I finished reading Louis L’Amour’s memoir Education of a Wandering Man last week in the spare moments when I wasn’t writing or doing...

As readers of this blog already know, I tend to prefer reading nonfiction over fiction. But they also know that I’m trying to break out...

The wheels of the publishing machine often turn slowly, especially when an author is awaiting an editor’s response to a submission or the...

Beyond the fact that it was a work of fiction, which I seldom read (but have been trying to open myself to more often), it had a...

Perhaps you recall the famous lines about “the best laid plans of mice and men.” Often, the flow of “normal” life events tends to...

The lyrics of Joni Mitchell’s song include the repeated phrase “I’ve looked at life from both sides now.” In his poem “The Road Less...

#reading #teaching #writers #books #publishing

The children of those early settlers either established farms (often quite large ones), towns, and cities or pressed further west to do...

Recently, I did something I seldom do but that I have determined to do more often: I read a novel. I’m glad I did. Modern society is...

A writer’s work is never done, even during vacations. If a writer is not looking for ideas, then he or she is doing research, people...

But that painting, “Snap the Whip,” was more than a sanity-maintainer for me. It reminded me of three special people: my grandfather, my...

Sometimes great writers have some interesting advice and insights about the craft of writing (and many other topics). Here are a few...

A number of years ago, my wife and I were returning from a trip up north and were cruising along somewhere down I-75 in Ohio. We had a...

I recently completed an eight-part series answering the question “How does one go about getting a book published?” Some of my writer...

(Eighth and final in a series) Having gotten a workable idea, done the necessary research, outlined the manuscript, written the first...

(Seventh in a series) Once you’ve found several potential publishers for your book, it’s time to “pitch” it to them. By “pitch,” I mean...

(Sixth in a series) In the preceding five installments of this series, I’ve been answering the question of how one goes about getting a...

[The fifth in a series.] Congratulations! You’ve finished writing your rough draft. Now what? Ship (or e-mail) it to a publisher? Whoa!...

[The fourth in a series.] At some point in our research for our book idea, we must decided that we have gathered enough (or, more likely,...

[The second in a series.] Once an idea comes, it must be developed before it can have any prospect of becoming, by and by, a book. This...