Tag Archives: Booklife

Jeff VanderMeer on Cooking Chicken Dinners and Knowing Your Limits

Via Bibliophile Stalker (again, thank you, Charles!) this from Jeff VanderMeer, which makes some great points about not wearing out your creativity.

Sometimes we forget to breathe when it comes to our creativity. By which I mean we are so busy creating and interacting with the world that we forget to pause, to be silent, to be alone. The imagination, the
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Like Chicken Man

I am apparently everywhere, including Booklife.

The short story isn’t dead, it’s just _________?

Angela Slatter: Fighting a vigorous rearguard action against big publishers who don’t see any money in selling short story collections unless they’re attached to big name authors. I do think it’s a form that’s
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The clever and cunning Matt Staggs talks about avoiding rookie mistakes over at Booklife

Critics on rookie mistakes, and how to avoid them when submitting your book for review

Reviewers are of vital importance when it comes to getting the word out about your book. Your novel might be the next great American classic, but if no one reviews it then its next stop could be the remainder bin. Literary critics, both offline and on,
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VanderWisdom: Choosing Your Platforms and Protecting Your Private Booklife

There’s smart stuff; there’s talky bits; there’s wisdom.

http://booklifenow.com/2009/12/choosing-your-platforms-and-protecting-your-private-booklife/

Step One: Throw Self in Bear Pit

More from the redoubtable VanderMeer and Booklife on The Discovery Process: Improving Your Abilities. I don’t think any writer should ever get to the point where they think they know everything about writing – or that they don’t need an editor. You should be honest about your abilities and know what your strengths and weaknesses are … and if you
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Booklifery!

At last, Booklife has gone live … which is not to say it was dead before … coz that would imply it’s some kind of Frankensteiny, reanimated, zombie thingy. Which it’s totally not! It’s BOOKLIFENOW.COM from Jeff VanderMeer and Matt Staggs – Strategies and Survival Tips for the 21st-Century Writer. I read the book and use many of
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On the (ig)Noble Art of Sacrifice

My clever friend, Kim Wilkins (beautiful talented successful writer, academic, award-winner, mother of two – hate her yet? http://fantasticthoughts.wordpress.com/) made a comment today that got me thinking (sometimes it happens, me thinking). On FB last night, I said I was going to bed with the editing, and she commented that she sometimes read my status updates and imagined me
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More VanderMeerish Wisdom

Jeff has posted some general tips on the uses of PR – another excerpt from the Most Excellent Booklife.

Follow the linkage … http://www.jeffvandermeer.com/2009/05/12/booklife-excerpt-general-tips-on-pr/

Writing Week – The Autopsy

So, here I sit back at work after a week away, doing nothing but writing.

Okay, I lie.

I didn’t just write. I threw temper tantrums. I ate astonishing amounts of choclit and consumed such vast quantities of sugar that for brief periods (before the inevitable sugar crash) I could
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I haz a complaint

It just must have been the day for it. I heard the same question so many times today that I started to wonder if I was in Groundhog Dog or if someone was just messing with me.

Every second person wanted to be introduced to a literary agent (one in four wanted to
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