The Write Slice: Write or Wrong

So there is a lot of hype out there about the value or detriment of ebooks. And there are as many conflicting views as there are people.  There are some who say that ebooks will destroy the publishing industry because it will prevent customers from entering bookstores and not every book is available as an ebook. ( Stephen King has even taken this approach in his decision to delay the ebook edition of his new novel to help generate traffic into bookstores - because of course, he holds all power. Okay, okay, so he does.) You also have to consider that although the ebook price is generally lower, there are still many of the same costs - editing, the author's cut, the agent's cut, formatting, etc., etc. The only real difference in costs are the physical published pages. But consumers generally only see the published pages - which an ebook lacks - so they believe that an ebook price should be significantly cheaper. And when the publishing industry is only make 3% - 5% profit (rid

So I'm in the part of writing in my novel that is one of the most difficult parts. Yes, I'm revising (as I'm sure many of you figured out by the first sentence), but it's the type of revision right now that is so hard for me. I am using my current novel as a master's project as well, and I met with my committee about the first chunk of writing. Right now the main character, Anna, has a best friend named William. They have been friends for years, and my first draft had him basically as her mentor-friend. My committee suggested I capitalize on this friendship and add a love triangle to my story. They suggested that Anna did not have to feel any differently toward William, but that William could actually be in love with Anna and complicate her other relationship. I had never even recognized that as a possibility in my novel, and I recognized their advice would make a stronger novel, so I decided to do it. Now, here's the hard part: revising the big stuff. The

So my two-year-old is at the point in his development where he is connecting different concepts together as he learns to speak. I am constantly amazed at what connections he makes.  Like last night, we were driving in the car, and he was repeating phrases from the song that was playing. So he sang things like, "new day" after the line ended. Of course he only picks out the words he really knows and understands. One line ended with the word "change." So my sweet little two-year-old sang "Change." Then he tried it again connecting it with the only way he understands the word "change": "Change diaper!" in his little sing-songy voice. Talk about hysterical! So what does my son singing a song have to do with writing? Surprisingly, a lot. When we write, we are learning a new language, much like my two-year-old. We start out kind of slowly, doing a lot of observing and occasionally trying to mimic what we see. Then we start mimicking a lot

I met a gentleman a few weeks ago who gave me a great definition of a writer vs. an author. He said an author is a writer who has been published. Under that definition we are all writers. We all write, whether it is emails, grocery lists, blogs, poetry, novels, memos, etc. But we don't all consider ourselves writers. I have dabbled in poetry and a few other things for many of my growing-up years. But I have only recently begun to consider myself a writer (see my short essay " i am a writer "). So what made the difference? I did! When talking to my husband the other day, I realized the difference between most of us and those who consider themselves writers: it is all about how we think...literally. The difference for me occurred when I started thinking about my writing. I used to write for assignments mostly, but not for myself very often. I started really writing for myself with my first novel, Market Murder . I started trying to figure out how to make things work.