Good advice and a good read, from a pro. Click the link! ~Vanessa
Forcing the Help:
Writers’ Communities…
I keep hearing over and over about how other writers force writers to do something like get a book doctor or rewrite or whatever. This advice (99.9% of the time) is coming from beginning or unpublished writers.
But these writers feel forced, like there is a gun to their head because it is their “community.”
Forcing the Help:
Writers, this is SO worth the read. Check it out, click the link! ~Vanessa
The Many Deaths of a Fiction Writer:
A Sort of Look At Tombstone Markers…
I’ve been thinking about trying this post for a year or more now, but this last news about the agent ripping off 3.4 million from writers (at least) brought this back to the front. So I’m going to try it.
The idea is simple. From my position of being around for 40 years, liking to watch other writer’s careers, and editing and teaching and interacting with writers now for over thirty years, I have seen what flat kills writer’s careers.
They are always, and I repeat always, self-inflicted wounds.
And one note before I dive into this. Those of us who have survived a long time came back from the dead many times along the years. We managed to survive some of these deaths and return. Most writers don’t, which is why there are so few long-term writers compared to the millions who claim they want to be a writer and stop themselves along the way.
So staying with the metaphor of writing death, here we go.
Please click the link and read the whole thing! ~Ness
Needing an Agent is an Irrational Fear…
I said that in a webinar today and got a couple comments later from writers who had heard it. And it dawned on me that even though needing an agent is based completely in irrational fears, most writers don’t understand that. Even though it is obvious to me.
So here I am again, trying to talk logic at a myth once again.
[...]
I could go on, but basically, there is not an aspect of a writer wanting an agent that isn’t fear based. Not one.
And there certainly is no logic to giving your gardener 15% ownership in your home for mowing your lawn.
There was a time in the industry where agents were needed. That time passed about twenty years ago. Writers need to step into this new century, grow a pair, learn their own business, and get past the fears.
You don’t need an agent in 2018.
