Writing Your First Book

An interesting collection of writers talk about publishing their first books.

Find it here.

A Pulitzer Prize Winner Shares Some Tips

These tips are a bit more high-minded and abstract than, say, Elmore Leonard's tips, but they are valuable. 

Here they are.

From Pixar, Some Great Advice to Keep In Mind

Here's a link to a wonderful Power Point presentation about writing.  It hits some key storytelling ideas. 

Talent, IQ and the Secret to Success

In Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers he gives many examples of a phenomenon I've also witnessed in my own students over the years, and in my readings of the biographies of great writers.  Gladwell puts it fairly succinctly.  For someone to reach a level of competency in almost any field, sports, academia, dance, painting, blue collar jobs, an apprenticeship of roughly 10,000 hours is required.  That equals roughly 10 years of hard work, committed, focused, trying and failing and trying again to learn your chosen craft.

For me the corollary to this is:  If you're going to stick with something for ten years, you better be having a lot of fun doing it along the way.


Check out this video which approaches the same issue from a slightly different point of view.

A Suspense Writer Talks About Openings (Youtube video)

Here's a link to a YouTube video by Libby Hellman with some excellent comments about beginnings.

Prose: Lean and Mean, What Script Writers Can Teach Us

Here's an interesting article on ways that studying the highly disciplined art of script writing can  help improve fiction writing.

What script writers can teach us.

An Agent Puts Together a Thorough Advice Page with Several Links

Good agents know the ever changing publishing business.  When they share their opinions and ideas, it's a good idea to listen.  (of course with your crap detector on full alert)

Here's an Excellent Business Advice Page