ON RESURRECTING AN ICONIC CHARACTER

Guest Blogger: Eric Van Lustbader I wrote THE NINJA in 1980 and it became an immediate worldwide sensation, ultimately spending twenty-four weeks on the NEW YORK TIMES bestseller list. The book was picked up by 20th Century Fox to be made into a film. Five more novels featuring the protagonist, Nicholas …

Continue reading

The Magic Pencil

When I was young, I’d look at a pencil and think it was magical. I imagined all the words the pencil could write, all the stories it could create. Then I thought of all the magic pencils out in the world and all the books they had written. I wanted …

Continue reading

4 Things Every Writer Needs

Every writer has his or her own needs. It could be a quiet place to write or music to inspire the words. It could be a pen and paper or a computer, or even a tape recorder. It could be a jar of M & M’s or a jug of …

Continue reading

What to Do When You’re Stuck (Or How Scorpion Deception Almost Didn’t Get Created)

Guest Blogger: Andrew Kaplan You know you’re in trouble when you’ve got a contract to write the next book in a popular series (OK, not top of the NY TIMES bestseller list popular, but Bookscan and Amazon top 20 popular), a looming deadline, and you don’t have an idea in …

Continue reading

Tomorrow Is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life

Guest Blogger: Jenny Milchman As I write this, a journey of thirteen years is going to come to an end, and another trip is about to start. It took me eleven years to find a publisher for my debut novel, and twenty-one months after that to ready the book for …

Continue reading

A Long Journey To Publication For A Story About Immortal Love

Guest Blogger: Alma Katsu Even though my first novel, THE TAKER, wasn’t published until last year, I’ve been writing on and off my entire life. However, my career in intelligence (yes, I worked for CIA) made it hard to pursue publication and I stopped writing for a long time. Then …

Continue reading

Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones … The Power of Words

Guest Blogger: Jaime Rush Okay, it may be the writer in me, but I love the idea that words have real power. That old kid’s saying was wrong—“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” Words can hurt. How many times have we been hurt …

Continue reading

Go Ahead, Watch TV and Movies

Guest Blogger: Martha Brockenbrough When I was growing up, my mom would let us know when—in her view—we’d had too much fun. My brothers and sisters and I jokingly called it TMF or “exceeding the fun quotient.” Mom used to feel the TV for telltale signs of warmth when she …

Continue reading

4 Points to a Successful Writing Collaboration

Guest Bloggers: Angie Brenner and Joy E. Stocke A good companion shortens the longest road. — Turkish proverb “Why Turkey?” is the first question we’re often asked when we talk about our travels and collaborative memoir ANATOLIAN DAYS & NIGHTS. What seems obvious to us after visiting the four corners of …

Continue reading

The Deep Zone Proves It: Reality Is Fantastic Enough

Guest Blogger: James M. Tabor I know that vampires and werewolves and zombies—oh my!—are all the rage now, but I’ve never felt the need to step over the line from reality to fantasy, or wherever those things live. Reality is plenty fantastic in its own right, as the real events …

Continue reading