Writer Unboxed

Writer Unboxed will be taking a little break between now and the first of the year. We have big plans for 2012, but we’d also like to hear from you about what you’d like to see here in the coming months. Have burning questions? A topic you’d love for us to cover? Let us know, and [...]

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As a frequent speaker, one question I can count on, in every setting—no matter the topic, event, or audience skill level—is: How do you find the time to do all this? “All this” refers to writing, blogging, marketing, promoting, social media, website building, blogging, traveling, speaking, plus my day job of university professor. The question [...]

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I keep this quote in my archives and refer to it often. Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be [...]

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It’s the time of the year when a trip to the mailbox means finding a cheerful bundle of Christmas cards from family and friends all over the world. And it’s this time of the year that I most miss an annual ritual: receiving a Christmas cat card from my dear pen-friend Lloyd Alexander, the great [...]

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(Clarification: I’ve collected these requests from more than twenty authors I know – these are not my gripes about my own publishers- M.J. Rose) Dear BookBiz Santa, Please give us sales numbers we can actually understand. Make royalty statements as clear as possible re: HOW MANY BOOKS we have actually SOLD. In the same vein, [...]

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We are about to enter the season of heightened expectations and goal-setting, so I’ll offer a story which I hope you’ll find helpful, then draw some lessons for the writing life. Years ago, I was overworking and missing my kids with a ferocity I found almost frightening. I’d drop them at the sitter’s and go [...]

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Congrats to Joseph Mazzenga, whose caption got the most “Likes” in the Comments section of my December 3rd post. Joseph wins a selection of my hand-doodled notecards (to Joseph: I’ve sent you a Facebook message).

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Last month I blogged about my first year of participating in NaNoWriMo. (And in the end, I did make my 50,000 words–woo-hoo!) So this month I thought I would talk about what I think is a pretty common after-effect of NaNoWriMo: burnout. Now, if you participate in NaNo and manage to churn out 50,000 words [...]

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GIVEAWAY: It’s holiday giveaway time! And that means TWO giveaways for this post. I am (again) excited to give away a free copy of the new 2012 Guide to Literary Agents to a random commenter, and I will also give away a copy of my humor book, How to Survive a Garden Gnome Attack, to [...]

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At some point in your career, you may write something that offends. That’s the nature of the job. But don’t feel that you must choose the safe course for fear of running aground. The beauty of fiction is that we can explore dark themes to our heart’s content — without anyone ever getting hurt for [...]

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Late at night is when the pain is the worst. The aching void. The silence. The knowledge that what once was is now gone. Forever. It’s not like we didn’t know it was going to happen. This was a love affair that we knew would end. We both knew this going in, but I don’t [...]

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Today’s guest is back for an encore. Author Kim Wright was with us back in October to talk about ways not to behave with your agent. Today she’s back for more commonsense advice for writers. Kim has been writing about travel, food, and wine for more than 25 years and is a two-time recipient of the [...]

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