Anne R. Allen's Blog... with Ruth Harris
Writing about writing. Mostly.
Rejected? Maybe it’s not you. Today we’re celebrating Ruth Harris’s 13th blogiversary. Ruth joined this blog in June of 2011, and I know it wouldn’t have succeeded without her expertise, humor, and warmth. To celebrate, we thought we’d re-run Ruth’s very first post. It’s packed with wisdom that still applies today. How to Keep […]
Creativity wounds: the slings and arrows of outrageous criticism. by Anne R. Allen. A couple of weeks ago, Grant Faulkner, executive director of NaNoWriMo, wrote a short piece for Jane Friedman’s blog about what he calls “creativity wounds.” The post resonated with me. Oh, yeah, I know about creativity wounds! I have to admit that […]
Rejection and failure make you think of quitting? Be like Thomas Edison instead. by Ruth Harris Rejection can make us want to cry and/or break things but rejection is almost never personal and often has nothing to do with your book, either. The sting of rejection can be bullied into submission with a can-do, eff-you […]
Writing rules, rejection & why to forget them and have some holiday fun! Ruth Harris joined this blog five and a half years ago with a wildly popular blogpost on rejection. Because she worked as editor at a couple of Big Five Houses as well as being a New York Times bestselling author, she knows […]
Rejections. We all get them. In fact, there are only two things we can absolutely count on in the writing business: rejections and bad reviews. There’s no doubt rejections make us feel terrible. As Brian Doyle wrote in Portland Magazine and was quoted in Letters of Note, “To receive one is to instantly and all at once […]
I know. Rejections hurt. But they’re also a necessary part of your career as an author. So when you get your first one, give yourself time to feel the pain, then do something to celebrate. Maybe even print it out and frame it. Yup. You read that right. Congratulations! You now have the one thing […]
by Anne R. Allen Self-publishing has lost its stigma, and it’s the publishing path of choice for a lot of writers these days. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Or that everybody who self-publishes will succeed. Unfortunately, I’m seeing a lot of writers dive in head first without having a clue what they’re doing. Even long-time […]
