Writer Unboxed

I was in NYC this weekend for family fun, and lemme tell ya, those retailers know how to merchandise the crap out of anything. The Union Square Barnes & Noble, in particular, was fabulous all spangled up with holiday displays. It was sad to see the Virgin Megastore in Times Square shuttered, but the Times [...]

3 Comments »

Happy Thanksgiving! Hope everyone had a wonderful, food- and family-filled holiday. Now it’s Black Friday, and on this, the biggest shopping day of the year, I’d like to make a special plea: buy books this holiday season. Not my books, I don’t mean, or even those of my fellow WU contributors. Just books. Fiction, nonfiction, [...]

12 Comments »

One of the questions that comes up for writers over and over again is, “how much of this book is true?”

Every story a writer composes somehow emerges from the writer. But where to draw the line between truth and fiction might be hard to distinguish. I am not a character. The character is herself. Some of my experiences lend verisimilitude, perhaps, but mostly, I’m cobbling together bits of this and pieces of that, gathering anything and everything that might be helpful to create a sense of a whole world for a reader.

8 Comments »

A food-inspired post in honor of the holiday… So you work on a novel for, oh, let’s say six years, and you’re tired in a million ways. You’re wondering, Why would I ever, ever do this to myself again–besides the fact that you have to do it again, because you have a two-book contract. (You’re [...]

12 Comments »

This post is a real drive-by as I am working on something epic, the news of which I hope to share with you all soon, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to share something a writer friend of mine e-mailed to me. Am I the only one who hasn’t discovered the awesomeness of Kim [...]

10 Comments »

…Christina Cann! I chose Christina’s name randomly via a random number generator; she was lucky commenter #18. Thanks to SONY for the terrific giveaway, and thanks to all who commented in the SONY Reader contest, sharing memorable literary moments. Be sure to check out SONY’s Words Move Me site, too, where you can share more [...]

4 Comments »

“Panic has a way of defining an individual. It scrapes the soul bare, strips away pretense, reveals the core of the human spirit. It’s hard to dissemble when fear crawls up your throat, your heart stampedes like a herd of wild animals, and your skin burns with the prickly-heat of terror. For the six people [...]

3 Comments »

It’s a conundrum—for most publishers, a writer needs an agent to market a novel manuscript. But today’s market makes even connecting with an agent damned difficult. Here’s what agent Kristin Nelson said on her blog, Pub Rants: “I’m passing on really good novels because currently I believe that really good might not be good enough [...]

16 Comments »

Libby from Author Exposure dropped us a line to let us know that WU blog mama Therese Walsh’s book The Last Will of Moira Leahy is being considered for the December reading selection at the online book club Author Exposure. Vote for Therese and help spread the word about her terrific book (vote HERE)! Author [...]

3 Comments »

How’s everyone doing with their NaNoWriMo goals? Yeah, me too. I started with good intentions. Really. Before Nov. 1, I wrote a detailed outline that I vetted for storytelling soundness while leaving room for inspiration. I thought deeply about the characters and how I wanted them to unfold. I gave myself reasonable goals. And all [...]

20 Comments »

I’ve been re-reading recently one of my favourite fantasy novels, A Song for Arbonne by Guy Gavriel Kay, and it got me thinking about something that’s very important in good, satisfying fantasy novels like that one, but that’s often taken for granted. And that’s setting and atmosphere. Setting and atmosphere are always (at least to [...]

5 Comments »

Digital Influence Group contacted me recently on behalf of SONY. Would I be interested in giving away a SONY Reader Pocket Edition™ valued at $199.99 on Writer Unboxed? If I agreed, I would also receive a reader, as compensation for our participation. Win-win! The reason for the promo is to introduce SONY’s Words Move Me [...]

56 Comments »