I’ve been following some interesting discussions about the use of profanity in novels. It started on Kindle Boards in this thread titled “Gutter-mouth.” Then I continued the conversation over on my Facebook page, since I was curious as to what people there had to say. I also thought about it a lot during the final […]
Some of you may know that I’m a freelance copywriter (Copy Bitch) by day. My so-called specialties include writing taglines, punchy headlines, and pithy ad copy. I’m fast. Churning out pith is easy for me. Unless, of course, it involves titling my novel. For some reason, titling my short stories hasn’t been an issue. Maybe […]
I imagine many writers out there have heard a fellow writer say, “But it really happened that way!” when questioned by beta readers or critique partners about a particular event in their story. (I might even be guilty.) This isn’t an original thought, but I’m sharing because it’s worth remembering: just because something happened in […]
Here’s the cover art for my novel. One of the pros of self-publishing is you have control over the cover art process. One of the cons of self-publishing is you have control over the covert art process. 🙂 It’s mostly a pro, I think. I use the folks at 1106 Design out in Arizona. I’ve […]
I’m getting ready to email my novel to the folks at eBook Architects. They’re the ones who convert my Word doc file into Mobi (Kindle) and ePub (everything else). Then it will be time for me to sell the thing. We’ve had a long journey, this novel and me, and I’m having a hard time […]
How does one properly celebrate National Grammar Day? Getting all crazy with prepositions at the end of sentences? Going on a split infinitive spree? Running up to random people on the street and exclaiming: “Help! Have you seen my gerund?” I’ll stop now. Here’s a great video from Grammar Girl and company. Enjoy, and share […]
You can’t please everyone, and you shouldn’t try. Logically, I imagine we all know this is true, but it’s a hard thing for our emotional selves to deal with, isn’t it? Especially when it comes to people reviewing our art. But the fact is, people will hate your work. Violently, even. To the point they […]
I saw My Name is Asher Lev at The Lyric Stage Company in Boston this past weekend. It’s adapted from the novel by Chaim Potok. It tells the story of Asher Lev, an observant Hasidic Jew who is caught between being true to his art and true to his faith (or, at least, what the […]
I’m excited to announce my latest short story, “Crush,” is now available for download on Kindles and Nooks (you’ll need the Nook app or Kindle app for your iPad since the iBookstore is backlogged — hope it goes live on there soon). And yes, it’s a buck or less (depending on where you buy it). […]
I’m self-publishing my debut novel in May. This is a book I’ve worked on for nine years. No, wait — 10 years (since 2001). It’s gone through six top-to-bottom rewrites. It’s been laid to rest once, only to be resurrected a year later when, out of the blue, I figured out how to fix the […]