Writing the Best Book You Can Write

© 2007, The Oregonian Once you write the best book you can write – and that’s the point of all these workshops – what happens to it is almost completely out of your control. Here’s the deal. Let’s resort to analogy to make this perfectly clear. Writing fiction is like any other avocation that can […]

Getting Published. Really.

© 2007, The Oregonian I wrote and published four paperback originals from the year 2000 to 2004 (this after six unpublished manuscripts dating back to the Jimmy Carter era… I was truly an overnight success). With this class of books – some call them beach trash, others call them grocery store books; I call them […]

Getting Published versus Staying Published

© 2007, The Oregonian Deep in the black heart of every writing workshop instructor resides a dirty little secret: we are praying that no one asks when our next book is coming out. We keep talking and sounding oh-so-enlightened so no one will ask this question. Because while getting published was what got us up […]

Better Writing Through Better Spin

As long as I’m using sports to set the stage for the next phase of this writing journey, allow me to wax metaphoric on the brilliance of Rafael Nadal, the #1 tennis player in the world.  Makes no difference that what inspired this analogous stretch was watching him get shellacked in the fourth round of […]

What Are My Odds of Getting Published?

At the risk of being a buzz kill, let’s get real.  The reason for doing so is to make you understand just how high the bar is in the publishing world, and just how deeply you must dig to reach that level.  Too many writers with casual affection for writing and an equally soft work […]

So You Want To Be A Professional Writer?

“Find something worth dying for… then live for it.” Writing at a professional level is much like any other pursuit in which professionals are on public display. They make it look easy. Ballers glide effortlessly through the air to slam dunk, yet the average gym rat hasn’t touched the rim since the Clinton years, if […]