We all have preconceived notions about what we want to write.  Usually it closely echos what we read.  For myself, I’ve always read Science Fiction and Fantasy so that is what I try to write. But is that what I should be writing? Two years ago I wrote a story aimed at Juvenile Readers and I had a real blast doing it.  I truly enjoyed watching the characters develop right in front of my eyes.  There were scenes where I actually teared up and others where I laughed out loud. I suppose it was a fantasy of sorts, but it wasn’t the kind of fantasy that I read now.  Was I straying from what I SHOULD be writing? Not at […]

I’ve been looking for First Readers for a while for my adult work with little success but I really haven’t bothered with my young fiction.  I think part of the reason for that is I’ve been focusing too much on adult fiction.  I’m not sure why that is; I enjoy writing stories for a younger audience so why don’t I do more of it? That’s about to change. I had a couple of story ideas that really reached out and grabbed me by the collar.  Both ideas were for younger readers, one for age 9 – 12 and the other for young adults.  As soon as they hit me I jotted them down as I usually do and got on […]

You’ve got to be tough to be a writer.  If it isn’t the waiting for a publisher, editor or agent to get back to you about your work, you’re sweating over a deadline or receiving potentially unflattering reviews.  You might even be getting bad news. You hear the stories about writers who had to submit their work dozens (hundreds???) of times before they finally found the ‘One‘.  You know, the publisher who finally agrees to put their work in print. Hearing the stories and living them are two totally different things. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that I’ve submitted my stuff dozens of times or even a dozen times.  Still, each time I receive a rejection it’s another stone slamming […]

It was a sad day when I posted my final entry for StartingWriteNow.  I had been posting for almost two years and I was feeling a profound sense of loss.  Still, the SWN team came to a mutual agreement of sorts; we all realized that for the site to flourish it needed to evolve.  Unfortunately, none of us have the time to spend on that evolution right now. So the grand experiment ended… or at least has been put on hiatus. For me, dropping off the Internet is not really an option.  I have a book currently in front of a publisher and my fingers are crossed that they accept it.  If they don’t, I have two other publishers who […]