I am so close to finishing* my manuscript that I’m giddy. Giddy! It helps that I love revising; turns out this is my favorite part of the process. Everything is right there on the page and all I have to do is make it better! But. Enough of me being overly excited (especially since the […]
I’m on a high, about to jump into my final round of revisions! But I’ll pause for a moment to compile some links for you from this week: The paradox of memoir, Ami Spencer writes, is the more personal details you reveal, the more readers will relate. Author James Patterson is a publishing machine. And […]
I was pretty annoyed at Amtrak this week for canceling my train home from New York City. But while I waited a few hours for the next available train to Albany, I wrote some quality pages. It amazes me that I can produce some of my best copy while kids scream behind me and a […]
An author wrote to me last week with this advice: “There’s no substitute for finding your voice and writing brilliantly.” While he seemed to think my travel memoir had potential, he told me, very frankly, that I was spending too much energy figuring out the publishing industry when I should be focusing on writing a […]
Thanks to everyone who offered advice about getting over the fight with my manuscript. After a weekend break, I forced myself to get back at it, and completed drafts of chapters nine, ten and eleven! Largely because of that progress, I’m in back in love with the story. I can see the light at the […]
Little by little, my travel memoir is coming together. I’ve got a big (self-imposed) deadline coming up: I’m trying to finish the first 2/3 of the book — that’s 10 chapters — by Aug. 1. As I connect with more writers of memoir on Twitter, I’m thinking of organizing a #memoirchat. Let me know if […]
I’ll try anything to convince myself that even though I’m writing alone in my office, I’m not really alone. That’s why I love connecting with other writers online, particularly those who are working on memoirs. “Meeting” Rachel Held Evans, whose spiritual memoir will be released in early 2010, was particularly exciting because like me, she […]
If you’ve been reading this blog regularly, you know what I’ve been working on for the last four months: outlining my book, writing a book proposal and query letter, choosing agents to approach, applying to writers’ colonies, learning about blog book tours, and then some. I’ve also, believe it or not, written some of the […]
Thanks for all the feedback on my working title, Madame or Mademoiselle? A Woman’s Solo Journey Through Africa. Here’s the consensus: Readers seemed to like the subtitle, A Woman’s Solo Journey Through Africa. But not everyone was satisfied with the first half of the title, Madame or Mademoiselle? It’s too long, some critics said. It’s […]
Until I began learning about the publishing process, I thought only movie stars had agents. Turns out wannabe authors do, too. But why, you ask, would a writer want to hire an agent? Literary agents serve as intermediaries between author hopefuls and publishers, helping writers polish their proposal, shop it around to publishers and negotiate […]