As has been pointed out in song some time ago, “The times, they are a-changing.” Before the feminist movement, it was automatic for someone to write “he” when referring to a person of non-specific gender. That person might as easily be a woman (or girl), but as long as it wasn’t a definite reference to...
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Are You A Character In A Novel?
I was talking to a fellow writer recently. We were debating the merits of a novel he proposed to write—a prequel to one he’d already written. He thought to base the female protagonist on one or the other, or a combination of both, of two women he had known well in the past. He knew...
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Self-Publishing Turns Respectable
Time was when companies that helped authors publish their own books were known as “vanity presses” or “vanity publishers,” and when having a book published by one of these companies didn’t count as “real” publishing. Vanity presses were almost entirely the bastion of inferior authors, who couldn’t get a “real” (that is, legitimate, mainstream, conventional)...
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Bad Advice
One of the cardinal rules pounded into writers, especially new writers, is “Write about what you know.” I call bullshit on that.
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An Interview With…Myself
On the heels of my interview with Troy Fohrman two weeks ago, I had the novel idea to interview myself this week! Here it goes. Q: You write these blogposts every week and have had a number of books published by Roundtable, but who are you? A: I’m a multi-published full-time freelance writer/editor, with over...