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2 Indispensable Sites for All Short Story Writers
Well, I’ve found these two sites to be a great help to me over the years. It would have been a great deal more difficult to find markets for my first short stories without them. I’m talking about...
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Heinlein’s Rules
In his 1947 essay “On the Writing of Speculative Fiction,” science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein stated five rules for writing fiction. Here they are: 1. You must write. 2. You must finish what...
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Who Polishes the Diamond?
You see it in the submissions guidelines for almost every market–“Submit your best material,” or words to that effect. If not stated, it’s implied, since they’ll just reject manuscripts containing too...
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Those Maddening Editors!
Good news! You just heard from an editor who will be happy to accept the story you sent…except for the Bad News, which is the acceptance is contingent on your agreeing to some changes in the...
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A Format for Every Market
You prepared your manuscript with care, followed the market’s submission guidelines, and sent your story along. Sad to say, it got rejected, but you got over that and decided to send it to the next...
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Writin’ for Nuttin’
Should you always write to be paid, or should you (at least sometimes) write for free? Here I’m talking about complete fictional stories, not blog articles or story excerpts. The answer for you will...
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What the Web Wrought on Writing
We still live near the dawn of the Internet Age, of course, so it’s perhaps a bit early to assess the web’s impact on writing. But here goes, anyway… First, it’s instructive to recall the past...
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A Path Not Taken
Want to be a published author? Curious about the best path to take? In this post, I’m going to suggest you not do what I did, and instead I’ll offer a short cut. First let me retrace my steps for...
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15 Writing Virtues
Many people believe you aren’t just stuck with the way you are now, that you can better yourself by persistent act of will. I’m one of them, but let me just focus on self-help as it applies to the...
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Prioritizing the Markets
What’s that? You say you’ve finished writing a story but you’re not sure which market to send it to first? It can be confusing, selecting among all the markets listed on Duotrope and Ralan and other...
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The Life Story of a Short Story
Hello. I’m a short story. Since Poseidon’s Scribe never got around to blogging about the whole short story process, he invited me to guest blog today. My title is “Alexander’s Odyssey,” and I was...
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Emotional Roller-coaster
As you and the story you’re writing go through time together, do you find yourself on the same type of emotional roller-coaster as with a personal relationship? Do you feel elated by positive events...
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What Should I Tell Them?
What if one of my children—or later, one of my grandchildren—was to ask if she should be a writer? What should I tell her? It would be easy to recall all the downsides and advise her to grow up to be...
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To Know Your Grammar is to Love Her, Part II
Millions of you loyal readers will recall the first time I blogged about grammar. This time I’m tackling the issue from a different perspective. In my previous post on the subject, I focused on the...
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13 Ways You’re Writing Wrongly
Inspired by K. M. Weiland’s wonderful post, “How Not to Be a Writer: 15 Signs You’re Doing It Wrong,” I decided to make my own list. My list differs from hers, since it’s borne of my own experiences....
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Tailoring Your Author Bio for Success
Among most writers’ least favorite tasks is marketing, and among the least favorite marketing tasks is crafting an author biography. There’s really no avoiding it, so you might as well craft a bio...
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