Read Lovely Books
When art intersects with business, all you get is a catastrophe
Wouldn’t it be nice if great writers were recognized? Wouldn’t it be nice if people
It would be nice if I could snap my fingers and lose 20 pounds (sign up for my
For the sake of your legacy as a writer consider what it would mean if traditional publishers
What if everything you’ve ever been told about what makes a great novel is a complete
People like to refute this assessment, but you’ll notice the rebuttal arguments are often based on
People like to assume that American capitalism makes billionaires out of brilliant businessmen
For some reason, the general population disregards how much money the government shovels out to assist struggling
Let’s put aside all the bother of proving that traditional publishers are deliberately incompetent and just,
Perhaps much of what is commonly accepted as good writing advice is nothing more than a pack
The question then becomes: how do we write something that’s actually good?
This should blow your mind a little bit, but stop and consider it
The book was entertaining, but it was one of those “paint by numbers” books
It was like somebody typed a bunch of parameters into an AI generator in the hope that
“Vampires are big right now, it’s your job to anticipate the trend that will follow vampires
Does anyone else feel that agents and publishers work off a checklist? The book must have:
It will have everything but the heart and soul that turns a novel into a work of
When one of your books gets adapted into a movie, you show enough profit that people can
You want to write something Steven Spielberg will get excited about
What that means is that you shouldn’t turn over a thousand page manuscript
You shouldn’t create a world with such a complex mythology that you need to provide forty
I remember reading The Two Towers and thinking, “Where the heck is Frodo? Isn’t he the
Shouldn’t we be jumping back and forth from the various narratives so we have a more
Well, if you’re worried about what the audience thinks… I guess
My criticisms of The Lord of the Rings came from before I knew anything about writing
Now, if we could only get the writing industry to understand that as well…
It’s kind of alarming how the majority of classic books violate almost everything traditional publishers urge
I picked up Bram Stoker’s Dracula a couple weeks ago and it was almost laughable
I’ve never read it, but I’ve heard it said that the book is unfilmable
Give me a book that expands my consciousness and transforms the way I perceive reality forever
If you’re writing a book that can be turned into a movie, then you’ve already
It is better when storytellers are allowed to go off on digressions
Stories don’t get better when some deranged editor comes at them with a katana leaving you
I don’t care if the book will become “less profitable” if the page count is higher
Why can’t we see that the intersection of art and business as represented by the traditional
It’s designed to control access to what stories are available (DUH!)
Quit ignoring the works of real human beings with an actual story to tell
When we go back to an oral tradition, it will mean the rebirth of literature
Every writer has had the experience of returning to a favorite book only to find the lines
This happens because you dwell on the situation the author created both in your sleeping and waking
The evidence is that once you, the author, get the story to the level where people take
Once you’ve tapped into the collective consciousness, you’ve succeeded
These days I am too tired from work to read for leisure, so I listen to audiobooks
Then you get into your house and your partner is there, and when s/he talks, all
“It’s way more profitable for us to distribute it in that manner!”
“Every line in every book must share an equal part of the burden of bringing the narrative
It’s about maintaining a mental state of peace and satisfaction for as long as possible
If you think words are “wasted” or “unnecessary” then you have a fundamentally flawed perspective on how
There are various “author” groups in my community and I can’t stand to be around them
They’ve all pulled strings they all have literary titles like “writer in residence” or “poet laureate
” They all drive $80,000 cars and live in million dollar homes
They laugh at peasants like me who adopt dogs from a shelter
Flocks of students follow them wherever they go hoping for a hint of how they can follow
If they actually knew what was good, they wouldn’t have steered their ship right into the
The people who truly know something are the ones that have to endure a lifetime of struggle
They don’t have any answers, but they tell way more interesting stories