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If you've lost your writing mojo, check out Anna Elliot's post over at Writer Unboxed - When the Spark is Gone: 4 Ways to Bring Back the Joy of Writing:
"But we all have experienced those hard days: times when we feel like we’ve lost the spark of delight in what we’re working on. It might be a scene, a chapter, or an entire book that suddenly feels flat or empty or just lifeless on the page."
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If you're trying to figure out where you'd like your writing career to go, these two posts from Pretentious Title can help:
Author Career Planning: "I'd like to talk about career planning. In my opinion, the trad vs self publishing choice is just a microcosm of figuring out a real career path for yourself."
Know Thy (Publishing) Self: "Because the truth is that both trad and self publishing have horrible pitfalls and incredible heights. Neither of them is easy and nothing is guaranteed. So how do you know which is right for you?"
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I can't say enough good things about Lisa Cron's book Wired for Story: The Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence. I'm now reading her new one, Story Genius: How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel (Before You Waste Three Years Writing 327 Pages that Go Nowhere.) Oh. Yes. Please.
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And now . . . some inspiration! Bear with me, I'm going all Fan Girl (wait, am I too old for that? Or should it be Fan Woman?) I am a huge fan of Mindy McGinnis - the 2016 Young Adult Edgar Award Winner! - whose new book, The Female of the Species, is out September 20th.
Guess how long it took this book's journey form beginning to bookstore? 15 years! In A Picture of a Thousand Torments, Or: A Literal Pile of Rejection Letters, Mindy says, "I'm sharing all of this with you not as yet another example of "never give up," but rather, "never stop improving." If I had continued to query for fifteen years but never bothered to improve my craft, I guarantee I would still be receiving rejections." Read her post. Please.
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