First Word

Britney, 3L Publishing's copy editor, recently said this about writing vs. authorship. She said, a writer loves to write. An author sits down and professionally writes a novel. I've been asked that question many times. I never distinguished the difference the way she described. Although I've written five books, I didn't give the title of author much thought nor did I consider whether or not I was a writer or an author per se. I typically say "writer," and I've used that moniker to describe myself for decades. I've done so many different kinds of writing including screenwriting and magazine writing that I feel it fits best. These days as a publisher, though, I am prone to neglect my own books. Writing at various times becomes a difficult creative process. I find that I sometimes even avoid it. I can write easily enough (e.g., see this blog), but I can spend days or even weeks rolling thoughts about story around in my mind. Everyone has their own crea...

Good or bad press is always good press. Attention is, after all, attention and a spotlight on anything calls attention to it. I was reading a book review of another author's book. Now I know this book very well (and I'm not going to say the book to avoid "insult to injury"). I got extremely annoyed when the book reviewer, who was slamming the book, started making specific statements about the content. What's worse, the statements and the examples were not from the actual book. I was aghast to read the reviewer say the writing was bad, and then show examples that didn't come from the book! How can you say a book is poorly written and then use examples of why that aren't even from the material? If you're going to criticize something try being accurate. You can't say something is poorly written and then write something poorly written as an example that doesn't come from the source. I wasn't sure whether to laugh, mock the reviewer with a ...