Anne R. Allen's Blog... with Ruth Harris
Writing about writing. Mostly.
by Ruth Harris Every writer has (at least) one— The trunk book The published bestseller to which the rights have reverted but which is showing its age The half-finished book, the abandoned book, the book—published or not—that fizzled The manuscript languishing on a hard drive or gathering dust under your bed The aargh draft aka […]
by Ruth Harris I’ve known and worked with a lot of professional writers over the years (decades). Some work first thing in the AM, others in the PM, some don’t get started until near midnight. Some write sober, some don’t. Some write on a computer, some on legal pads, and some write on tablets or […]
by Editor Jodie Renner Writing short stories is a great way to test the waters of fiction without making a huge commitment, or to experiment with different genres, characters, settings, and voices. Even if you’ve published a novel or two, it’s a good idea to try to release a few high-quality, well-edited short stories […]
by Anne R. Allen Ruth and I often get requests to censor our posts when a word or link or piece of news has offended somebody. We usually comply. We don’t want a minor distraction to interfere with our purpose—which is to share information about the writing business in a straightforward, lighthearted, encouraging way. But […]
by Ruth Harris I’m an Amazon #1 and million-copy NYT bestselling author published by Random House, Simon & Schuster and St. Martin’s. I was also an editor for over 20 years. I worked at Macmillan, Dell and Bantam and for a small but thriving independent paperback house, now defunct—not because of me. 🙂 I was also […]
by Anne R. Allen We are always hearing about authors who have phenomenal success with a “first novel.” I’m sure most writers fantasize about being that author sometime in our early careers. I sure did. But here’s what I didn’t know back then: the novels that are published first are rarely the first novel […]
by Melodie Campbell I was tickled when the big city (Toronto) library sought me out to do a workshop for aspiring writers on “Building Atmosphere”.“Sure!” I said. “Are you paying me?” I said. (Although not necessarily in that order.) They were, thankfully. And then the anxiety set in. (Cue the strident violins.) Was I the best […]
by Anne R. Allen “Be fearless… The world is filled with people who will be more than willing to give you self-defeating, negative advice. If you have a dream, the single most important question you must ask yourself is—how can you fulfill that dream? If your resources are very limited, that is not an excuse.” […]
by Ruth Harris Good guy/gal or bad guy/gal, the super spy, the nutcase, the grunt who saves his battalion, the alcoholic teacher who can’t save herself but rescues her class from a typhoon, the jihadist with a heart of gold, the whore with a heart of coal, the psychotic, psychopathic, and just plain psychic […]
by Anne R. Allen Ruth and I like to say we made all the writing and publishing mistakes so you don’t have to. I figure that personally I’ve collected nearly the full set of authorial faux pas since I embarked on a writing career. Here’s a list of some of the things I wish I […]
by Ruth Harris As Anne and I looked back at the blog for the past year, a portrait emerged highlighting the themes and subjects that interested you most. We were intrigued by these clues about what was on our readers’ minds in 2014 and thought you’d be interested, too. So here are the […]
We have a special post for the holidays, compiled by freelance editor M. J. Bush. I first met M. J. when she included Ruth and me in one of her great quote compilations: “99 Essential Quotes on Character Creation”. I appreciated all the work that went into her post and asked if she’d like […]
by Anne R. Allen Maybe you’ve just finished that NaNo novel and you know you want to publish, so you’d like to get a head start while you slog through the editing process.Or you’ve been writing for a couple of years, you’ve published some short pieces, and you’ve got maybe two novels in […]
Anne R Allen’s Blog With Ruth Harris