It’s Squib Saturday, and usually I share the most interesting, entertaining or outrageous tidbit of information I’ve gleaned from something I’ve read or done over the past week. Today, I have to cheat, and republish a funny squib I posted last year about fake news. Let me, please, explain: Continue reading “Preparing for One-on-One (Literary) Agent Feedback”
Category: Behind the Scenes/Book3
Writers Rate The Four-Day Novel Workshop
It’s Squib Saturday and, as promised last week, for anyone who is thinking of attending a writers’ conference or workshop, I am publishing the comments of my fellow writers about the effects and benefits of attending the four-day Algonkian novel workshop recently in St. Augustine, Florida. I can honestly say I loved their company during the workshop (okay, the happy hours, too!) It was absolutely terrific to be with writers genuinely dedicated to improving their craft and their story-telling. Continue reading “Writers Rate The Four-Day Novel Workshop”
Do Writing Workshops Really Work?
It’s Squib Saturday, and it’s also about a month since I returned from the Algonkian Author-Mentor Novel Workshop in St. Augustine, Florida. I was horrified to realize that in the last month I have not written a single word for my new thriller. Which brought me to the $64,000 question: Do writing workshops really work? Continue reading “Do Writing Workshops Really Work?”
A Novel Workshop in the Sun (Behind the Scenes #7)
It’s News Squib Saturday, but I am combining today’s Squib with my website feature, Behind the Scenes/Book3 to tell you all about a great author experience I enjoyed in St. Augustine, Florida this week: I Discover the Algonkian Author-Mentor Novel Workshop.
There were nine of us: authors from the two Beaches, Pebble and Palm, and all points in between. Two men, seven women (until the second day when one of the women writers dropped out.) More to the point, the faculty we met on the first day, Michael Neff, author and founder/director of the Algonkian Writer Conferences, and Paula Munier, author and agent were joined over the next couple of days by a Pulitzer prize-winning author (Robert Olen Butler) , a bestselling suspense novelist (Hallie Ephron), and executive editors from two of the top five traditional publishing houses (Brendan Deneen of MacMillan Entertainment, and Lyssa Keusch of William Morrow/Harper Collins.)
Eight authors, six mentors. Yep! We all got the individual attention we were craving! Continue reading “A Novel Workshop in the Sun (Behind the Scenes #7)”
Location! Location! Location! (Behind the Scenes#6)
It’s News Squib Saturday, but I’m going Behind the Scenes today because Book3 is very much on my mind. Thank goodness, I am getting back on track after a few disconcerting weeks which I wrote about a couple of Saturdays ago. Looking over some photos I took last year when I was researching locations reminded me of the work I’ve already done on the book.
It also helped to have a bit of a nudge from bestselling author James Patterson. He delivers a MasterClass (a series of 22 instructional videos) which any aspiring author or even a well-established author can download for a mere $90. The class looks at all aspects of writing a bestseller including how to find ideas, how to plot, write outlines and so on.
One of the tutorials focuses on researching locations like I did one day last Summer on the North Fork of Long Island. Part of Book3 takes place on the North Fork which is more secluded and remote (so far) and more rugged than the South Fork (better known as the Hamptons.) As Patterson says, ” It’s really useful to walk around a location and make notes about whatever catches your eye.” Continue reading “Location! Location! Location! (Behind the Scenes#6)”