the writing life | the writing life
May.18.2013
The Moment I Got Agent 5: An agent read Z: A Novel and fell in love with Zorro, which I appreciated. A comedy writer shouldn’t laugh at her own jokes, nor should she boast about her own creation, but I couldn’t help it, I was in love with Zorro too. So when Agent 5 offered to represent me,...
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May.17.2013
I was tempted to title this post “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner,” because that’s exactly how I’m feeling this week.
When I’m writing for print publication, I become a very careful writer. I hone my prose. I go for precision. It’s the way I was taught, by writers like David Jauss, Sue...
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May.17.2013
The Moment I Wrote Even Faster: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald has long been my favorite novel by a dead author. I was reading it for the umpteenth time when the thought occurred to me that I’d like to do my own re-visioning of it, only mine would be a contemporary comedy-drama...
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May.16.2013
The Moment I Let Agent 4 Go: At one point, my publisher had asked if I’d write a short story for their website as a freebie for readers, a promotional incitement. They were willing to pay me three thousand dollars for it. So I did. If you don’t know much about the story market, back in...
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May.14.2013
I am getting ready to send my current novel out into the world, so I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the process of submission. I don’t mean just the physical process of manuscripts, cover letters, and plot synopses, but the emotional process. The complex mass of conflicting feelings writers...
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May.14.2013
The Moment I Realized Something Was Wrong: Crossing the Line was about to pub and I noticed a strange thing – there were no reviews from the pre-pub trade magazines. This struck me as strange. Not every book gets reviewed by any means, but I had been a reviewer for one of the pre-pub trades...
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May.13.2013
I’m putting a few finishing touches on my young adult fantasy novel, and soon the work I’ve been laboring over for four years will be on its way to my agent, so naturally, I’m worried I’m going to die.
I do this every time I wrap up a long-term project. I start getting scared that, before I...
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May.13.2013
The Moment I Realized Just How Great Adriana Trigiani Is: I was at Book Expo America in late Spring 2004 because Crossing the Line was due to be published in a month or so. Scheduled to do a signing in my publisher’s booth in an hour, I was part of a long line waiting to have Adriana...
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May.11.2013
The Moment I Wrote A Book Really Fast: So it was the end of August and I needed to come up with and write a book that was due to be published 11 months later. That’s when I had my epiphany. Having never intended to write a sequel to The Thin Pink Line, which to me had completely addressed...
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May.10.2013
The Moment The Royal Family Screwed Me Over...Again: Book 1 was out, it was the end of summer and we were working on getting Book 2 ready for the following July, Book 2 being Falling for Prince Charles, my alternative-universe romantic comedy about a Jewish cleaning lady who falls in love...
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