May 16, 2010

The First Five Pages

There’s nothing more stressful than taking a cold, hard look at the first five pages of your manuscript only to realize they’re unlikely to compete favorably against the other submissions out there. You’ve learned so […]
May 13, 2010

How To Write A Selling Synopsis Without Losing Your Mind

After spending the last five years writing my first novel, I have the uneasy feeling that if I’d figured out how to write a synopsis sooner rather than later I could have cut that time […]
May 7, 2010

The Best Class Available on Writing The Short Synopsis

Mary Buckham is the woman who single-handedly ended my inability to write a one-page synopsis. During a 2-week intensive online class she showed me how to reduce my rambling epic fantasy to five essential turning […]
May 5, 2010

I Love My Agent!

[Photo: from left to right—Debby Garfinkle, agent Laura Rennert, Jay Asher] Today’s post is a short update on the Writer Beware Blogs! mention of me by Alyx Dellamonica, one of my teachers at the UCLA Writers […]
April 30, 2010

Social Media: Time Suck or Valuable Asset?

There’s a guest post by Alyx Dellamonica at the Writer Beware blog today mentioning me as an example of a writer responding to the current market pressure to build a social media presence online in […]
April 17, 2010

LIST: Agents Who Blog

Still in the dark about how to submit to agents? Looking for enlightenment? One of the best ways to stay informed about the state of the industry, improve your craft, clear any confusion about how […]
April 12, 2010

Favorite Fantasy Pets, Familiars and Animal Companions

In a genre that is as much about wish-fulfillment as it is a reaction to the Scientific Revolution that denied us mystique and magic in favor of equations and mechanics, it is hardly surprising that […]
April 11, 2010

My Desert Island Book Choice: Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable

Writers often get asked “If you found yourself marooned on a desert island and you could only have one book with you, which one would you choose?”
April 10, 2010

WHERE I WRITE: Andrew Smith

YA author Andrew Smith has enjoyed a meteoric rise since publishing his first book, GHOST MEDICINE, in September 2008. Since then he’s published a second book IN THE PATH OF FALLING OBJECTS, and has two […]
April 8, 2010

The Dark Allure of Gothic Literature

This week I participated in an engrossing #LitChat discussion of Gothic Romance and an hour just wasn’t enough time to explore all the questions that came up so I thought we’d continue the chat on […]
April 6, 2010

What’s In Your To-Be-Read Pile?

I’m always shocked by how few writers actually read these days. I meet writers all the time who are eager to talk about what they’re writing, and keen to spend hard-earned dollars on writing classes, […]
March 31, 2010

WHERE I WRITE: Lewis Buzbee

Lewis Buzbee is a third generation California native who began writing at the age of 15, after reading the first chapter of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Since then he’s been a dishwasher, a […]