Writer Unboxed

Therese and Kath here to introduce the newest member of the WU team. You’ve seen independent editor Victoria Mixon here before. We love her for her ability to plumb the depths of craft knowledge, her commitment to making hard-to-understand concepts understandable, and her personality. So when she offered to provide a column to us for [...]

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I am so distractible. Dealing with that aspect of myself is one of my greatest challenges as a writer. Though my doc has assured me that I do not have an adult version of ADD, I’ve wondered a time a two. Being distractible can be caused by a whole slew of things—like genetics, parenthood, stress, [...]

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We have plans. Oh, do we have plans. In the coming months, you’ll hear a lot about a WU newsletter. This newsletter, which we hope to publish regularly, will be filled with fresh and valuable content from contributors you already know, and some new voices as well. (We’ll post a “newsletter subscribe” button in the [...]

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Therese here. I’m beyond happy to present today’s guest to you. Vaughn Roycroft has become a true pillar of the WU community, though if you’re not a part of the WU Facebook Group (easily remedied by clicking here), you may not know it. Vaughn heads up the moderator team there–an important aspect of the group, [...]

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Kath here. Literary author Christopher Harris knows a thing or two about the hard knocks of professional writing. As a commentator for ESPN and sports journalist for Yahoo sports and ESPN the magazine among others, plus a slew of published short stories to his credit, Harris spent a year shopping his novel SLOTBACK RHAPSODY to [...]

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First, a disclaimer. Sometimes I pretend I’m an MD who has specialized in whatever medical issue happens to be going on in my midst. Last week at church, for instance, when my friend mentioned that earlier that day, she had slipped on her stairs and bonked her head, I became a Head Injury Specialist. As [...]

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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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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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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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Not so long ago, “being a writer” might have cost us our sanity, consumed countless hours each day and caused us to opt out of paying jobs, but it didn’t actually require spending money. Those days are over. A veritable writing industry has emerged in the wake of the digital revolution, complete with webinars, seminars, [...]

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Update: Congratulations to Mari Passananti, winner of Christina’s book! Therese here. Today’s guest is the original Writer Mama, Christina Katz, author of three books for writers, including The Writer’s Workout: 366 Tips, Tasks & Techniques, out in print as of this past Tuesday. The Writer’s Workout joins Get Known Before the Book Deal and Writer Mama [...]

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