Most of my income for 2024 came from ghostwriting memoirs for the niche-famous—people significant enough to have a Wikipedia page, but unless you’re into the thing they do, you’ve never heard of them. These books have relatively few but devoted buyers, subjects humble enough to care that those readers aren’t disappointed by a half-assed book,
I refer to Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer by Roy Peter Clark as “the sentence-writing book,” though the scope does expand after the first section, ending with general career advice. I’ve gifted dozens of copies and recommended it to every writer I know, whether they’re writing school papers, blog posts, business emails,
I want to thank the person who recommended Building Great Sentences: How to write the kind of sentences you love to read by Brooks Landon, not because I have much positive to say about it but because now I know who to blame for a lot of copy editors’ bald spots where they’ve ripped out
I worked in healthcare for 20 years. Half of that was in inpatient rehab and a prison clinic. I have always had a core belief that if someone is hurt, I should help them. If they called me a bitch or threw a chair at me or acquired their injury committing an act that would
Letters to Half Moon Street by Sarah Wallace is a delightful epistolary romance novel set in a queer-friendly Regency London, with magic. Reserved, bookish Gavin Hartford has been sent to London, ostensibly to manage some family business but mostly to get him out from under the same roof as his overbearing firstborn brother and his
I’ve basically been doing Revision 3.5 on the first half of the book, so there isn’t really “progress” to report. Because I write with continuity (threads of a scene weave through scenes before and after it, and some of those threads extend far), I can’t just pluck out a scene and be done with it.
According to Apple, their customers in the EU are not doing business with them but with me (someone explain why they’re taking 30% if I’m actually selling direct), and therefore my address and phone number must appear on each of my product pages. Needless to say, that won’t be happening. There are expensive solutions to
Halfway through this revision pass! Rejoice and/or weep per your personal “mid level of water in a glass” setting. Roughed in the Hero POV scene that replaces the one from a purged side quest. Managed to pull in his phobia, so it’s not quite completely disjointed. It’s in bad shape, but it serves its functional
Revision resumes with arrival at Big City 1. The story has been sparsely populated up to this point. There’s a shift of dynamic between having the run of the environment and having to work around people who have their own work to do and don’t give a damn about your problems, thank you very much,
Revision resumes with a potential turn-back point, which Heroine basically ignored in her mechanical trudge toward the next plot point. I had her slow down to acknowledge both certain death ahead and equally certain but postponed death if she turns back, then tapped both her conscience and a grudge as motivation to justify moving forward.