Category: Writing Decisions
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Author Press Kit
Back in 2005 when I first started my website, I had a page dedicated to my press kit. I felt it would be accessed by anybody who wanted to write an article about my books or me. Unlike today, I couldn’t tell back then if anybody actually accessed my press kit. Today web pages offer…
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Granny Squares and Fiction
My mother was a life-long crocheter, expressing herself through the beautiful pieces she created. Among my childhood memories one always stands out: lying on the floor with my brother, watching a TV Western (Maverick, maybe, or Wagon Train), hearing in the background the subtle snap of mercerized cotton thread as my mother’s crochet needle pulled…
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Exit Velocity: Professional Journal Reviews
I suspect that every person who participates in indie-publishing has different opinions on how to market a title before its publication day. I myself have tried different approaches with different books: in other words, I haven’t followed a consistent pattern. That’s because, frankly, I’m not sure what works best. Take the question of reviews. Reviews…
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Clean as Bone
Recently I read a highly-praised, award-winning nonfiction book of about 550 pages. While I liked the subject matter and the information provided, I felt the book moved too slowly. It was repetitive and I felt it would have benefitted by being 100 pages shorter. Mark Twain once said something like: “I didn’t have time to…
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Exit Velocity: Choosing a Title
I don’t usually think about the titles of my books, and there’s a very important reason for that — the title comes to me along with the idea for the book. That is, they almost always arrive together. This was not the case with my current book about a mule, which I didn’t title until…
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My Struggles with the Ballad
As I said in a previous blog, I wanted to write a middle grades book in ballad form, but had never written a ballad before. So, as I explained, I studied up on the ballad a bit and re-read some ballads such as “Sir Patrick Spens,” “Streets of Laredo,” and others. And then I adjusted…
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A Strange Point of View
Point of View is one of the four pillars of fiction, the other three being Plot, Character, and Setting. What this means, I think, is that all four of these elements need to be strong within any given book. And maybe it means that they need to be equally strong — so that the…
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What to Write Next
After finishing a book (or article), every writer asks herself, “What should I write next?” I have certainly asked myself that question many, many times (because I’ve finished many, many books). And, usually, I have a lot of ideas to choose from. Some of the ideas are for fiction, some nonfiction. Some are for adult…
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Brief History of the Ballad
In a previous blog I mentioned that I decided to write a middle grades book in ballad form — and that I had never written in the ballad form before. As a kid I was exposed to ballads because I loved all things cowboy (cattle drives, camping out, horses, ten-gallon hats, you name it.) I…
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Tightening a Manuscript
Part of being a professional writer is knowing how to shorten a manuscript, be it fiction or nonfiction, for children or adults. There are two main reasons that manuscripts need to be shortened. One of these is the economics of publishing, in which paper, ink, and binding all cost money. Magazine editors and book editors…
Barbara Gregorich 