Category: The Writing Life
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Where and How to Sell What You Write
Chapter four in a series on Book and Art Business 101 wherein I show how the solid logic of art business sold me on self-publishing. If you’re too busy for the whole series, download your copy of my Cheat Sheet for Book and Art Business 101. When I went to college, I found myself loaded down with logic and rhetoric…
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Does Fiction Lie? — The Liar’s Club
Chapter three in a series on Book and Art Business 101 wherein I show how the solid logic of art business sold me on self-publishing. If you’re too busy for the whole series, download your copy of my Cheat Sheet for Book and Art Business 101. Before I discovered poetry on my own, I had told stories to friends and…
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The Gateway Drug: Poetry
Chapter two in a series on Book and Art Business 101 wherein I show how the solid logic of art business sold me on self-publishing. If you’re too busy for the whole series, download your copy of my Cheat Sheet for Book and Art Business 101. Let me tell you the way of things: I fell into this gig.…
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Art Business Logic Sold Me on Self-Publishing :: Intro and Chapters
or Book and Art Business 101: How the Good Business Sense of Self-Publishing Finally Won Me Over I am not one to easily say I was wrong, but, my friends, I was terribly, horribly wrong. Wrong for the past ten years or more concerning a very important part of the publishing industry and art business.…
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Novel Online :: How She Dethroned the eBook
Seems these days old men like me can’t keep up with the pace of publishing. And if that’s how I feel at 28 (my birthday’s this month!), I can’t imagine what it feels like to be a sixty-year-old literary agent or legacy publisher. Honestly, I’m excited because I love adapting. Let’s start with a couple of…
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Does Talent Exist?
No. Or rather the existence of talent is so widespread and common that its potency clocks in at around the near-impotent range. Here’s the thing: My buddy used to work for Community Support Services, which helps mentally handicapped people live bright and vibrant lives. His main client was Jerry. Jerry still ranks in the…
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Making The Joplin Undercurrent — Our Second Photonovel
Making the Joplin Undercurrent, our second photonovel, may be the trickiest ledge I’ve ever had to walk creatively. And you guys know I love walking that line. Two years ago through our working relationship with the Joplin Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, Mark Neuenschwander and I talked over the virtues and vices of Cold Brewed, which is…
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Lone Wolf Artist: On Bad Myths, Guilds, and Societies
Some idiot along the way started lying to us. The lie was this: that genius, that true genial power, can only happen when some dude or dudette cordons themselves off from society to spend the next decade crafting his masterpiece. Lone wolf artists. It has many sources, frankly, but the lion’s share of the burden of the lone wolf artist…
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Novels Like Babies Don’t Need Perfect Parents
When Tara and I still lived in Joplin, I witnessed one father’s transformation from a mediocre parent into a good parent. He’d been the kind of tiger dad, the ruthless victor, who pushed his kids towards success and integrity at the expense of their joy (his words, not mine). He and I were walking through…
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Writers Retreat and Going Off-Grid
Last week, I took a midweek writers retreat up to Salem, Massachusetts (of witchhunt fame) by way of Boston bus and train. The retreat was organized by those who organized the Writer Unboxed Uncon (the writing conference I won the scholarship to last year). It was informal and available to everyone who went to the conference, so…
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Can a Pastor Write Fiction?
Often in person or in emails I will get a pretty heartfelt question from some pastors. They want to know if it’s kosher for them to write mainstream fiction and still do pastoral ministry in the local church. “Can I be a pastor and still write fiction under my real name?” I received one of…
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Contra Graham :: the War to Define YA Meaning and Maturity
Often in literary circles people will “punch down,” as critics of Charlie Hebdo have claimed. But sometimes it’s worse. Sometimes we kick the kids and even the young adult readership. As any family, the literary community is messy. We have a great many flaws to work through. But one issue that can wait no longer…