One of the number one requirements of a commercial fiction career is that you must reliably produce good material, year in and year out. Reliable and good are not always an easy combination. To do it, a writer has to take care of her body, her mind, and her spirit. Over the years, I’ve found [...]

Back home now, having swapped an exceptionally cool European summer for a crystal-clear cold Northern New South Wales winter, I’m starting to reflect on my long and rich and amazing six months away. And one of the things I’ve been thinking about is how different a travel experience is if you are already deeply immersed [...]

Brunonia Barry on Painting in the Blanks

It isn’t the blank page that I find terrifying. It’s the idea of beginning. I can easily put words on a page, that’s not the problem. I often begin a new novel by doing something I’ve heard described as “clearing your throat.” I usually write fifty to a hundred pages that I will never use, but within those pages I often discover the entire back story of each character and the journey those characters will take together.

Kath here.  Please welcome comedian and writer Karen Bergreen to Writer Unboxed.  Karen’s debut novel Following Polly is a screamingly funny murder mystery.  No lie, I nearly had to read this in the bathroom, it was pee-your-pants funny.  Enjoy her guest post with us today and make sure you’re not drinking anything when you read [...]

Valued contributor Sophie Masson wraps up her writer’s sabbatical in France this month.  Enjoy! Summer in Paris, and it’s really hot at last, after weeks of unseasonably grey and cold weather. Our windows are open on the heavy still air but the curtains are drawn against the sun. You can hear music wafting all up [...]

Today’s guest post is by bestselling YA author Susan Beth Pfeffer.  Susan is the author of 76 children’s and young adult novels. Her most recent book, This World We Live In, is the final book of a trilogy, also comprising the New York Times bestseller  Life As We Knew It, and The Dead And The Gone.  Enjoy! I [...]

The title of this post is not meant to invoke images of my broadening rear end, though until I took measures, that was becoming a regrettable side effect of the writing path. Rather, it’s meant to convey the idea that we can re-author our very selves through the process of crafting fiction.   I can best explain by providing [...]

So my new book, The One That I Want, has been out in the world for a month now, and just like a new parent who has realized that it’s time to take a night or two away from her little one, I’ve started to move on from the hovering, the worrying, the frantic roller-coaster [...]

Two quick pieces of business before your regularly scheduled post. First, if you belong to a book club (or know someone who does) and would like to take part in a massive, fabulous book contest, click HERE. You’ll be taken to my shiny new Facebook fan page for more info (feel free to become a [...]

We’re all taking ourselves too damn seriously. What do I mean by this? I mean that we’re so focused on … • Being as productive as possible • Crafting the best manuscript possible • Building the best platform possible • Appearing as professional as possible … that we lose sight of who we really are [...]

I know Kathleen and Therese meant well when they asked me to offer my best writing advice, but I gotta tell you, the idea that I could presume to do so after being here less than three months? With the pedigree of you folks? Oy. The very concept made me break out in hives. Fortunately, [...]

Don’t give up.  This month at WU we’re focusing on best advice, and that’s mine.  If you truly, truly want to be a published author, don’t give up, no matter how impossible it seems at times, no matter how long it takes–no matter how many rejections you get in the mail. One of my closest [...]

Contributor Sophie Masson continues to share her notebook from her travels in France.  Enjoy!  Coming back to France always evokes complicated emotions for me—and none more so than when I go back to the house of my childhood, the house we always went back to on our frequent trips back from Australia. It was a large, crumbling [...]

This month we invited all our contributors to share their best advice to our readers. I have three tidbits to share.  Of course, free advice is worth what you pay for, but I’ve been doing this a while, I can at least speak from experience. First tip: listen to your gut, not the market. Now [...]

Please welcome guest poster John Vorhaus to Writer Unboxed. John is the author of the “sunshine noir” con artist novel, The California Roll, and the classic comedy-writing textbook, The Comic Toolbox: How to Be Funny Even if You’re Not. He twitters at @TrueFactBarFact, and meets the world head-on at johnvorhaus.com, where he welcomes allies of [...]