It’s NaNoWriMo again! And since many of you have QUESTIONS, I decided to take an hour away from THESE REVISIONS I AM DOING to answer them.
aryanaazari asks: what is NaNoWriMo? Everyone talks about it and I don’t get it.
NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. It takes place every November. The challenge is to complete a [...]

aMissingSignal asks: How can one afford to be a writer?
I’m not trying to be twee here, I promise, or give that greeting-card-sweet writing advice that causes me to twitch and strike my teeth together, but I honestly believe that you should go “into” writing only if you feel you have no choice—like you can’t afford [...]

There’s a golden rule in writing, one so taken for granted that people often don’t even talk about it. It’s simple: never, ever, ever, ever, ever respond to a negative review. Ever. I mean, you can if you really want to. No one is going to ARREST you if you do. But you are going [...]

I have conveyed my hatred of graduation speeches before, but there was one graduation speech I heard that actually meant something to me. When I was at the School of the Arts at Columbia, the great philosopher Bill Murray came and spoke to us.
The gist of his speech was: “Look, people thought I was [...]

Snowaeris asks: What do you suggest for those of us with very large final papers who are getting writer’s block (and procrastinating by reading BEDA Blogs)?
There is an expression, “Hunger is the best sauce.” I have a corollary: “Deadlines are the greatest inspiration.”
No great paper was ever written on a timely schedule. Forget everything [...]

My beloved agent, Daphne Unfeasible, was just in town. She has left her mountain outpost where she controls her empire, Unfeasible Enterprises, and came to the big city to visit me (and some other people, but I like to think she is just here to see ME).
I told Daphne about Blog Ever Day April, and [...]

In my last post, I asked you if you had any questions about books. Today, I have tried to answer just a few of the questions that came in. They were all excellent, but I ended up going on and on and on about a few. Feel free to chime in! Everyone can chat in [...]