5 stars Genre: Non-fiction Before and After the Book Deal Amazing stuff. I loved this book and wished it had been published when I was just starting out. It answers all the questions you want answered and veers into those unvoiced or even unknown musings. I particularly appreciated the dive into scenarios and experiences that might relate to your identity. It was also wonderful to get different perspectives and quotes from agents, editors, and writers. A marvelous book bursting … [Read more...]
Expressing My Voice
August 1, 2022 Leave a Comment
I was taught to listen. This meant obeying my parents. It meant paying attention to teachers. Often, I translated this rule as to not talk, to never talk. I once held an inner competition to not speak for a whole day (yes, I won). I’d held back so long I had a difficult time even knowing what my own voice was, figuratively speaking. In high school, I started trying to find out. I wrote lots of poetry (some poems even got published). I did drama (even got some speaking lines). Writing has … [Read more...]
New Year (Writing) Resolutions
January 3, 2022 6 Comments
Hope everyone had a safe and relaxing holiday season! I wish every day of my life was filled with tinsel and lights, like so: Alas! It's on to the New Year. Which brings to mind resolutions, especially of the writing variety. As an author, I actually don't start fresh on January 1st. Instead, I use a system of constant goals. For example, I have a standalone mystery that I've been tinkering around with since last year. Except I didn't quite make my personal cutoff date for constructing a … [Read more...]
November 1 and NaNoWriMo
November 1, 2021 2 Comments
November 1. It’s that time of the year again when I chicken turkey out. Why’s that? Because November is NaNoWriMo. Have you heard of it? NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month. NaNoWriMo is a nonprofit that promotes creative writing, but its well-known program is a month-long event which inspires people to write a 50,000-word manuscript in November. Originally, this challenge started among friends in 1999 but has since expanded to hundreds of thousands of participants all … [Read more...]
Fun Facts About Mailings
October 4, 2021 2 Comments
One area of expertise that I didn’t realize I needed to bone up on as a writer was the mail system. I already had an appreciation for the United States Postal Service. As a kid, it was exciting to watch the red flag (we had a classic mailbox) go up and down as mail was delivered and received. I loved finding deliveries in the box of postcards, letters—really anything that people sent us. As an author, I dived into the topic of mailings when I needed to send out my novels. Books are often … [Read more...]
Patience
August 13, 2021 Leave a Comment
I'm on the Chicks on a Case blog talking about patience. That's the writer's life in a nutshell! https://chicksonthecase.com/2021/08/13/the-patient-writer/ … [Read more...]
On Author Blurbs
January 11, 2021 Leave a Comment
Ever wonder about those quotes by authors you find on books? Having been asked to write some recently, I blogged about my thoughts on Writers Who Kill. See the post here: https://writerswhokill.blogspot.com/2021/01/thoughts-on-blurbing-by-jennifer-j-chow.html … [Read more...]
MurderCon
August 17, 2020 2 Comments
"Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes." --fortune cookie saying MurderCon is an annual training event put on by the Writers’ Police Academy, and 2020 marks the 12th anniversary of the conference. Workshops taught by experts, combined with hands-on learning, are the draw of this special event for writers. I’ve heard about this conference for years, but because of the expenses involved (travel + lodging + fee), I had constantly put off attending it. Due to the pandemic, … [Read more...]
Revisions Cave
July 8, 2019 4 Comments
"Efficiency is doing better what is already being done." Yes, folks, the revisions cave is real! I've been in deep edits for my upcoming mystery novel the past couple of weeks because I received an editorial letter. In the author-editor-agent panel I attended at the California Crime Writers Conference, Leslie Karst mentioned that she's received an editor letter of eight to ten pages. Thankfully, my own spanned only two pages (single-spaced, though). Her advice was to make sure … [Read more...]
California Crime Writers Conference 2019
June 10, 2019 2 Comments
I had such a great time at this biennial crime writers' conference! I'm still recovering from the immense load of information given to me, as well as from connecting my introvert self with multiple authors and editors. Here are a few of the observations that stuck out to me from the event: Use funny to deal with serious topics (like murder); and if you have something too mean for your main character to say, offload it to a sidekick. ;) It's common for agents to *not* meet their clients … [Read more...]
