Writing with Jennifer

Much of my paid work has been ghostwriting. It's something I enjoy, especially when it comes to children's books. But it does present some challenges you don't encounter when writing a book of your own.  Ghostwriting articles or short pieces tends to be easy because in most cases you are dealing with clients who don't really care about writing. They want the articles to make sense, of course, and usually to have the right SEO content to collect all the clicks. But they aren't going to argue with you about creative choices.  Book authors are different. These are people who have nurtured an idea for a long time and have a strong connection to the process and the result. Children's book authors in need of ghostwriters are often artists who have done their own illustrations and know the story they want to tell but don't have the writing skills to make it happen in a way that can put the book on the shelf next to professionally written titles.  Occasionally, peop...

When I was working for a small publishing company, one of my jobs was to build relationships with bookstore owners. That way I could get information about what they liked to see, and I could try to sell them the books we were publishing. I learned a lot that way about what bookstores want to buy.  One of the things that often came up was size. I had no idea before talking to bookstore owners that size was such an issue. It used to be that you could only publish books in certain sizes because that's what the presses could print. A typical trade paperback is either 5.5 by 8.5 or 6 by 9. Mass market paperbacks tend to be 6.75 by 4.25.  Non-fiction books are printed in different sizes with certain genres or subjects conforming to a standard. Non-fiction books are often published in hardback, and those are usually  Today you can self-publish books in any size, but using the wrong size will make your book stand out as self-published. Bookstores don't like that, and you will hav...

Writing is the kind of activity that sometimes requires outside motivation. Writers need a partner, but this can be hard to find. You've got to have somebody in your corner who  1. understands writing 2. understands the writing brain Some writers have successfully filled this gap by hiring a writing coach.  The job of being a writing coach doesn't have a specific definition. There are lots of different ways of coaching writers. The project and the person determine the needs. To further complicate the situation, some people will do some kinds of coaching and not others.  So what can you expect from a writing coach?  Motivation This is in the form of contacts through texts, emails, or phone calls where the coach asks how it's going and reminds you to write. It's something like an accountability partner in exercise. Your coach is the person who is going to ask you how many words you wrote today, and you want to be able to report that you wrote a lot. I suppose you could...

There are different kinds of writer's block, but it's something most of us - maybe all of us? - experience from time to time. Sometimes it's having an idea in mind, but staring at the screen unsure how to begin. A similar theme is being stuck in the middle of a project - having completed section A, knowing everything about section C, but completely lacking section B.  Often for me, it just feels like I've turned on the faucet but the water just won't flow.  There are a couple of different approaches to writer's block. Your success will depend on what kind of block you're dealing with and your personality. To further complicate things, what works for you one day may not work the next.  Approach #1: Push Through Just do it. It's like eating your brussels sprouts. Tell yourself firmly that you're just going to sit down at your desk and not get up until you have 2000 words or a completed chapter or 3 hours have passed or whatever the goal is.  I've h...

I get asked this question a lot. And the answer is a resounding, sure.  You can make money writing. You can make a lot of money writing. Ask Stephen King and JK Rowling. With that out of the way, the question becomes whether it is a reasonable goal to make a living as a writer.  It is. But in most cases, you have to be willing to branch out and try some new things. You have to be okay with writing some boring stuff and spending time client-hunting. Most of all, you have to be willing to put in the work.  For many people, writing is a compulsion. That kind of writing tends to be about expressing creativity, putting words into the world that burst with meaning. You don't do that for the money. You do that because you fall into a hole of crazy when you don't - or maybe you fall further than your normal. For most of us, the kind of writing that brings in money is work. It's boring words on paper, and it usually involves writing compelling web copy about how great some service...

I met with a zany, creative, wonderful client today. She took me into her living room and showed me her coffee table. It was covered with notebooks, tablets, and mockup booklets. This was her writing, and she wanted me to tell her how to publish it.  I think this disorganization represents a lot of us. Creative types tend to have brains that don't always connect in a linear way. We are notebook carriers. We jot down ideas on napkins. We will scribble down a few lines on any surface that will take ink.  I have a few (read "20") notebooks myself, but not the piles that this particular writer has accumulated. But I still have a dirty little disorganizational secret, and it's in the form of about forty thumb drives stuck in the drawer of a side table in my bedroom. My laptop files aren't exactly pristine either, although I do my best to at least keep each project in a particular folder.  Getting organized is hard, but it is a necessary step onto the bridge leading fro...

  It's no secret that writers have historically struggled with mental health. Actually, can you think of a writer who does not or did not have depression, drug addiction, or at least a general uneasiness about life and how impossible it is to handle with any kind of grace or competence?   Or maybe I'm just talking about me now.  So maybe everyone has these challenges. Or maybe every artist does. Or maybe there is something very specific about writers and the world inside our heads.  I'm just rambling here because that's the kind of mood I'm in, but I've often wondered if irregular brain chemistry drives the urge to write... or could writing somehow contribute to the hiccups in our cerebral areas?  We know that writing exercises can help improve depression and anxiety. More than one mental health professional (oh yes, there have been many more than one) has suggested to me that writing will help me organize and understand my feelings. And it's true. I have f...