Tag: women writers
Sticking with It
When my contemporary YA novel, Wesley James Ruined My Life, hits bookshelves next July I will be 42 years old. Forty-two is not old (at least, I like to think it’s not!), but it did take me a bit longer than some to land a book deal. There are examples of authors who hits it […]
Writing the Unthinkable
When I first started to write, it was to escape. I longed, like a snorkeler, to slip beneath cool waters and linger below the surface of another world. Bangkok was a city burning on its fringes with protests, and I began by invoking these sights and smells. This grew into a novel, a portrait of […]
Why Would You Do That? Understanding Motivation
We ask a lot of our characters. We put them in situations where they must create magic, find love, battle terrorists, win back their crowns, navigate secret space portals, solve murders, and everything else we can imagine as writers. We also ask our readers to invest their time and money on the adventures of these […]
Courage, Take The Wheel
Starting Out I didn’t choose to be a writer. I think it’s that way with most writers; we emerge from the womb spinning stories and stringing together sentences. It’s something encoded in our DNA. When I was four years old, I wrote my first book, scribbled illegibly in dull pencil and bound with a stapler, […]
An Open Letter to Writers at Every Stage of Publishing
Dear Writer, Isn’t it amazing how we wake in the pre-dawn hours, or stay up well past midnight to write? We sit alone at our desks with our words, letting them flow as a plot unfolds. In time, a story transpires, a manuscript is finished, and a book published. Writing is a lonely, isolated road […]
The Good Wife Guide
Asparagus has its own breaking point, a place at which it will naturally snap when bent in half. Once this green spear breaks and rids itself of its unsavory bottom wonderful things are possible, roasted asparagus, grilled asparagus salad, asparagus frittatas . . .you get the idea. When one hits her own personal “bottom” they […]
Connecting With Writers In The Real World
Why joining a writing group is so important.. When I originally had the dream of becoming a writer it was back in the days when you could hide away in your garret with your typewriter, go under a clever pseudonym, and no one need ever know! These days the life of a writer is very […]
Planes, Trains, and Pitch Wars
Writing a novel is a bit like planning a trip to a far-flung destination. Now, bear with me–this isn’t an article on world-building or a pretty metaphor about how writing is a journey into the imagination. It’s like planning an actual trip. You do the work–you research hotels, read the guide books, make the reservations, […]
My Eight Book Deal
I can honestly say that I spent the first fifteen to twenty years of my writing life constructing stories that burned inside me but using characters I thought publishers and agents would like. Over the years the majority of rejections stated ‘we liked it but we just didn’t love it’. This comment caused me to […]
Women: Missing Voices In Science Fiction
My name is Jo Zebedee and I write science fiction. That’s Jo, not Joe. And, yes, I get the odd comment about why I’d want to write something like that, and how on Earth I got into such a genre (thankfully, less as time goes on.) To answer. I got into this crazy genre without […]
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