Tag: publishing

Marketing genius: Here’s a chapter that’s NOT actually in my book

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Available late September, possibly sooner as an eBook. Or even SOONER if you want me to read it to you over the phone…

As some of you may know (and by “some” of you, I mean my publisher) I’ve been working on my manuscript, Pearls of Writing Wisdom: From 16 shucking years as a columnist, for the last few weeks.

I am now on the final chapter, which will be done tomorrow, depending on what time of day I decide to start drinking.

Ha! Ha! Just kidding! There’s no need to pick a time.

Anyway, this book is particularly special to me because, if you are a writer (or fear you might be one), I wrote this book for you. Think of it as the conversation we’d have about writing if we were sharing a cold beer. We’d talk about technique, style, personal experience and hopes. We’d encourage each other and share a few laughs. We might even get a little rowdy and start using air quotation marks.

In the end, we’d feel inspired about our love of writing.  Continue reading Marketing genius: Here’s a chapter that’s NOT actually in my book

Warning to Watsonville: This week, I’ll be eating all your fruit

Spring Break Road Sign with Dramatic Clouds and Sky

Over the years, my editor has offered to send me to many places. Usually in a raised voice. And often to a destination that is physically impossible for anyone who isn’t a skilled contortionist.

However, maybe it’s because of the unusually good weather we’re having in Oregon (not raining), or that she’s going on vacation soon, or possibly because there’s been another mix-up between her blood-pressure medicine and someone else’s painkillers.

Whatever the reason, she has given me the “thumbs up” to visit Watsonville, Calif., this week. Naturally, this was exciting news! At least once I got over the creepiness of her actually giving me a “thumbs up” sign.  Continue reading Warning to Watsonville: This week, I’ll be eating all your fruit

If you’re a writer without a rejection letter, you’re doing something wrong

imageI have a file full of rejection notes and letters from editors and publishing houses. Many are for my column when I was first starting out.

Others are in response to a murder mystery I wrote back in the late 1990s.

And one is from Miss October 1978.

In spite of the negative connotation a rejection letter conjures up in the mind of most authors — fine, every author — don’t overlook the more important aspects of what it represents.

To begin with, it means you’ve completed a written work. Given a choice between writing a 500-word essay or being tased in the buttocks, the average person would rather drop their pants than pick up a pen. The fact that you aren’t rubbing a bruised rear means you are a writer (Depending on your genre, of course). No number of rejection letters changes that. Regardless of whether its a 400-page novel or an 800-word opinion piece, you have honed and polished your words to the point you are ready to send it out to the world, either in the form of sample chapters, a query or by pushing the “publish” button on your blog or website.  Continue reading If you’re a writer without a rejection letter, you’re doing something wrong

Even when writing fiction, honesty is the best policy

imageBeing a humor columnist, I am often asked:

“Where do you get this stuff?”
“How did you even think of that?”
“Do you just make this [censored] up?
“Isn’t marijuana legal in Oregon?”

The answer to all of those questions is a definitive “Yes,” particularly on Ballot Measure 5. However, each of the first three include an important addendum that reads as follows:

“While the consumption of humor shall be made available to everyone regardless of race, color, creed or whatever they happen to be eating that may unintentionally exit a nostril, the distributor of said humor is required to provide a basic standard of truthfulness, therefore guaranteeing consumers a more pure grade of laughter. At least until they try passing mixed-berry yogurt through their nose…”

If we cut through all that legal jargon prepared by snooty lawyers making seven-figure salaries somewhere in the back of my mind, there is a point: Elements of truth play an important part in all forms of good fiction.

There is also a secondary point, which is that I will probably never get a Dannon Yogurt endorsement.  Continue reading Even when writing fiction, honesty is the best policy

Writing is like weightlifting: If you’re not careful, you’ll pull something

imageIt struck me this morning at the gym while diligently pumping iron from a seated position at the smoothie bar. There are a number of similarities between reaching your fitness goals and writing goals. In both cases, you will likely fail if you attempt too much too fast. Especially if you’re trying to show off and accidentally flatulate while attempting a power lift.

OK, now that the obligations required by my Gas-X sponsorship have been met, we can move on to how the same principles that make up a good fitness regimen can be applied to achieving your writing goals.

(Make sure to stop in next week, when Trojan will sponsor tips on expanding your readership.)

Just like many people who enter the gym for the first time and see the dozens of different torture devices designed to make you look weak and destroy your self esteem fitness apparatus that can sculpt your body into lean muscle capable of opening even the most stubborn mayonnaise jar, those entering the world of writing often find themselves being crushed under the weight of their own lofty goals by not building up literary muscle first. And by this I don’t mean technique, style or developing your writing voice. I’m talking specifically about easing into writing project(s) and commitment(s) in a way that strengthens your writing endurance so you can avoid “injuring” yourself creatively.

This isn’t to be confused with creatively injuring yourself, which I also know about. But that’s a totally different, embarrassing post.  Continue reading Writing is like weightlifting: If you’re not careful, you’ll pull something

I’m shucking excited over my new book cover

image As I admitted a few weeks ago, I spent the morning with an oyster. Nothing kinky. Just a photo shoot for the cover of my new book coming out in September. Given that the title is a play on words related to pearls and shucking, the idea of incorporating an actual oyster into the cover seemed the responsible thing to do. For about two hours, a photographer friend, Joshua Greene, did his best to capture something cover-worthy.

And let me tell you, holding an oyster as it slow-cooks under the lights is its own special kind of hell. By the time it was over, I was essentially holding nature’s seafood petri dish of shellfish poisoning.

When it was over, I thanked Joshua profusely. He shook my hand and smiled. “Let’s not ever do this again.”

I posted the top five picks here a few days later and a lot of you offered your feedback, which I really appreciate. The final image (above) was among the top two, which I then sent to another friend, Eric Wilder, who I met several years ago in the WordPress blogosphere at The Grimm Report (a hilarious but, sadly, now defunct blog offering news reports from the land of fairytales.) In addition to being an author, Eric also has a highly successful graphic design business, Wilder Design and Advertising, a beautiful wife and children, is stylish, uber talented, and even knows what to do with all that extra silverware at fancy restaurants.

Yet some how, in spite of all that, he’s simply too nice to dislike — and I consider myself extremely fortunate to call him a friend.  Continue reading I’m shucking excited over my new book cover

This photo shoot has left me feeling a little shellfish

imageIn my younger days, while working through kitchens in the Deep South to become a chef, I shucked a lot of oysters. Probably thousands. Honestly, it was a crazy shucking time in my life. But while I used plenty of oysters for cooking, I also flung my share onto people during fake sneezes, or while pretending to cough up something.

Often they would ask, “What are you, a shucking comedian?”

Looking back now, I guess it’s no surprise I eventually traded my chef’s knives for a humor columnist’s keyboard.

So the irony wasn’t lost on me when, nearly 20 years after becoming a columnist, I found myself standing in front of a camera posing with a freshly shucked oyster. Anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis knows that stranger things have happened to me. In this case, however, it wasn’t on a security tape or just a really bad attempt at a sexy selfie for my wife. It was for the cover of my new book coming out in September:

Pearls of Writing Wisdom: (From 16 years as a shucking columnist).

Obviously, the title demanded an oyster be on the cover. Mostly because of the Oysters Union. In fact, the only reason I’m on the cover at all is because someone had to hold the demanding little crustacean in the proper light. I had no idea the photographer, Joshua Greene, was shooting us both. In fact, the only input I had was on deciding whether to have it open or closed. After debating the merits of both, I finally just said, “shuck it” and popped it open.  Continue reading This photo shoot has left me feeling a little shellfish

Can you believe it? They’re letting me publish another book

imageAfter taking a good look at this photo, I know what most of you are probably thinking:

His real name is Edward? Hahahaha!

But don’t forget, there is an entire generation of Twilight babies out there named Edward.

Or Jacob. And man, do those Jacob babies have some freakishly developed abs.

However, the real point of this post is to share with you that, this morning, I officially signed a contract with Port Hole Publishing for my second book, Pearls of Writing Wisdom from 16 Shucking Years as a Columnist. This is an important step beyond what had previously been me unofficially talking about my soon-to-be-published book with strangers, sipping directly from a vodka bottle while hunched over an empty bowl of peanuts at the bar. It also means that in order to meet my September publication date, I need to get the finished manuscript to my publisher by mid June.

So…

Gotta Go!

 

Just kidding. It’s not that bad.  Continue reading Can you believe it? They’re letting me publish another book

That time I decided to quit writing

image Over the weekend, I had the chance to work with some young writers, one of whom asked me the proverbial question, “Did you always want to be a writer?”

I smiled, nodded my head and replied, “Oh, hell no.”

After an awkward silence, I went on to explain that I had been writing stories since I could chew a pencil eraser. And while it has always been a part of me, it wasn’t until making the conscious decision to give it up for a while that I truly understood the importance of writing in my life — and how, without it, I wasn’t completely me. However, without that experience, I would still be thinking of writing as a pursuit rather than what it really is:

Something that finds you. 

I quit writing  back in 2006. For almost a year. It had nothing to do with the typical kind of frustrations every writer faces, such as not having a readership or being told it’s time to “get serious” with your life by family, friends or every publisher on the West coast. It wasn’t the result of drug addiction or alcohol abuse, although I did find myself addicted to watching Grey’s Anatomy, which made me WANT to drink.  Continue reading That time I decided to quit writing

Because sometimes, breaking into print requires a chainsaw

Because we all need a friend with a chainsaw
We all need a friend with a chainsaw

We all make mistakes…

Trimming your eye brows when you have a hangover.

Trying to bathe your cat without a tourniquet handy.

Going to a Kanye West concert.

Or not knowing Michelle Terry and her blog Lipstick and Laundry.

While there’s nothing I can do to erase the physical and/or emotional pain you may be carrying from those first three mistakes, there IS something you can do about that last one by joining me, Mandi Castle, Kati Cross, Karen Malena, Carrie Ruben, Beth Teliho and Charissa Stastny at Lipstick and Laundry today, where Michelle is hosting a writers’ panel offering tips on how to get punished.

Oops! I mean published!

Many of you probably know a few — if not all — of the authors on this panel, and may even own their books. Mandi’s Dear Stephanie and Beth’s The Order of Seven are part of my own book collection, and are both really terrific reads despite not having any pictures.  Continue reading Because sometimes, breaking into print requires a chainsaw