shopify analytics ecommerce tracking
Walsh and Bolton Twitter Unconference Advertise Facebook Book Zazzle Search

The 2021 Regifting Guide for Writers

By 7 Comments

Hacks for Hacks: Sense of Humor Required

Warning: Hacks for Hacks tips may have harmful side effects on your writing career, and should not be used by minors, adults, writers, poets, scribes, scriveners, journalists, or anybody.

Happy 2021! Now that the longest year in history is over, it’s a good time for reflection and taking stock of things. And by “things” I mean those Christmas and/or Hanukkah gifts you got. If you’re a writer, you probably got a lot of writing-centric gifts. I’m going to say it so you don’t have to: some writer gifts are better than others. (I know, you don’t want to seem ungrateful, but another coffee mug? Really?!)

If Santa decided to go off-list for you, take heart that even the worst Christmas gift for you may be a reasonably serviceable birthday gift for someone else. That’s right, we’re talking about the greatest of holiday taboos: regifting. Some may frown on it, but a properly executed regifting prevents waste and saves you a trip to the store, which is more important than ever during a pandemic, so really you’re doing everybody a favor. The 2021 Regifting Guide for Writers will help you decide what to keep, what to give away, and how to do it without looking like a jerk.

Let the foisting begin!

  • Motivational posters: The implicit premise behind many writing-themed gifts is that writers are in an unceasing funk in which they have no ideas or inspiration. This is accurate, of course, but it’s kinda mean to broadcast it to everybody, right? Few gifts signal writers’ daily desperation as loudly as the motivational poster. Designed to fill writers with creative inspiration, writing-inspiration posters more often remind writers of all the writing they’re not getting done. Verdict: Regift it.
  • Notebooks: Cracking open a brand-new notebook fills writers with inspiration, and can be a fun way to kickstart a new writing project. Verdict: Keep it.
  • Pens: The most ubiquitous tool of any author, pens are portable, useful, and make a statement about your commitment to your craft (or that you snagged a promotional pen when you dropped off your suit at the dry cleaner). Writers get a lot of pens as gifts, some of which are impractical, fussy, or require a very spillable inkwell. However, there are few things more frustrating for a writer than not having a pen when you need one. Verdict: If it’s a fancy pen, keep it. If it’s a box of cheap, ordinary rollerball pens that will actually fit in your pocket, keep it and write a very nice thank-you card.
  • Writerly coffee mugs: If there’s one thing people know about writers, is that they’re always drinking coffee, unless they’re drinking alcohol. Coffee mugs emblazoned with statements like, “BE NICE TO ME OR I’LL PUT YOU IN MY NOVEL” and “I AM SILENTLY CORRECTING YOUR GRAMMAR” are popular gifts from folks whose friendship is good enough that they know you’re a writer, but not so close that they will read your work. While each author mug has a different catchy slogan, they all contain the same subtext: “I AM NOT PUBLISHED.” Verdict: Regift it to an unpublished friend.
  • Books about writing: On one hand, you can find writing advice anywhere, and the best advice of all is to simply write and read as much as you can. On the other hand, this is a writing-advice website, and I have contributed to that site’s writing-advice book. Verdict: Keep it, AND buy a few copies for your friends!

[Read more…]

+7

Strategies for Restarting a Cold Project

By 26 Comments

Do you have an unfinished writing project that you had to set aside before it was finished? Maybe life events intervened. Maybe you got stuck and shifted to a different project. Maybe you just decided to wait for another year when daily existence didn't suck the life and soul out of your creative energy. Do you think about whether or not to pick back up with that abandoned project and try to finish it? Restarting an unfinished project can be deceptively challenging, involving far more than … [Read more...]

What Gandhi Taught Me About Telling Stories that Mean Something

By 17 Comments

Surprise! We weren't supposed to be back to regular programming here at WU until tomorrow, but then Kelsey Allagood sent this gem to us. There aren't many free days at WU in 2021, but today was free and so here is a gem of a post for you to enjoy today. Before we get to that, though, please meet Kelsey: Kelsey Allagood (she/her) is a writer and trained political analyst specializing in the causes of war and systemic oppression. This background led her to begin writing fantasy fiction steeped in … [Read more...]

So Long, 2020

By 26 Comments

It's time for WU's annual hiatus, but I didn't want to close the year without taking a minute to reflect on what has been and what will come next. This has been a hard year for many of us. Some have lost loved ones, others have lost jobs. Many of us have experienced a level of sustained stress we're unaccustomed to living with, which has impacted our ability to focus on creating. If you've felt disappointment in your output this year, please join me in cutting us all some collective slack. This … [Read more...]

Work Wonders in 2021

By 19 Comments

Doing a Lick of It There are these people we call workaholics. You've met them, I've met them. We're not always kind about them. Generally, the options are pity and derision. Sometimes envy disguised as disdain. "Yes, she does 15 pages a day, but she's just a workaholic, you know. I'd rather have a life." "Yes, he had 12 newspaper op-eds about the book ready for submission before he'd turned in his last draft. What a ridiculous workaholic." "Sure that guy's already on his third … [Read more...]

Embracing the I-don’t-know-ness

By 24 Comments

I'm just one year shy of being 50 years old and I've been thinking a lot about a conversation I had with a coworker when I was in my early 20s. It wasn't really a conversation as much as it was this man (about 20 years older than me) telling me how people my age didn't know a damn thing and how when you got older (older like him), you'd finally know what was what. I remember how proud of himself he was. How much he enjoyed telling me this information. On my commute home, I remember thinking how … [Read more...]

Sherlock Holmes, Professor Moriarty, and Me

By 24 Comments

I doubt I’m the only Unboxer who has accepted an offer to write something while having no idea whatsoever how I was going to get the job done. The process of feeling my way from that conceptual blank page to something worth reading provides what is quaintly referred to these days as “a teachable moment.” Allow me to explain. Last fall, I was asked by Leslie S. Klinger and Laurie R. King if I would like to contribute something to their periodic anthology of stories based on Sherlock … [Read more...]

Unexpected and Long-Tail Gifts: You Never Know the Difference Your Book Might Make …

By 12 Comments

When we publish a book, we want it to be read. Obviously. But what else do we want? At the most concrete level, we want our book to be bought, liked, recommended, and reviewed. We want to see it on lists; we want lots of reviews (and stars) on Goodreads and Amazon. But we want something else, too—that connection with specific human beings who’ve been touched and changed by what we wrote. When I published Queen of the Owls, I wanted all of those things, and I got many of them. The book earned … [Read more...]

What’s New and What’s Not About Book Launches Now

By 17 Comments

Last year, when my editor let me know that my novel The Arctic Fury was set to release in December of 2020, I thought, That's great! Then as 2020 rapidly fell apart as we all struggled (and continue to struggle) through a worldwide pandemic, bitterly fought election season, and something like the implosion of a thousand standards we all once took for granted, I thought, Well, it kinda feels like 2020 may not be the best time to launch a new book into the world.And you know what? It's not. The … [Read more...]

When the Work Writes Itself: Nurturing the Automatic Writer

By 12 Comments

Sometimes I can physically remember what it was like, early on in my career – what it actually felt like in my body -- to write in those early days. The wiring was just starting to stitch my mind to my hands to the page to the structure of a story to its characters’ inner worlds – and mainly how gawky I was. Writing as a tiptoe, then galumphing, how unsteady I was word-by-word, how much of it was an intellectual practice, so self-aware. But even then, there were those moments when there was a … [Read more...]

Royalties: What This Writer Made, Once Upon One Time

By 35 Comments

So, Covid19, right? I thought I’d talk about something less stressful—money! What? … Oh. Yeah. For 1.222333222222111% of writers, things have been pretty golden. As for the rest of us 98.77766677777789% of writers, there are varying degrees of royalty money or not royalty money—honestly, I have vague ideas of what other writers’ royalties are but I always imagine many are doing just fine because they are wise and smart and savvy in their book-business—alternatively, I and a few others like me … [Read more...]

Translating Silence

By 6 Comments

These days, I find myself thinking about my ancestors. I have no idea what they may look like.  I happen to think they inhabit the air I breathe. They played many roles to get to me. This is a limited and relatively selfish perspective and yet it’s an important one to write about. I have a lot to unravel as a person that writes. My ancestors played a lot of roles. Some of those roles are fuzzy and unrelatable. I am more familiar with recent generations who are seemingly more linked to the … [Read more...]

Making Illustrated Video Talks as Part of Your Author Strategy

By 8 Comments

In this strange stay-at-home year, publicity and marketing for authors has been more difficult than ever. It’s not just that physical in-person launches, events, school visits and festivals have had to be cancelled, postponed or streamlined to be shifted online. It’s also harder to get publicity materials into the usual outlets, and social media has also seemed less receptive to the usual kind of book news. Book people generally have had to invent new ways of connecting with readers and … [Read more...]

Fiction Writing Contests Worth Your Time in Winter 2020

By 4 Comments

This contest submissions season covers deadlines from December 1, 2020 through February 28, 2021. Thanks to Literistic, Poets & Writers, Submittable Discover, and New Pages for many of these contests. This season includes less opportunities than usual as 2020 has slowed, rescheduled, or cancelled numerous publishing efforts that I’m aware of. Much like editors are looking for reasons to reject work, I want to focus on opportunities worth my time. Thus, my list of writing contests below … [Read more...]