Tag: novel writing
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The Art of Fiction Writing, Part 2: You Must Dream
Here I discuss writing how-to books, the ones I like in particular. I also talk about the writing process–what it’s like to dedicate your days to your story or poems. Hours up hours, you work until something in your brain clicks–the story comes alive in your skull. I also share with you one of my…
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The Art of Writing Fiction 1
So, you’ve got a great story that you want to tell. It’s all made up, complete fiction, and you’re ready and raring to hit the computer keys and crank out a three hundred page novel. Or a ten page short story. Or a novella of eighty, ninety, one hundred pages. You’ve got the story in…
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T.C. Boyle and I Talk About Sex and More Sex and More Sex…
T. C. Boyle is one of our own southern California writers, and is an international figure. You can’t pin him down, can’t pigeonhole him. One novel is about the love between migrant farm workers and gringos who live in gated communities (Tortilla Curtain), another is about an eco-warrior whose daughter lives in a tree (A Friend…
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Marketing your novel: The Query Letter
Don’t spend two years writing the Great American Novel and two weeks marketing it. It’s time to look at your novel differently: it is no longer your little baby, your creation, your Precious. It is now a product. Treat it as such; this professional mindset might help a little, when you start getting rejections. Which…
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Writers: Keep Your Day Job
When I tell someone that I’ve finished writing a novel, sometimes they ask, “So, when’s it coming out?” They know I have a number of novels already published. In their minds, I am an established writer, and each novel I produce ultimately goes to market. This ain’t the case, at all. The writing world is…