Fiction Notes

Tag: writer

  • Storing up LIFE to Write About Later

    This week, I have been Frederick. The classic children’s book talks about a mouse who watches all the other mice gather seeds and grains for the winter, storing them away for the cold days. Frederick is a gatherer, too, but he gathers the sights, sounds, tastes, smells and feel of summer. When dreary days of […]

  • Poland: A Writer’s Vacation

    I just got home from ten days in Europe and I am ready to write. Why? Because getting out of my writing cave makes me bump up against people, against history, against emotional struggles. One place we visited is a memorial for the Belzec (Bee AWA zhek) Death Camp in eastern Poland, the first and […]

  • What Next? 15 Questions to Help you Decide Your Next Writing Project

    I was lucky enough to get an Advanced Reader Copy of Chip and Dan Heath’s new book, DECISIVE: How to make better choices in Life and Work. You may know the Heath brothers from their previous books, SWITCH: How to Change Things When Change is Hard and MADE TO STICK: Why Some Ideas Survive and […]

  • Author Bios: Concise, Relevant and Fascinating

    When you write an author bio, what you include depends on, well, you. Bio for Query Writing a query letter requires a compressed bio of just a couple sentences. Here, you want to touch on the highlights of your career. I might write: Published in eight languages, I have books with Greenwillow/Harpercollins, Philomel/Penguin, Houghton Mifflin […]

  • Writers Must Be Readers

    What comes out depends on what goes in. Garbage in, garbage out. Literature in, literature out. But what if there’s nothing going in? I’ve been reading less lately and it shows in less coming out. Well, that’s not strictly true. I’ve been reading, but mostly internet articles, websites, blogs–not books. This week, though,I’ve read two […]

  • Advice to a Beginner

    Writing for Kids? It’s easy, right? Recently, I’ve talked to several beginners and here’s some of the most common advice I give. Main Character to Relate to and Identify With What age are you writing for? Adults? Then, you need an adult main character. Teens? Then, you need a teen main character. Elementary age kid? […]