Should I write or should I read a book? When I am short on time it’s easy to read a few pages on the bus, in the waiting room, or even in the bath. The number of pages accumulate quickly even though I only have time to read books in short bursts on most days. This is also true for writing. I grab every opportunity to write long-hand in my composition notebook. Red lights in traffic while listening to the car radio. Cup of Piccolo Mondo coffee between appointments in Ithaca. Waiting to get the oil changed at Diane’s Downtown Automotive. Mulling over breakfast at the State Street Diner. I seize ten minutes and write. My best reading is done on weekends and over holidays and vacations when I can spend uninterrupted time with a book in my hands. Summer is the best and August an orgy of reading. Yet I map writing onto every stretch of my unscheduled time. Do you book your marathon writing sessions in sync with school calendars or around the religious or federal holidays? I’m headed to Two Harbors next week for a writing retreat along the shores of Lake Superior. When I think about doing the work of an author, I often feel like I should be writing and deny my reading pleasures. Don’t you? “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have time the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that,” Stephen King wrote in his memoir, On Writing.…
If you are a writer who seeks publication, you need to read. Yes, more books. I often hear from writers who tell me they don’t read because they don’t want to be influenced by others’ works. Bah Hambug! Everything is a Remix! To combine or edit existing materials produces something new. Original ideas aren’t created in a vacuum. You don’t read because you don’t have… [Read More]
Filed Under: Francine Prose, inner editor, literary inspiration, Reading Like a Writer, remix
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French for ‘pen name,’ a nom de plume is a fictitious name under which an author publishes. Mark Twain was the nom de plume of Samuel Clemens. George Eliot sounded more serious than Mary Ann Evans. Theodore Geisel was known as Dr. Seuss. In 1899 William Sydney Porter took the name O. Henry so editors might never know the stories were submitted by a convicted… [Read More]
Filed Under: anonymity, Carmela Ciuaru, George Eliot, George Orwell, J.K. Rowling, Nom de Plume, pseudonym, Stephen King, Sylvia Plath
It’s December and I reflect back on the books I’ve read this year which stand out above all others from my vantage as a book development editor. Here’s my top 10 list of great new books and why I think these works will stand the test of time. Fiction #1 A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki – March 2013 In Tokyo, sixteen-year-old… [Read More]
Nearly a billion people have registered accounts on Twitter and 100 million of them use it every day. Three quarters of them on a mobile device. As a writer, it’s easy to dismiss Twitter. If you’re an author, it’s a mistake to do so. If your readers are over 50 years old or under 10, you won’t find them on Twitter, right? Wrong question. If… [Read More]
Filed Under: Cathryn Prince, Death in the Baltic, hashtags, marketing plan, query, reviews, search, Twitter
When I met Mariam Raqib at her Boston office at Simmons College, where she teaches Political Science, she welcomed me in with a warm, calming presence. From her gentle demeanor, one would never anticipate the weight of Mariam life’s story nor the power of her life’s mission. When she speaks about her organization and her work in Eastern Afghanistan, though, she does so with great… [Read More]