The interview I’ve looked forward to the most at the Missouri Writers’ Guild conference blog is finally posted! My interview with Jane Friedman, who has an assortment of publishing industry credits including former Writer’s Digest publisher, is posted!

Just while researching my questions, I learned so much. That caused me to worry, though. How was she going to add anything more to the interviews already out there. How was I going to think of questions that allowed her to add new thoughts to the conversation?

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I recently did a Q&A with YA literary Agent Ann Behar with Scovil Galen Ghosh Literary Agency, Inc. She receives mostly fantasy and scifi queries because she said of her agency’s track record of success with authors like Terry Goodkind, Arthur C. Clarke and Mercedes Lackey. However, she is interested in all good writing:

“…if a book is extraordinary, I don’t care if it’s about faeries, dragons or stamp collecting. A great writer can make any subject gripping.  So, a fantasy or science fiction novel would have to have three-dimensional characters that I come to care about immediately, a detailed, fascinating world that makes me feel as if I am a part of, and a tightly structured plot that holds my attention from the start to finish.”

Read the full interview with her over at the Missouri Writers’ Guild Conference Blog.

I had fun making a wordle yesterday. No, that’s not a typo. A wordle is a picture of a group of words – most often called a word cloud. Making a word cloud is good activity to do when you need to take a break from writing, but still want to get something accomplished on your story.

It can be used as a marketing tool. You can design one in photoshop or illustrator like the logo for the Meso Foundation’s 2011 conference:

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My life – as a writer – has been overtaken by clutter, research and mail. When you live in one space for a long time, it’s easy for misc items that spark your interest to build up. Then when it comes time to clean the paper mountains on your desk, or that random end table or even the bookshelf, it can feel overwhelming.

Instead of cleaning up that clutter, I used to cheat. Once I’d reached a point of critical mass, I’d push everything into a box – throw out a teeny bit – and then shove the box in a walk in closet.

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Yesterday, I gave a presentation on the basics of Social Media during the St. Louis Writers’ Guild monthly workshop. Two other authors presented along with me, Cole Gibsen and Shawntelle Madison. The audience was great, and everyone asked a lot of good questions.

Here is a PDF of my Power Point presentation.

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