolutely correct because everything depends on it. …
Cover Letter Catastrophe: Mistakes That Miss Opportunities
Every morning, I grab my favorite coffee cup and nestle into my rolling office chair to check my email. I never know what awaits me in my inbox. But more often than not, the cover letter meant to get my attention has painted a less-than-positive picture of the writer who sent it. In a matter of mere seconds, I can tell if the writer in question has taken the time to build a quality cover letter. …
Interrupting God
I find it humorous when someone brings up a list of questions that they would like to ask God face-to-face when they get a chance. It is funny because the statement assumes that we would have a back-and-forth discussion, as we insert “Yeah, but what about …” between his responses to our questions. If there is a heavenly Q&A opportunity, if indeed we could manage to pick ourselves off the …
A Christian Author’s Guide to Health Insurance
In the United States, most people get health insurance through their employer’s benefits program. But if you work as an author, your publisher doesn’t offer you a health plan; and if you’re an indie author, you’re on your own. How does a professional author find a health insurance plan? Good news! It is easier and cheaper than you might think. The short answer is Christian healthcare sharing, …
A Is for Auction
When an agent has a client who is wanting to shop for the best deal available from publishers or if there is a particular project that is bound to garner significant interest from more than one publisher, the agent can hold what it called an auction. Or if a project attracts multiple offers from different publishers a “bidding war” can ensue. The word “auction” is tossed …