Writing Group

For A Good Time On The Intertubes — Soon!

by Tom Levenson| August 1, 201811:46 am| 43 Comments

This post is in: Readership Capture, Writing Group, Shameless self promotion

Hey all,

Just so you know: I’ll be talking with some very interesting folks at 1 p.m. today on a Facebook Live panel as part of PBS’s Great Read series.

On the panel with me is the Boston Globe‘s Love Letters columnist Meredith Goldstein, novelist and essayist Kaitlyn Greenidge, and essayist and blogger on science and fiction Joelle Renstrom (who also teaches across the river from me at BU). We’ll be talking about how science fiction, and more broadly, how the representation of science and scientists in fiction across genres affects (or doesn’t) how we grasp and value science in daily life.

I’m very much looking forward to the chance to talk such fun stuff with such fascinating conversants.

In the meantime, my prep for the discussion led me to this 2016 essay by Greenidge, “Who Gets To Write What.” It bears on what we talk about I think, but even more it offers a rich inquiry into the duty of imagination — of doing the work of empathy and inquiry that goes into creating a fiction that cuts to the bone. Which is to say, that says something about the world from which fictions derive, and to which their readers return. Highly recommended.

Anyway, check it out the gabfest if you have a chance.

Image: Vincent van Gogh, The Novel Reader, 1988

For A Good Time On The Intertubes — Soon!Post + Comments (43)

Authors In Our Midst/Writers Chatting Chapter 14

by TaMara| May 6, 201812:28 pm| 141 Comments

This post is in: Authors In Our Midst, Writing Group

Reading – Mathis Miles Williams

I follow WereBear on Facebook and the other day she posted a note that she was now doing consulting and I thought it would be a good time to ask her to revisit her path to publishing, website and now cat consulting for our Writers Chatting posts.

From WereBear:

Reverend Jim, foundation blog kitty. His rescue started it all!

More on my adventures in self-publishing. This is a vital next step in my plan to extend the reach of my cat advice website, WayofCats.com (click here) which started with a book. Which no one wanted to publish. And here we are: don’t need a publisher!

The last time I used Kindle for a book this amazing angle was still new and not yet fully developed. The conventional wisdom at the time was to create novella length PDFs and see how it went. So I wrote a concise cat care/problem solving manual (since some of the worst cat problems are care problems) and racked up some nice reviews and it sold for a while.

Now, eBooks on a site like Amazon are THE ballgame. The younger a person is, the more they expect a book to be available electronically. Amazon has added new wrinkles to its platform to acknowledge this adjusted reality. This led me to some hoop-jumping as I prepared my new book for Pre Sale. Pre Sale lets even a self-published author put the book up to accumulate sales before it is available for purchase or accepts reviews.

Somebody like Stephen King has months long pre-sale periods, because fans will buy it anyway. Someone like me gets two months, and it seems most people are thrilled… but waiting But this is a fine sales tool, because it lets an author promote the work and allows people to purchase it ahead of its release. This really was nice for me, as I wanted to give it one more polish — every writer knows how that goes.

Just don’t indulge too much, folks: there’s penalties for yanking the Pre Sale. It makes Amazon pouty and your ability to do so in future goes on probation. However, this tactic has made me #1 in Cat Training, and I get a little flag on my book page. So there is that.

The book, The Way of Cats, (available here) is the first in a series, and that’s where the new Amazon thing got strict. I had thought I was going to make the Cat 911 manual part of a series, back when I put it on the site. But now all that has been superseded, and the upshot of it all was, I took it off Amazon. Don’t want to confuse potential readers, who now expect actual books when they, yanno, buy books. Important because a series is a very important tool for both fiction and non-fiction. A mystery reader loves getting back to the next adventures of a favorite detective, (which also means we find the body sooner.)

While this works better for some genres than others (romance would not work unless it was a bit niche) a continuing character is usually a winning addition to our fiction ambitions. In fact, my next book will be the first in a cozy mystery series (so-called because they take place in a contained subculture with an amateur sleuth, downplayed sex and violence elements, and lots of psychological intrigue) so the subject is top of my mind lately.

Kindle Series are now difficult to shift on the fly, so be sure you have some thought put into this kind of commitment before getting everything set up in Amazon’s publisher panel. There’s a variety of ways to upload, but Amazon also has decided their default will be the complete document in Word’s latest format. But don’t panic if you are not a Word fan, since Google Docs, Apple Pages, and my beloved Scrivener are word processors who can export into a DOCX file. (The X stands for the Office Open XML standard, so many programs have embraced it.)

The very good news is that it is easy to format things the way you want them, even photographs and charts, and have it look good once it gets Kindled. Then, use that same file and format it to be a traditional book through the Amazon CreateSpace, an on-demand publishing platform that lets people order your book in paperback, too. An author gets a bulk discount for batches of these, perfect for those fun signing parties at the local bookstore… provided you have one these days.

Thanks folks, and remember that I am also available for Cat Consultations (click here) via Facetime, Google Hangouts, or telephone. I’ll be hanging out in the comments if you have any questions about taking this wild and whacky journey.

Thank you, Pam! Okay, back to our writing chat. How are things going for you? Where are you at these days? What’s got you stuck? And what’s going well? Email me if you have something in the pipeline you want to talk about.

Hit the comments and be kind.

Authors In Our Midst/Writers Chatting Chapter 14Post + Comments (141)

Authors In Our Midst/Writers Chatting Chapter 13

by TaMara| March 18, 201812:28 pm| 73 Comments

This post is in: Authors In Our Midst, Writing Group

Hey there! We have a new published author in our midst, so I thought it would be fun to combine our efforts this morning. Here’s our newest author, Laura Leigh Morris:

In the hills of north central West Virginia, there lives a cast of characters who face all manner of problems. From the people who are incarcerated in West Virginia’s prisons, to a woman who is learning how to lose her sight with grace, to another who sorely regrets selling her land to a fracking company, Jaws of Life portrays the diverse concerns the people of this region face every day—poverty, mental illness, drug abuse, the loss of coal mines, and the rise of new extractive industries that exert their own toll.

While these larger concerns exist on the edges of their realities, these characters must still deal with quotidian difficulties: how to coexist with ex-spouses, how to care for sick family members, and how to live with friends who always seem to have more.

Congratulations! And I believe she’s going to try and stop by if you have any questions or just wants to join our discussion.

Now how about the rest of you. Where are you at in your project? How is it going, what should we talk about today?

I just got my first edit back and am reviewing it. Talk about overwhelming, I wasn’t even sure where to begin. But I’m sifting through, deciding what is additive and what is not.

How do you manage the overwhelm – whether it be the first draft, the first edit, or hitting the publish button – what gets you through it and back into action?

Okay, let’s chat. Remember, be kind and supportive.

Authors In Our Midst/Writers Chatting Chapter 13Post + Comments (73)

Writers Chatting: Chapter 12

by TaMara| January 21, 201812:27 pm| 89 Comments

This post is in: Authors In Our Midst, Writing Group

“Memories” Illustration by Walter Beach Humphrey

Welcome back! I had a request for a writing thread to discuss goal setting and planning. It is actually a good timing for me. My finished novel has been sitting on a shelf for a year while I decided what to do next. Now all of sudden everything is in overdrive, so I have to manage all of that with continuing work on the second book in the trilogy.

I have spent so much time in the bulk of the first book, I’m stumbling as I set up the second. Jumping back into the prep stage has been hit or miss.

How do you approach your writing? Do you outline everything first and then fill in from there? Do you just write and worry about structure later? Do you write specific chapters, out of order and decide where they go later? Do you write beginning to end – what do you do when you hit a roadblock? How do you manage your characters – do you keep a bible on hand, do you make index cards and hang them all over the room?

And can we talk a bit about social media? Who is doing it for their books and how is it going?

Okay, that should get us off to a good start. As always, it’s just a guideline, discuss what you need to in your process.

Final note: for you romance writers out there, the next RWA conference is in Denver in July. Info here. If you go, let’s make sure we schedule a meet-up near you, around that time.

There you go, have at it. And remember to be kind and supportive.

Writers Chatting: Chapter 12Post + Comments (89)

Writers Chatting: Chapter 11

by TaMara| December 17, 201712:30 pm| 90 Comments

This post is in: Authors In Our Midst, Writing Group

Welcome to the final chapter for 2017.

Let’s start with some additional information from Andrew Durkin, see his original guest post here. This part of his guest post answers many questions from the last chat. From Andrew:

The most surprising thing I’ve learned since becoming a professional editor is that not all authors believe in the benefit of professional editing. On the surface, that’s understandable, especially in self-publishing—why pay for something when you can get a friend to do it for free? Economic resistance is often compounded by a very human fear of criticism, as well as horror stories about bad editors who have corrupted an author’s artistic or intellectual vision.

But I’m going to start from the premise that professional editing is the sine qua non for anyone serious about being an author—regardless of genre, and regardless of the type of publishing (traditional or self). The real question is how do you get the most out of the process? In my experience, there are three rules of thumb, and they follow below. (Some of these will seem like common sense . . . but you’d be surprised!)

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First, make sure your manuscript is actually ready for editing.

When is a manuscript “ready for editing”? When you’ve made it as good as you can, of course! Again, this seems like common sense. Yet I’ve learned that many authors have a voice in their head that says, “It just needs to be ‘good enough’—the publishing process will take care of the rest.” (It’s the literary equivalent of saying “we’ll fix it in post.”)

That “good enough” voice usually kicks in when you are almost finished with your manuscript. Writing a book is exhausting at best (soul sucking at worst), and you may be tempted to move on when fatigue sets in. But while there is always a point of diminishing returns, there are usually ways to strengthen your work even when you are in that grueling almost-there phase.

Maybe you try doing focused reads, for example (e.g., concentrating on just the scenes featuring a single character . . . or just the scenes occurring in real time . . . or just the turning-point scenes). Maybe you try reading your manuscript out loud. Maybe you compile a list of your technical weaknesses and do a find/replace to deal with them (in my own manuscript, I am currently trying to tamp down on an overuse of the word “gasp”). Whatever it is, take some extra time to look for the things you’re still blind to. This can require a level of honesty about your own writing that is downright painful. But although you won’t catch every issue, you can usually come a lot closer than you think.

Then, once you have hit the point of diminishing returns, share the manuscript with a beta-reader or two. I can’t tell you how many times I have edited a book only to realize I was its first outside reader! (Or at least its first objective outside reader.) It always shows. Hopefully you have been soliciting feedback all along, workshopping pieces of your manuscript in a critique group or partnership. But beta-readers are your test audience for the entire work, and they can be invaluable.

What makes a good beta-reader? Look for someone who is more than a well-read friend, a college English professor, or a supportive family member. Beta-readers can be those things—but they should also “get” the genre you’re working in. And it helps to know how they read. If your beta-reader favors labyrinthine, dense fantasy, she might not be able to give you useful feedback on your sparely written detective novel—even if she enjoys it. (On the other hand, she may be able to bring unusually fresh eyes to your manuscript.) Basically, you want to know where a beta-reader is coming from when she offers her evaluation, so you have the tools to determine what is relevant for you.

Yes, these suggestions for making your manuscript “ready for editing” may seem obsessive. But in the long run, the benefit will be enormous. Editors are not wizards—we have finite attention, time, and energy. Ideally, you want that spent on making a good manuscript excellent—not on making a weak manuscript good.

Read the other two steps here.

Now let’s start the chat. Where are you at in your process? Who is stuck and/or procrastinating and what advice does everyone have for them? Mnemosyne requested some advice on the craft of writing book suggestions. I’m on the mailing list from Jane Friedman (here) and finding it very informative. And I have a question – recommendations for cover artists and any advice on choosing.

Ok, there you go. Remember be kind and supportive…

Writers Chatting: Chapter 11Post + Comments (90)

Writers Chatting: Chapter 10

by TaMara| December 3, 201712:36 pm| 47 Comments

This post is in: Authors In Our Midst, Writing Group

We have a thoughtful guest post this week and as a reminder, I’m open for more guest posts on your experiences with writing, publishing and marketing.

Today will be another perspective on self-publishing – finding an editor:

Hello everyone. My name is Andrew Durkin, and I am an editor for a Portland-based self-publisher, Inkwater Press. Like many people involved in publishing, I am also an author. My non-fiction book, Decomposition, was published by Pantheon Books in 2014. I am currently finishing my first novel, a middle-grade fantasy. (Although “currently finishing” is a phrase I have been using for the last five years.)

Balloon Juice has been a regular source of sanity for me since back in the Bush era, and I wanted to start by thanking you all for that. I was of course thrilled to see the emergence of a writer-focused sub-group over the last year or so. Every time I noticed the discussion turn to self-publishing and editing, I got the itch to speak up. Finally I contacted TaMara to let her know I’d be willing to write something for the group, if she thought that would be useful. She did, so I am. Thanks, TaMara, for the forum!

I realize the writers here come from a range of experiences and backgrounds, but I’ll try to make this valuable to everyone in some way. (As usual, I’m sure the really good stuff will emerge in the comments.)

* * * * *

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Find the best editor you can.

Once you are ready for editing, how do you find the best editor you can? If you are self-publishing, this may be easier said than done. One of the benefits of traditional publishing is that larger publishing houses often have not just one, but several different kinds of editors in-house to look at your work—a traditionally published manuscript might be seen by a developmental editor, a copy editor, and a proofreader, for instance. Smaller publishers may have just one editor on staff. Self-publishers often don’t have any editors at all—in which case you may need to turn to local or national editing organizations or a freelance site like Upwork to find someone qualified. If you are looking for an editor-for-hire, ask for a free “sample edit,” so you can get a sense of how they will approach your work.

Beyond a sample edit, how do you know if someone is qualified to edit your manuscript? In a way, this is one of the benefits of self-publishing—you get to shop around for someone who fits your needs, rather than having someone assigned to you. If you’re in this position, I recommend first finding an editor you like as a human being. In a way, the editor/author relationship is as personal as it is professional—since writing is a form of self-expression, your editor is getting a kind of window into your soul. You don’t have to be best friends with her, but you want her to be someone you can trust, or at least have a basic chemistry with. I recommend approaching a prospective editor as you would a prospective physician. Interview her, and take notes. Ask to see work she has done in the past. Ask to see testimonials.

More importantly, find someone who is experienced, and whose experience is relevant to your work. This is why a well-meaning friend is not usually a good person to edit your work. An editor is so much more than just another reader! In addition to constantly dealing with the technical minutiae of text, good editors have a nuts-and-bolts understanding of what distinguishes “amateur” and “professional” manuscripts, and how those are manifested in different genres. This is where a good editor will really add value to your manuscript; we all love self-publishing as a concept, but we want your manuscript to compete with traditionally published books.

If this talk of “professional” and “amateur” feels off-putting to your artistic vision, remember that writing is really about communication—trying to bridge the gap from one mind to another. Although language is dynamic (and sometimes even volatile), it also relies on certain norms. When editors (or designers or marketers) talk about “professionalizing” your manuscript, all we are trying to do is bring those norms to bear so that your manuscript can truly find its readers.

Get the most out of the editor/author relationship.

When you’ve made your manuscript as good as can be, and found a simpatico editor, how do you get the most out of the editor/author relationship?

Writing is in many ways a kind of collaboration. Stereotypically, we have a sense of the author as a lonely individual, feverishly typing the great American novel in a dark garret somewhere. But all the great American novels (and the great novels from elsewhere as well) are products of interaction between an author, editor, designer, marketer, publisher, and so on. Writing is, counterintuitively, a social enterprise.

If you’re just starting out as a writer, that idea can take some getting used to. When it comes to editing, my recommendation is to find the balance that works for you: always be open to suggestions made in good faith, while cultivating a deeper understanding of your own identity as a writer. In other words, don’t sabotage your manuscript by refusing to listen to professional advice—but don’t be afraid to push back. Good editors will understand that different authors have different voices, and will always want to do what is best for the book.

As in any relationship, communication is key. This is an amazing time to be writing, given the technology! By using the track changes and comments features in Word, an editor and author can really drill down to problem areas in a manuscript, without ever having to meet in person, or try to decipher each other’s handwriting. Take advantage of these tools. And follow up on your editor’s questions or comments in a thorough and timely way.

* * * * *

So that’s it, in a nutshell: “Things I have learned as a professional editor.” Editing, of course, is not all there is to publishing—design and marketing are also crucial. Marketing is hard, but if you’re self-publishing, you can do it if you have the time and energy and a basic comfort level with digital communication. Design (in my opinion) should be left to the professionals. But the larger point is that even the best design and marketing can’t (usually) save a poorly written book. Within the publishing sequence, editing is really the foundation upon which the rest of your success as an author will be built.

So take the time to do it right!

Thanks, and happy writing to all.

Thanks Andrew! Let’s keep the conversation going, how is your writing going? How did National Writing Month work out for those who participated?

Writers Chatting: Chapter 10Post + Comments (47)

Writers Chatting: Chapter 9

by TaMara| October 15, 201712:36 pm| 66 Comments

This post is in: Authors In Our Midst, Writing Group

Welcome back. I don’t have a guest today but I think there is lots to talk about. After the last writing post, I thought it would be a good time to continue to discuss self-publishing.

What are the best ways to go about finding and evaluating resources such as a good editor, a cover artist, beta readers and how best to market yourself. Even if you’re not there yet, we’ll all need these resources eventually.

(For the posts on putting together query letters for traditional publishing, click here, looking for a literary agent, click here)

Let’s start today with a reminder of who you are and where you are at in your writing journey.

And also, a reminder, National Novel Writing month is next month. What would you like to do for it? I will be gone for two weeks in November, but I can set some open writing threads up to auto-publish if you guys have a plan.

Ok, take it way and keep it positive and fun….

Writers Chatting: Chapter 9Post + Comments (66)

schrodingers_cat on Saturday Morning Open Thread (Jun 21, 2025 @ 11:04am)

zhena gogolia on Saturday Morning Open Thread (Jun 21, 2025 @ 11:04am)

MrPug on Saturday Morning Open Thread (Jun 21, 2025 @ 11:01am)

brantl on Saturday Morning Open Thread (Jun 21, 2025 @ 11:00am)

YY_Sima Qian on Late Night Open Thread: Compare & Contrast (Jun 21, 2025 @ 11:00am)

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

When I was faster i was always behind.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

Humiliatingly small and eclipsed by the derision of millions.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

“woke” is the new caravan.

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

“But what about the lurkers?”

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

For A Good Time On The Intertubes — Soon!

Authors In Our Midst/Writers Chatting Chapter 14

Authors In Our Midst/Writers Chatting Chapter 13

Writers Chatting: Chapter 12

Writers Chatting: Chapter 11

Writers Chatting: Chapter 10

Writers Chatting: Chapter 9