Writer Unboxed

Therese here. Please welcome author Diana Spechler to the blog today. Diana’s second novel, SKINNY, released just four days ago, on April 26th. It’s the story of a compulsive eater who takes a job at a weight-loss camp, and is forced to come to grips with herself, her father’s lies, and the half-sister she never [...]

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Some days the font is all wrong. Some days your wrists hurt. Or your back hurts. Or both. Some days your dog won’t stop barking, and there are three loads of laundry to fold. Some days you can’t fall asleep because you’ve got a million ideas for your story. Some days you can’t remember a [...]

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Last time we talked about how important it is to stay in the moment, both in our writing lives and in our rest-of-our-lives lives. The example I gave was my own book launch for The Albuquerque Turkey, and my determination to say sufficiently present in the book launch events that I could enjoy them for [...]

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I don’t know about your world, but in mine, the only thing anyone is talking about is the paradigm shift happening with the explosion of ebooks. I’ve been caught in the worry and discussions as much as anyone. It’s hard to hear anything over the din, but yesterday I remembered one very important thing: what [...]

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Therese here. Today’s guest is Sarah Jio, whose debut novel, The Violets of March, releases today! The book has already gained national and international attention–it will be published in Germany and Spain, and has been chosen as a Target “Emerging Author” pick. Redbook magazine called the story “engrossing,” and Jodi Picoult said of the novel, [...]

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Kath here. When prolific thriller author Amanda Stevens guested with Writer Unboxed last October and outlined her Strange Attractor theory of creating a marketable concept (genius!), I knew I wanted to have her back to talk about her newest series The Graveyard Queen, and its lead novel The Restorer (in stores now). Check out the insanely good trailers for The [...]

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One of the perks of running this community is occasionally a post will yield unexpected benefits, and that is exactly what happened when valued contributor Sophie Masson posted about her love of Mary Stewart. Well, the Internet is a wonderful thing. Word of our collective support for Mary Stewart reached UK publisher Hodder & Stoughton. [...]

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The big lesson I’ve learned this year as a professor is: Writers need structure. It was a hard lesson to learn, because many of the things I value in life cause me to downplay structure. I value things like: Intrinsic motivation (some would say “passion”) Doing what feels right or comes naturally Changing direction upon [...]

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Any writer who’s been at this for a while knows that that there’s a long and increasingly steep learning curve involved with mastering the art of crafting a professional novel. Good writers who’ve been at this for a while can also spot, instantly, flaws in another’s narrative. But we have trouble seeing our own, don’t [...]

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These days, it’s not good enough just to be a writer in a garret, banging away at your books. You’ve got to promote. Present. Appear on radio, TV, newspapers, blogs, You Tube, whatever. Get around and speak in schools, universities, conferences. And literary festivals, which from a modest start thirty or so years ago have [...]

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Kath here. Please welcome Caroline Tolley to Writer Unboxed today. Caroline is a freelance editor who has been freelancing for ten years on all genres of popular fiction; including YA, fiction for men, mystery, cop books, literary fiction and, romance. Her publishing career began after college when she went to work for the direct mail-order Book Clubs; The Literary Guild, [...]

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During the past several weeks my son (Frank), husband (The ToolMaster), and I schlepped our way from one high school open house to another in an effort to find my kid’s best educational match. I don’t know about you, but I find those events to be simultaneously boring, repetitive, and stressful. However, at some point [...]

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