Writer Unboxed

Today’s guest blogger is Gavin Cramblet (aka Chro) from a blogsite we like called Journey of the Scribe. Recently, Gavin won the bid for a free critiquing session with novelist Brenda Novak, and he agreed to share his experience with us.
Our sincere thanks to Gavin for taking the time out to blog with us this […]

Hungry? Book Roast Team has the perfect meal. Authors. Plenty of them. Cooked nice and crispy.
Book Roast is one of the blogosphere’s latest and most entertaining additions. Never heard of them? We asked Chris and her roast-ready crew to introduce her unboxed concept to you.
Q: What, exactly, is Book Roast, and how did the concept […]

I’ve been keeping a little secret. My agent, Elisabeth, sent my manuscript, Unbounded, to a hand-picked group of editors just over a week ago. I didn’t blog about it because this stuff is crazy making, and I didn’t want to think about it long enough to have to write a post. But it doesn’t work […]

Last week I blogged about being under the gun with an editorial deadline for CLASS PRESIDENT, a YA novel to be released fall 2009 by HarperCollins, and the panic I felt at the three-week turnaround. Some of the editorial comments were asking for fairly detailed revisions; I had three new scenes to write, and […]

Danielle Younge-Ullman’s debut novel, Falling Under, will be released next Tuesday, July 29th. The description of her book caught my attention months ago. Said Kristy Kiernan, author of Catching Genius, “Danielle Younge-Ullman redefines modern fiction with this finely wrought, edgy debut. She is the best kind of new author— enormously talented and utterly unafraid.”
Sounded […]

You can accomplish great things if you allow yourself to do so.
Shocked you, didn’t I? I did something different. I got right to the point. Need a minute to recover? That’s fine. I’ll be here.
Journalists are taught to use the “inverted pyramid” formula for writing stories. You lead with […]

I am reading the galleys for my next book, THE LOST RECIPE FOR HAPPINESS, which (finally) has a firm release date of December 30, 2008. It’s been a long time arriving in stores—the book was finished over a year ago, but everyone involved (agent, editor, publisher, self) feel that is it a special, magical […]

Last week, Ray Rhamey blogged about creating good bad guys–antagonists we can empathize with or relate to, who are the heroes of their own stories. Consider Dolores Umbridge from the Harry Potter series, who was so worthy of our hate. But didn’t you get that she believed in her cause wholeheartedly, that she felt she […]

My apologies in advance. This post is gonna be brief because I received the edits for CLASS PRESIDENT on Friday, and I have two weeks to send the revised copy back to the editors.
I’d been looking forward to their feedback since I sent them the completed draft about two weeks ago. Then my […]

If you missed part 1 of my interview with Lucia Nevai, author of the gritty-wonderful debut novel, Salvation, click HERE, then come back. (There’s an excerpt of Nevai’s work at the end of part 1 as well.) In part 2, we discuss the novel’s theme, her research and the long evolution of Salvation once her […]

I’m deep into a serious rethink of one of my novels as a result of a critique by Lou Aronica, a top editor/publisher. A main focus is a primary antagonist. Lou says he’s not strong enough or smart enough to be an interesting character, and I have finally understood that he’s right.
This WIP is the […]

I love libraries. Not only readers are nurtured there—but writers, too. This post is a hymn of praise to those libraries, private and public, that have been instrumental in my own development.
The first library I remember was my father’s, in our beautiful old house deep in the countryside of south-western France. This was a hallowed […]