All you have to do is cross out the wrong words. the hard part for most writers, despite what we say, isnt getting published. Ive just finished my first book. and the hardest part, to my surprise, wasnt the difficulty of getting published. have a set word count. think in terms of 10 thousand work increments and break each chapter into roughly equal lengths: » 80,0 words–100,0 words: typical novel length give yourself weekly deadlines. it can be a word count, percentage of progress, whatever.

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get early feedback. nothing stings worse than writing a book and then having to rewrite it, because you didnt let anyone look at it. Send it to the publisher, release it on amazon, do whatever you need to do to get it in front of people. embrace failure. know that this will be hard and you will mess up. write another. most authors are embarrassed of their first book. Every writer started somewhere, and most of them started by squeezing their writing into the cracks of their daily lives.

Don’t write a story just because you think it might be a bestseller or that it would make great aunt edna proud. If those are mysteries, then don’t try to write an historical romance or a quiet literary novel. It might not be anything genre specific that you love, but a certain voice, or type of story, or kinds of characters. Do me a favor right now, today, start a list of all your crazy obsessions, the things that get your heart pumping, that wake you up in the middle of the night. Put it above your desk and use it to guide you, to jumpstart your writing each and every day. Jennifer is excited to give away a free copy of her latest novel to a random commenter. Comment within 2 weeks winners must live in canada/us to receive the book by mail.

2013, william morrow , which received starred reviews in publishers weekly and kirkus. Let her live and breathe and give her the freedom to surprise you and take the story in unexpected directions. One exercise i always do when i’m getting to know a character is ask her to tell me her secrets. Sit down with a pen and paper and start with, i never told anybody… and go from there, writing in the voice of your character. Your character has to have something that’s going to challenge her, torment her and propel her forward.

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At the heart of every story is conflict – whether external or internal, make it a good one, and remember that this problem is going to shape your character, leaving her forever changed. Make things happen! you can have the greatest characters in the world, and write beautifully, but if nothing’s happening, the story falls on its face pretty quickly. In my books, i make sure something important to the plot is happening in each scene. And if there’s a scene in there that isn’t helping to move the story along in some vital way, i cut it, no matter how great it is. When i’m editing, i’ll go scene by scene and write a single word sentence describing the action on an index card.

I can see if things are moving forward, if i’m throwing in enough twists and turns, and if there are scenes that just aren’t pulling their weight. Ah, you say, but you sometimes write stories with ghosts and fairies – how believable is that? it works if you make it believable in the universe of the book. Don’t bring in a new character at the end to solve the protagonist’s problem for her. Stick with it the project. you’ll be tempted to give up a thousand and one times. When it’s rejected by agents and publishers which it will be keep sending it out. It took me four books, two agents and seven years to get my first novel published. It was a long tough road, but so, so worth it in the end! what are the best writers conferences to attend? 7.

everyone’s got advice and theories people want to pigeonhole you, put you in a genre with its own rules and conventions. I think the work comes out better when we leave all that behind when the only thing to be true to is the writing. agent donald maass, who is also an author himself, is one of the top instructors nationwide on crafting quality fiction. The last thing a human who spends their day selling home insurance in an office that smells of egg sandwiches and despair wants to hear is that their old school friend is going to be an international bestselling author. Well, except that latter day malcolm bradbury, katy perry: 'make 'em go, oh, oh, oh/ as you shoot across the sky.' 14. Jeanette winterson once told me to change the phrase 'epiphanic moment' to 'moment of epiphany'. If you write in the first person people will think that the views of that person are your own views.

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There is nothing as exciting in this world as roaming the beautiful wilds of the human imagination. My late father donald, who taught wordsworth and melville to inner city kids for decades, used to read ulysses to me while he carried me on his shoulders. Now, after years of investigative reporting for wired and other magazines, im finally writing a book of my own. The subject of my book is autism, the variety of human cognitive styles, and the rise of the neurodiversity movement. The seed of the project was an article i wrote for wired in 2001 called the geek syndrome about autism and asperger syndrome in high tech communities like silicon valley.

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Im happy and humbled to say that it was an influential article, and i still get email about it from the families of kids on the spectrum and from autistic people themselves, though it was published more than a decade ago. The science of developmental disorders has made significant advances in recent years, and some of the social issues that i raised in the piece such as the contributions that people with atypical cognitive styles have made to the progress of science, technology, and culture seem more relevant than ever. At the same time, the wave of kids diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders in the 90s is now coming of age, and their heroically devoted families are facing fear and uncertainty about the future as crucial government funded services and support provided to families of special needs children dry up. Meanwhile, neurodiversity advocates are challenging narrow definitions of normal cognition, and autistic people even those who are unable to employ spoken language are using assistive technology like the ipad to express themselves. Ive signed a contract with a wonderful publisher a penguin imprint called avery books and a sharp and enthusiastic editor named rachel holtzman. One of the most thrilling moments of my life as a writer was walking into penguin headquarters in manhattan and seeing classic jackets for jack kerouacs novels like the dharma bums framed on the wall. It was reading the exhilarating, compassionate, and perennially fresh poetry and prose of kerouac, allen ginsberg, gary snyder and their friends that made me want to grow up to be a writer in the first place.

Nothing will ever replace the sublime feeling of sanctuary created by the printed page, but i treasure the books on my kindle too, particularly when im reading at 30,0 feet. What i love is words storytelling, the flow of well wrought sentences, the gradual unfolding of a long and thoughtful tale, the private communion with an authors mind. But now comes the hard part. its one thing to work up a 40 word magazine feature and another to sit down and write a 100,0 word book. Im acutely aware that ive been granted a precious opportunity to cast light on forgotten history and provide a platform for voices that are rarely heard. At the same time, im scared out of my wits that the two decades of journalism that have led up to this project have not prepared me to write a good book. I wake up at 3am staring into the darkness, wondering if ill have the skills, discipline, and inner resources to pull it off. I recently sent email to the authors in my social network and asked them, what do you wish youd known about the process of writing a book that you didnt know before you did it? im delighted with the sheer range of practical advice that poured in. the writers in this group are as diverse as the volumes that line the shelves in my home office.