A few thoughts about writing YA
I’ve been working with a lot of authors the last few years on the adult side who are looking to publish on the children’s side. I know I’m not the only one, as the market has surged and become a...
View ArticleWrite where you know
“Write what you know” is probably the most contested piece of writerly advice out there. Yes, writing what you know gives you authority and a personal approach; no, writing should be about discovery...
View ArticleLife (or writing) lessons from Stephen King
Who doesn’t like to take advice from a master? I’d say Stephen King falls into that category. Despite a terrible accident which almost caused him to retire from writing in 2002, King has produced a...
View ArticleLife Stories
The other day I was excited to hear that Neil Patrick Harris is publishing a memoir this fall, and told my friend Brian about it. “What?!” Brian yelped. “Already? He’s only 40!” I was a little...
View ArticleConscious coupling
Recently, the term “Conscious Uncoupling” has become part of the zeitgeist. It is meant to define the dissolving of a marriage. Today, I’d like to discuss “Conscious Coupling” or collaborating on a...
View ArticleRead this piece (aka more on Stephen King)!
I am really not obsessed with Stephen King. I do think he’s amazing and a genius, and I’d like to spend a day living inside his brain, but I really don’t follow his every move. Which is why it’s kind...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Series fatigue
Jane and I had dinner with the delightful and very savvy Abbi Glines last night. During the course of a delicious meal of tapas-like small plates at ABC Cocina (which, in case you’re wondering, we...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Teenage Dreams
One of the most important things an agent or editor values in a work of fiction, and something you’ll hear talked about ad infinitum is a resounding and real “voice” to a novel. Able writing, beautiful...
View ArticleWriting’s (un)willing partners?
The writing life, as so many of you know, is a difficult one. Inherent in devoting yourself to a solitary, maddening, financially precarious pursuit is the tacit understanding that those around you...
View Article“Kill your darlings.” No, really, kill them dead.
A big part of my job involves helping writers develop ideas and then editing their work. Good agents, Jane taught me a long time ago, send out material in its most polished, ready-for-prime-time...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A whole new genre…
Crossing genres is always fun, and so when I saw this Buzzfeed listing titled “If Pop Songs Were Works of Classic Literature,” there was no way I wasn’t clicking to see. The results are wonderful,...
View ArticleWhy writing and editing are not the same
Full disclosure: I do not claim to have mastered the editorial craft, but this blog post is in response to the many people I’ve spoken to who wish to break into the publishing industry in order to...
View ArticleCounterintuitive advice – what writers should not do
I mentioned a book I sold recently by Amy Morin based on her viral article 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do, which resonated with so many people from around the world. One of the things that...
View ArticleWriter’s Digest x2
Coinciding with my turn to blog this week, I was fortunate to realize that one of my wonderful clients was kind enough to write a guest blog post on Writer’s Digest about the author-agent relationship,...
View ArticleDefining children’s categories
I often get asked what the differences are between a middle grade and young adult novel. I think with the success of the children’s category in general over the last decade or so, those answers have...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why we do what we do
With my kids finally back in school and my twins finally starting Kindergarten, I feel like a new chapter of my life is beginning. And it’s one I’m really looking forward to. The focus is more on...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Good bad advice
For something that’s so subjective, fluid, and intuitive, writing sure has a lot of rules. From the time you pick up your first pencil until they pry the keyboard from your cold, dead hands, you’re...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Crisp.
Last week I read a great suggestion from the CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt: “Be crisp in your delivery.” Keeping this in mind, I’m getting to the point at the beginning of every email and controlling my...
View ArticleFinding your writing style
Fiction is so subjective and it’s often hard to articulate what precisely isn’t working for a book that is good, but not quite good enough. There are so many lists out there about what to do and not to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Notes from the kid lit conference front lines
I was asked this past spring to join the council for the Rutgers University Council on Children’s Literature (RUCCL.org), a group that has been in existence for forty years. RUCCL is known for putting...
View Article