Andy Unedited
Exploring Books, Life, and Writing
Do I get letters? Yes. I get letters. Dear Mr. Editor Person: Often I read words or phrases that make my grammatical hair stand on end, my syntactical stomach churn, and my semantical head bow in grief. Someone uses “impact” as if it were a verb or “ask” as if it were a noun, and …
Should authors blog through the books they are writing? This does not have a one-size-fits-all answer. I wish I could have said a bit more about it in Write Better where careful readers may have thought they spotted a contradiction. In the preface I say, “Some of what is found in this book was originally …
Building an author platform continues to be a key challenge for people who want to get their work out to a wider audience. One piece in the ongoing task of becoming better known is an author website. Ken wrote this to me in response to a recent post on Andy Unedited: One thing that is …
Recently I was interviewed by Melissa Wuske in Foreword Reviews, which has focused on independent book publishing since its inception. To whet your appetite, here’s an excerpt below. You can find the whole interview here. Accessibility has been a huge boon to writers and editors. With so much information digitized, in a few keystrokes we …
For decades I have loved, reread, recommended, and extolled William Zinsser’s On Writing Well. He is wise, practical, enjoyable to read, and absolutely on target for new and experienced writers. While I have been dispensing writing advice for decades (to authors, in lectures, in writing), when I thought about doing a book on writing myself, …
How do you keep readers reading? How do you pull them through a chapter or article or blog without them getting bored or distracted? Fiction writers aren’t the only ones who can use a mystery to keep readers engaged. Nonfiction writers can also withhold a key piece of information—the whodunnit! It’s what I call the …
How can you get a publisher’s attention when you are an unpublished writer only beginning to build a platform? Writers know editors and agents are looking for people who not only are good writers but who are well-known, are experts in their field, speak to hundreds, or get thousands of hits on YouTube. Is there …
Today marks the official release of my new book, Write Better. To give you a taste of what’s in store, here is an excerpt from the preface. Two of my sons, Phil and Dave, ran cross-country in high school. These grueling three-mile races were not on perfectly flat, machine-fabricated ovals but up hills, over ruts, …
Groups which gather regularly to encourage people in their writing, can sadly turn into something less than encouraging. Writing can be intimidating in the privacy of our own rooms. But when others are called together to point out the errors, shortcomings, weakness, or plain lameness of our writing, we all may cower. I have found …
Last time Alan Fadling shared his thoughts on an unexpected form of writer’s block. Having written one book, authors often find major hurdles in finishing a second, especially if the first was successful. In working on Write Better (due out October 2019), I also asked Jen Pollock Michel about her experience with what I call …