I like the number ten. It’s a good number in terms of measurement.
It’s a decade, for one. An achievement by which we recognize milestone birthdays, for another. In the metric system, multiples and fractions of units are expressed as powers of ten of each unit. Unit conversions are always simple because they are in the ratio of ten, one hundred, one thousand and so on.
It began innocuously enough.
The setting aside of writing time for all the demands of the season.I was not to know the full repercussions of this decision until weeks later.
Way back in December, I found myself immersed in the Read more
If ever I am asked which I would choose to be without in my life, books or music, it’d be a close call (although for the record, I’d keep books in my life over music!).
I’ve always thought music and literature were closely linked. I might even go so far as to suggest they’re lovers. Music, at least the kind with lyrics (and a strong case could be made for instrumental music as well), is really about stories. A song is a story. A song is about people or characters and what happens to them. Sound familiar?
Deadlines. Lately it seems I’m always working towards tight deadlines. They’ve never really been my forte. I think the issue is that I’m often terrible at gauging how long things will take and usually estimate low. This leaves me stressed and scrambling at the last minute. Maybe I just secretly enjoy the stress. Read more
By Tracey Richardson
This summer has been hard on my nerves. And I don’t think I’m alone.
Global tragedies have abounded, starting with the shooting deaths of 49 people at a gay club in Orlando in June. In early July, five Dallas police officers were assassinated by a gunman who wanted to avenge a couple of high profile police shootings of black men in the United States. A week after that, it was the vehicular rampage in Nice, France, that killed almost 100 people. On the immediate heels of that tragedy came a bloody coup d’etat attempt in Turkey. Read more
Last week, I jumped into my “big girl” pants and bravely marched into New York City like I owned the place (even though I was really just a scaredy-pants writer) and attended my first Thrillerfest Conference. What an amazing week! This was easily the BEST writing conference I’ve ever attended. The writing workshops and panels filled with talented famous authors were incredible, as was my added bonus of attending a whole day workshop at FBI Headquarters.
During the week, the International Thriller Writers hosted a special event on Thursday afternoon called Pitchfest. Imagine between 300 to 400 writers who anxiously want an agent to represent them for their yet-to-be published novel, all standing in somewhat of a meandering line in the hallway outside of the five ballrooms on the third floor of the Grand Hyatt Hotel. It’s a huge crowd and it seriously makes your tummy queasy, just thinking about elbowing these people out of the way to talk to an agent, who will probably hate your idea anyway and say: “No. I’m not interested in your novel.”
All I could think about was trying not to cry, when I got rejected. Read more
I decided to hire an editor for my story, The White Witch. This is my book I’ve been obsessed with writing and rewriting for many years. I’ve had friends read earlier drafts giving me wonderful feedback and comments. I’ve done many, many edits. I felt I had arrived at a destination where the story was done but not complete; kind of like finishing a dinner but wanting to stick around for dessert and coffee. And I wanted a professional.
After all, I have devoted thousands of hours to this book. It deserved the best.
I did my research. How to hire an editor? I first had to decide what kind of editing I wanted. Did I want a broad view such as a manuscript evaluation to provide comments on story structure, character development, pacing, consistent POV, dialogue and description? Or a line by line substantive edit to help fix my grammar and sentence structure? Sometimes there’s a combination of the two or a third option of a final copy edit.
I decided upon a manuscript evaluation rationalizing that if there were major story structure flaws or characters to fix, I might end up re-writing several scenes so no point in nitpicking my verb tenses (yet).
Writers spend a lot of time talking about how much they love to write. And so they should! Writing is a tremendously gratifying, passionate pursuit that feeds our souls.
But writing is also hard. And lonely. It’s sometimes emotional and often angst ridden. But let’s not dwell on the more challenging aspects of our calling. Read more