Figuring out how to make a living doing what you love is one of life’s biggest challenges. But Alastair Humphreys has made it happen — and he’s our guest today. Alastair calls himself an “adventurer” — a title that makes me oh-so-jealous. He has biked around the world, an expedition that took him four years. […]
Notice anything new here today? Aspiring Author has become The Traveling Writer! I’ve thought for a long while about revamping this blog with a name change that would give me room to write about a broader range of topics, hopefully growing my audience. It’s time to take the leap! Those of you who read this […]
Happy Friday! Some weekend reading for y’all: Math of Publishing Meets the E-Book, from the New York Times. Just how much does it actually cost to produce a printed book versus a digital one? At True/Slant, a great list of the Best Journalism of 2009. A few of Conor Friedersdorf’s categories: exceptional storytelling, short essays […]
In her interview here last week, author Mary Morris offered some great insight that I think is worth fleshing out. She wrote: To me real travel writing is predominately about place. But in my travel writing it seems to be more about people (and often I'd have to admit myself) as some story is unfolding. […]
Do you ever go into a bookstore promising yourself you won’t buy anything and leave with a book you’ve been dying to read and instead of spending your Sunday writing blog posts and doing week-old laundry and otherwise getting your life in order you spend the entire day on the couch reading the book because […]
Big week here — I finished my manuscript! Thanks to all of you who left notes of encouragement. Keep your eye on this blog for my next steps. For now, links! A list of the Best Book Reviewers on Twitter, from MediaBistro’s publishing blog, GalleyCat. The Guardian asks writers about their rules for writing fiction […]
I have this fantasy of writing not just one travel memoir, but many. Of traveling and writing for a living. Of making this journey into a lifestyle. So I was thrilled to interview a woman who has done just that. Mary Morris has written four travel memoirs. Four! And she’s done it without becoming a […]
My manuscript is complete! Ready for submission! Word count: 83,500 Microsoft Word pages: 280 Chapters: 33 Time to write: 13 months Dance with me! C’mon, you know you want to.
Is that they let you know when you’re the main character in a new erotic novel. The blurb for Michelle Pillow’s new book, Opposites Attract: Alexis Grant has everything she's ever wanted—fashionable clothes, social standing, a New York penthouse apartment, and a mother who pays for it all. That's until her mother is arrested for […]
You know the drill… Links from this week! Literary agent Chip MacGregor on memoir, including how to move the real-life story onto the page. “Don’t assume because something happened to you, it’s of interest to others,” he writes. Some tips Jane Friedman of Writer’s Digest picked up at a writer’s conference. Random but great. The […]