Anne R. Allen's Blog... with Ruth Harris
Writing about writing. Mostly.
Today’s guest post is from one of my favorite authors, Ruth Harris. She’s a bestselling author–and a former Big Six editor and publishing executive who has gone over to the indie side. She knows what she’s talking about. Her sales numbers are in the millions. Her fiction has been translated into 19 languages, published […]
by Anne R. Allen I have a confession to make. My high school nickname was “Zombie.” The moniker was intended as an insult, but I loved it. I dressed in black, dyed my hair a dead ash color and wore ghastly white lipstick. I was goth before goth was cool. My senior year, my family […]
By Anne R. Allen When you start a writing project, whether you’re diving into the intensity of NaNoWriMo, or just carving out a few hours to peck away at the keyboard on weekends, it helps to get emotional support from friends and family. But be prepared for the opposite. Some people in your life […]
by Anne R. Allen I’ve had a lot of great responses to last week’s post about dealing with less-than-helpful criticism from beta readers and critique groups. I think my favorite was a Steinbeck quote offered by freelance editor (and great blogger) Victoria Mixon: “I am never shy about it when a professional is doing […]
by Anne R. Allen Sometime during your query process, you’ll get a request for a partial or full manuscript (yay!) But this time it comes with a request for an exclusive read (not so yay.) It happened to me about a year ago. I really wanted to work with the agent, but it would […]
by Anne R. Allen I know this is a blog on writing, but I’m going to talk this week about Marxism: Groucho Marxism. The Groucho Marxist manifesto is, to paraphrase the great Julius Henry Marx himself— “I DO NOT CARE TO READ A BOOK WRITTEN BY A PERSON WHO WOULD ACCEPT ME AS A […]
There’s been some discussion on other blogs about some of my statements about how publishers label things. Please know I’m just the messenger—I don’t condone those one-size-fits-all categories any more than other writers. Catherine Ryan Hyde, author of Pay it Forward weighed in by directing me to a blogpost in her blog archives about the […]
by Anne R. Allen Recently I cautioned against scam agents, but also noted that the ratio of legit agents to newbie novelists is approximately one to twenty-five gazillion. So what do we do—throw mass queries at big-name agents, perhaps employing the services of a Mafia henchperson or Voodoo practitioner? That would be a […]
by Anne R. Allen Early into our journeys in wordsmithing, most writers discover our chosen art form has a major drawback: everybody’s a *&@! critic. For some reason, folks who happily offer praise to fledgling musicians, quilters, sculptors, or Star Trek action-figurine painters, feel compelled to launch into scathing critiques of the efforts of […]
