I recently completed a rough first draft of a new middle grade novel and felt absolutely elated to have reached that milestone. That high lasted…oh, less than twenty-four hours. After that? I settled into a potent mental cocktail of dread, fear, and existential malaise. I cycled through destructive thoughts. No one is going to care […]
This week! Books! The winners and finalists of the very prestigious ALA awards were announced for children’s literature, congrats to everyone! Speaking of awards, controversy erupted this week around the 2023 Hugo Awards, which were held in Chengdu, China, when it emerged that several authors who should have qualified for the awards were disqualified without […]
If you’d like to nominate your own page or query for a public critique, kindly post them here in the discussion forums: Also, if you’d like to test your editing chops, keep your eye on this area or this area! I’ll post the pages and queries a few days before a critique so you can see how your […]
If you hand off your novel to a loved one and you can’t help but notice their attention wandering, it might be more than their unfinished game of Wordle that’s getting in the way. You might have written a novel that’s more confusing than you think. I’m going to round up a list of reasons […]
This week! Books! First up, impersonation scams are the rage among the unsavory people trying to prey on authors. Be really careful that the “agent” who reaches out to you really is who they say they are. Now, according to Writer Beware’s Victoria Strauss, there is an entire website imitating Macmillan Publishers. Yes, really. Be […]