to give his manuscript to an editor is a ritual authors are likely reluctant to engage in. All that (‘positive’) feedback, and opinion disguised as ‘suggestions’, may not be taken well, even if the author smiles savagely in thanks to the editor.
Almost every author I know, and a lot more that I read, remark in their acknowledgements that they are so very grateful for their editor for making their opus so much better. It’s kind and generous of them to say so.
But I think they are lying. Or if not lying, exactly, they say so grudgingly, through clenched teeth.
As to human-created authenticity, it may well be that CHAT GBT devices will never (never?) be capable of original new material because they are not truly intelligent, merely regurgitation machines. But don’t count on it. And anyway, readers may not care.
submitting our writing to the critical gaze of a heartless public takes fearlessness beyond courage. It takes drink.
Capitol Hills was a social housing project commissioned by Imelda Marcos in the 1970s for retired military personnel. It evolved into a model strategy to try to deal with the housing problem of millions of Filipinos living in squalid communities in ravines and woods and along roadways all across the country. Fifty years later The Philippines still have a massive housing problem.
When it comes to motivation, my blood curdles every time I hear the word, incentivize.
Motivation comes from within. No-one is actually motivated (incentivized?!) by some external force – moved maybe, but not motivated.
To get noticed on social media, words are not enough; even pictures are not enough. You need more than pictures to get and hold people’s attention. You need moving pictures.
And we’re not talking about black and white Charlie Chaplin movies, we’re talking talkies.
TikTok.
In the face of this daunting market-place for books, most Canadian writers don’t realistically expect to become rich and famous, nor even become ‘best-selling authors’; they just want to be read. (I suppose that might be said of all writers. How many aspiring American authors also live in obscurity, their books languishing in their closets, unsold, unread and unloved.)
If I was to be a real author, not a closet pretender, I needed to sell a lot more of my books.
Despite my reservations, and fear, I wanted to get wider exposure. I wanted affirmation. Endless ego needs may have been at the base of all this, but if I wanted exposure, I had to promote my books. As any author, successful and otherwise, will attest, the better mousetrap gets no attention by itself.
Writing the Dynamics of Management, Mastering the Intangibles of Influencing Others, took ten years, or more – five to get started, two to actually produce
Writing, in the beginning, was merely an occupational necessity. I was an H.R. Professional. I wrote letters, memoranda, policy papers, employee handbooks. I suppose some
What makes for effective writing style? There may be a number of objective criteria for what satisfies the characteristic ‘effective’, but the answer must also
If you have the idea that I was/am an academic pedant, you would be wrong. At least I hope you are wrong. I am a
I never took a writing course. There was a basic styles handbook in university, and I’m sure I had marginal feedback from various TAs who
How many of you have thought, ‘maybe I should write a book’? If you’re reading this blog, I suspect, most of you. Everyone has a
Travels with Myself (with apologies to John Steinbeck, or should it be Graham Greene?) is the story of my journey of discovery, to find myself
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