the writing life | the writing life
May.07.2013
The Moment I Was Almost On TV: A woman at a TV station about an hour from me got in touch to say she wanted to interview me on a particular Friday in August – hey, I wanted that too! But a few days before the event, I began itching all over and breaking out in little red spots, so I went to the...
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May.03.2013
The Moment I Was Glad I Hadn’t: Most published writers know the moment. Your book is out there, it’s up on Amazon, a nasty review pops up, or there aren’t enough reviews, or you have plenty of reviews but you’re greedy and just want one more, and you think to yourself, ‘I’ll just post a...
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May.02.2013
The Moment One Person Showed Up: So there I was, on my way to doing an event at the local Barnes and Noble, which had asked me to come. [It feels important to emphasize that they asked me, I didn’t ask them, so I can’t be accused of bringing this on myself.] I’d already done several events...
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May.01.2013
The Moment My Books Were Returned To Me: So there I was, doing one of my first signings at the Borders in Danbury. Before signing, I was giving a talk and reading, taking questions. A few minutes into the event, my daughter, three years old at the time, began doing a curious thing. One by...
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Apr.27.2013
As I've written before on this blog, anger is one of my negative emotions of choice. As far back as I remember, I've struggled with feelings of anger at the world around me and a tendency to get easily and intensely frustrated.
Fortunately, in recent years, much of that struggle has eased. I move...
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Apr.26.2013
The Moment I Realized a New York Times Ad Wasn’t Everything: When I found out my publisher had taken out an ad for The Thin Pink Line in the New York Times Book Review, I thought: How exciting! Then I saw it. I’m sure there must be a technical term for what happens when a single page in a...
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Apr.25.2013
The Moment I Realized A Publicist Wasn’t Everything: I’d heard that having an independent publicist could really help, so I was thrilled that my publisher had hired one for three months to work on The Thin Pink Line. Here’s the thing, though: The publicist was late in the final trimester of her...
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Apr.24.2013
The Moment I Got Burned By Ann Coulter: My publisher had hired an independent publicist and that publicist called me up to say People magazine was interested in reviewing The Thin Pink Line – People magazine! How exciting was that? But to run the review, she said, they needed a picture of me...
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Apr.23.2013
The Moment I Realized I Wasn’t A Star: My first signing at Book Expo America saw me signing 200 copies of The Thin Pink Line. But my second signing on the next day? I was in the – blare of trumpets heralding important capitalization! – Main Autographing Area. For those who haven’t been to...
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Apr.22.2013
The Moment I Thought I Was A Star: My very first book signing at BEA was in my publisher’s booth. Over the course of an hour, I must have signed about 200 books. Two hundred books! Imagine if that happened at every book signing in my career, I thought – I’d be rich! Obviously, I was on my way to...
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