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THE MUSE WAS HERE.

That’s what she would have tattooed across my forehead. In Black Ink, but then deciding to go back and change the font style to something Celtic although I don’t have a drop of Irish blood in me.

She’s forceful and doesn’t give a damn about my personal life, my work life or the fact that the holidays were just around the corner and I had shopping, cleaning and list making to do. I guess she’s a bitch. And she always gets her way.

RJ Keller once described her writing technique as physically disturbing: painfully typing […]

Herewith, I present an updated and amended cross-posting of my blog post on the Amazon v. Macmillan affair. Let me state up front, I do not agree with Amazon’s strongarm tactics, and it is not my intention to defend those actions in this post. Rather, I’m puzzled by authors’ nearly universal lack of criticism for Macmillan’s part in the matter. I can’t help wondering, if Amazon had quietly agreed to Macmillan’s requested terms, thereby depriving authors of an easy target and distraction, might they have reacted differently to Macmillan’s move?

But it is about a writer, and writers like stories about writers, right? Particularly when the writers is J.D. Salinger. (Even if you’re not a fan of his, surely you’re curious about him…? No…?)

*The following originally posted at my old blogsite in June of ‘09.  After reading the many articles today about Salinger’s death, I was reminded of this account of a meeting (but not really a meeting) between my uncle and Mr. Salinger.

My uncle, who I’ll call Harry, lives about twenty minutes from Cornish, NH. Says a lot of famous people – oddly – come […]

[…] allows the publishing of written depictions of sexually explicit scenes, but we do not allow pornographic images within the books, and we do not allow erotica that depicts minors engaged (willingly or unwillingly) in sexual acts with adults. Fictional scenes of rape, sadism or pedophilia are strongly discouraged, and they’re strictly prohibited if their purpose in the book is to arouse the reader. — Smashwords

I received an email from an author last week wanting my take on the above quote from the Smashwords Q&A section for publishers. My thoughts on it led to a lengthy email discussion […]

As a self-published author, I have read opponent comments that one of the downsides to choosing the “vanity” route is being unable to obtain professional reviews. Though I have found it difficult, it is not impossible.

The question I ponder regarding the review process, however, is how beneficial are professional reviews for authors?  Do they really increase book sales for the average author? I wish I had numbers. For a writer such as myself, who is not a household name or an industry legend, I’m not sure how much a review will plummet me into the spotlight or success.

If […]

Cory Doctorow’s the pioneer of giving your work away for free and he’s had major success.  He writes:

I’ve been giving away my books ever since my first novel came out, and boy has it ever made me a bunch of money.

When my first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, was published by Tor Books in January 2003, I also put the entire electronic text of the novel on the Internet under a Creative Commons License that encouraged my readers to copy it far and wide. Within a day, there were 30,000 downloads from my

In my spare time, what little I have of it, I occasionally pick up my 2009 Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market book and search for potential buyers for my series The Price of Innocence. Why? I guess it’s a vain attempt to convince myself the grass is greener on the other side of the fence and I’m worthy in the eyes of my traditional published peers who raise their brow over my “vanity.”   (I think I need counseling – LOL).

It took me 18 months to write my first fiction work. I contribute that lengthy time to my […]