Alma Alexander's Blog

• Series of Miracles, Part 5

  March 16, 2010

  • A reader wrote to me with a series of questions on the writing life, the publishing universe, and everything. Here are some of the things I told her:Q: How did you find your agent? What are the lessons learned from getting the right agent? Does the agent represent solely your interests or that of the publisher and you? Flip to the Acknowledgments page of books that interest you. You will find, ...
  • Continue Reading » 0 Comments

• Writers write; readers read

  March 6, 2010

  • Depending on what writing bible you follow, there are only 3 real plots in the universe - or 12, or 37, or ONE. It doesn’t matter what the number is -- the basic idea is distilling EVERY book into its constituent parts But if you do that, you will reduce practically every book to the same set of criteria in the end. If you pick a book you love and one you loathe and put them both into a ...
  • Continue Reading » 0 Comments

• Series of Miracles, Part 4

  February 25, 2010

  • A reader wrote to me with a series of questions on the writing life, the publishing universe, and everything. I asked her permission to answer some of them here. How did you support yourself while you wrote? How did you manage fears about money? What other streams of revenue come from your book? Writing is a life, not a living. With a small handful of exceptions, no novelist has ever gotten ...
  • Continue Reading » 0 Comments