Yesterday I helped an author who was stuck Not with his writing, but with publishing his book. He’d gone on a vacation road trip with iPad only, because ‘it can do everything.’ Only he found that it can’t. At least not easily. And not always correctly when it comes to what Amazon needs. Swiss Army Knives are great Yes, they’re handy in a…

Have you got the Skype Sweats? Are you cringing at the thought of yet another virtual writing conference over video? — Video chats have been a blessing the last year or so, but I’m sure you’ve also noticed how much you also fricken’ HATE them. And way more than you should, because, hey, it’s just a video chat. I’ve been video chatting daily for over ten years My wife and I have been using Zoom, Skype, and other video messaging apps, for well over ten years now.

and the quarantine it rode in on — Knowing that William Shakespeare wrote King Lear during his own quarantine can leave a modern-day author feeling… inadequate. This is a slightly edited email in response to a fellow author who was going through some stuff. Re: Are you feeling the pressure, too? Hey, thanks for writing. And solidarity. While I never expected to have a King Lear on my hands, I also didn’t expect to feel so un-creative. …

It’s the final days, and we don’t even know we’re going to miss it — In ‘07 I still had TV. No, I’m not one of those “I don’t have a TV” people. I do have a TV, but like many people in 2021, I don’t have TV service. In 2007 I was already lamenting the upcoming death of the shared experience that theaters and TV enabled and that DVDs and…

Yes, we can learn from the daily grind, even when we’d much rather forget — I’ve worked with a lot of authors. I’d have worked with even more if all of them showed up for our appointments. 😏 I know, everyone misses calls at some point, including me. Stuff happens, but it’s surprising how often someone misses our call and says “I forgot” and does nothing about it. Turns out most of them didn’t have it on their calendars.