My local RWA hosted a workshop with Cherry Adair this weekend. She is one funny chica! She has no pretensions, fully admitting very little separates a NY Times best seller from a pre-published author. She had some great pearls of wisdom I thought I'd pass along:
- If you have been working on a book for longer than 9 months, you are working on the wrong book. That book is dead. Move on.
- Never hang around waiting for a sale or rejection. Get to work on the next book.
- The best humor comes from voice, not jokes.
- Publishers not only want a good writer, they want a prolific writer. The quicker you write, the better chance you have at selling. A competent writer who is punctual will get the slot over a fantastic writer who is slow and unreliable.
- Be very careful who you tell your story to. Our subconscious needs to tell the story. Every time you tell it, it dilutes it in your brain.
- Start scenes as late as you can, and end them as soon as you can. In other words, know what point you are trying to make, make it, and get out.
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3 comments:
Publishers not only want a good writer, they want a prolific writer. The quicker you write, the better chance you have at selling.
And therein lies my dilemma. I need time to write, but I have to work to pay the bills in the meantime, which means it takes longer to finish a book...
hehe
Ahem...HOW MANY BOOKS DO YOU HAVE COMING OUT THIS YEAR? I don't think you have a problem with production. :D
Glad to see you're all inspired and have hammered out a story with your editor. Can't wait to rearrange the shelves for your book when it hits Oz.
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