Words of Wisdom on Writing


10 Writing Rules from Elmore Leonard
drawing by Austin Kleon

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Hardcover v. Soft

I asked two questions over the last few days and Mark Terry was gracious enough to answer them. My question: Mark; I don't understand the dynamics of Hardcovers for new authors - the economics don't seen right. How can the book buying public be expected to shell out $25+ for an unknown author. Does it have to do with library sales? Why not trade paperbacks. It seems like the new author at least then has a fightling chance for someone to spend $10-$15 and everyone should still be able to make some scratch this way. John D. MacDonald, an author I admire and respect, put out most of his in mass market paperback. I have read where he made more money this way. Some were eventually published in hardcover, but most came out originally in paperback. What do you think? An Excerpt of his answer : Always a worthwhile question, RJ, and I wish I understood it. I suspect it's part prestige. The rest is probably library sales, which can be considerable, in that there's about 10,000 li...
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Blocked....The Mystery

Blocked. Not the type ruffage will clear. I haven't even been able to blog, write fiction, write anything for a while now. It woke me up at 4 a.m. today - I've written 2 paragraghs of fiction in the last couple of weeks. Why? Personal shit getting me down? Maybe. Story well run dry? Don't think so. Introspection? Yep. Soul searching? Yes. Fear? Na. Loathing? Yes. Yes. Yes. Fear? Maybe. Self doubt? Getting warm. Fear? Yep, you caught me. A writer I respect wrote me a long email after I whined to her. She said write 1000 words a day, even if it sucks the big hairy green one. Today I write. . .
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Unblocked and Writing Long Hand

I woke up his morning at 3:30 with a story idea. Afraid of losing it, I immediately wrote it out long hand. The words flowed. They were coherent. The story was actually pretty good. Later, I typed it out, edited a few mistakes, and printed it out. I plan on doing revisions in a few days and submitting it. I liked the process. Several months ago, I spoke briefly with Matthew J. Bruccoli about his edit of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Last Tycoon. I told him of my budding interest in writing and asked him for advice. One of his main points of guidance was to write everything out long hand first-pen or pencil and paper. He said writing on a word processor hurt style. I was skeptical, but after this morning, I think he may be right – at least for me. I think it was Hemingway who said that he wrote everything long hand, then typed it out (or had it typed), reviewed and made changes in draft form. Do you write first long hand? What do you think about the effect of the word processor as the point...
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