That’s what the professionals do.
As I listened to an Evergreen Jazz festival performance by two top clarinet players, I glanced around the audience. One row in front, observing every nuance, sat Clark Burnside, the veteran clarinetist for another band at the festival.
That scene repeated itself throughout the weekend: one master of the craft listening and learning from another.
Continue reading
Make sure your submission is dressed for success.
Once glance at the manuscript told me the author was at best a hobbyist—not serious about the craft of professional writing.
All that without reading one word of his novel.
Even if the story were great, any literary agent or acquisitions editor would begin an evaluation having already counted several strikes against it.
A quick … Continue reading
Three drafts are likely not enough.
How many drafts does it take to perfect a novel? According to one veteran writer, at least four.
In his Facebook post this past weekend, Ace Andrew Collins mentioned he has “signed contracts with publishers for 96 releases: 42 nonfiction, 28 novels, and 26 youth books.” So it’s fair to say he knows something about writing success.
A few … Continue reading