JOANNA ELM, Author, Journalist, Attorney
The Pleasures and Perils Of A Writing Life
If you google the phrase “how to get literary agent,” you will find at least 20 Google pages of results. The accumulated information comes from writers’ websites, writers’ magazines, from bloggers, from literary agents themselves, from editors eager to polish up your manuscript before you submit to an agent and from authors — like myself — who have found an agent. Continue reading “How To Survive Your Search For A Literary Agent”
I spent the better part of last week saying things like, “My agent said….”
“My agent thinks…”
“My agent is waiting for my revisions…”
That’s right. That means the deal is done. I have a literary agent. Continue reading “How I Got The Literary Agent I Really Wanted”
Writers sometimes need to get together with other writers to swap stories of the hardships of a writing life, and occasionally to celebrate a piece of good news about the latest WIP (work-in-progress.) This week, I got together with two compadres who I met several years ago at the Algonkian writers’ workshop in St. Augustine, Florida.
Since then, I have mentioned members of this 8-strong group (we call ourselves the Gonks) in posts on this blog. Several of them have contributed guest posts on how to get published (Greg), how to query agents (Mandi) and how to write a screenplay that will get optioned (Doug.) Continue reading “Why We Talked About Quitting At A Writers Reunion”
For anyone who doesn’t get the “McBrilliant” reference in today’s blog title, you obviously have never watched Grey’s Anatomy. That’s the ABC-TV medical drama — created by Shonda Rhimes — in which Derek, the best-looking neurosurgeon in the show is nick-named McDreamy and Mark, the equally hot-looking plastic surgeon is known as McSteamy. Continue reading “Shonda Rhimes is McBrilliant in Her Masterclass on TV Writing”
This is the trouble when everyone knows you’re writing a book (thanks Joe!!!): First, they want to know, “when will it be finished?” Then, they want to know, “when can I read it? When will it be published?” Continue reading “No, I Don’t Know When My Novel Will Be Published, But…”