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In The Telegraph, Sam Leith explains how to write a successful stocking-filler bookhow to write a successful stocking-filler book.

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I’ve never really understood writer’s block. Or, at least not in the middle of a project. Typically my problem is being unable to stop ideas. I seem to have an obsessive-type of focus that comes when I’m really into something. In graduate school, I was writing a collection of short stories for my master’s thesis. [...]

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There’s a good interview with Chuck Palahniuk in the October issue of Writer’s Digest. The Fight Club author makes some suggestions that are useful to us all. When interviewer Jordan E. Rosenfeld asks how he knows an idea can support a novel, Palahniuk responds, “It’s usually a premise that I can present in a short [...]

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I had a soccer game with a late kickoff this evening. I’m getting too old for playing soccer at 11pm on a school night. We ended with a tie, and were happy with that result since we faced a pretty strong club. But I’m going to be dying tomorrow because I have a really early, [...]

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I wholeheartedly advocate blogging for writers. The regular routine of having to pound out some words, even when you’re not inspired, is invaluable for developing discipline and creativity. But, there are some dangers. Some writers feel that blogging drains too much creativity and hinders their “real” writing. Others feel that blogging can absorb so much [...]

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Use a self-addressed, stamped-postcard. I know, I know. You’re thinking, “In addition to the freaking SASE, now I gotta fool around with a stinking postcard!” But it’s a good idea if you just can’t stand the possibility of the mailman stealing your manuscript for his bathroom reading. Here’s the deal… Some authors, leery of our postal service’s invulnerability [...]

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  Miss Snark offers advice on writing hooks in query letters.

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  I’ve become one part therapist, two parts bartender, and one part strategist. Loyal Slushpile.net readers email me to ask about getting this or that author to assist in their quest for publication. “All he has to do is give my manuscript to his editor!” one exasperated emailer exclaimed. “He’s got an agent, a book deal, [...]

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  I’ve been a fan of The Kenyon Review for some time now. In addition to publishing the best of contemporary literature, the journal now has it’s own blog. The blog provides reading that is as worthy as the journal and they recently posted an entry that is near and dear to my heart: Notes [...]

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  Maud Newton noticed this unusual bit of writing advice from the late Charles Willeford: “Never allow yourself to take a leak in the morning until you’ve written a page. That way you’re guaranteed a page a day, and at the end of a year you have a novel.”

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Peter Selgin edits Alimentum: The Literature of Food and, like most editors, he has a few bones to pick with the folks who fill up his mailbox. His article, The X Files: Confessions of a Cranky Lit-Mag Editor appears in the May/June 2006 issue of Poets & Writers. In the piece, Selgin offers some worthwhile advice [...]

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In a post some months ago, I wrote about Nicholas Delbanco’s great ideas concerning imitation of the fiction masters. In his essay, Delbanco argues that copying the greats can be an incredibly educational experience. I recently came across the same concept, this time in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Steering the Craft: Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the [...]

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  From Carolyn See’s Making a Literary Life: “Revision is when you first get to recognize the distance between what you wanted to write, what you thought you were writing, and what you actually did write. That recognition often makes you want to throw up.”

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We all know that turning point, the key moment, maybe it’s the climax, maybe we call it the crucial moment, or maybe we just leave it unnamed, but we all know it should be there. That pivot in your story whene a character faces a hinge in his life and nothing will ever be the same. [...]

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