Mystery Author LB Cobb | |
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Writers - Fiction Writers - Writing Fiction Home Promises Splendor Author Events Contact Buy Books Blogs of Note Q&A Reader's Guide Writing Mysteries Translate
"Author: A fool who, not content with having bored those who have lived with him, insists on tormenting generations to come." - Montesquieu DO YOU EVER GET WRITERS BLOCK? Let's put it this way: Writing a first draft is easy. The hard work, the pruning and polishing necessary to produce a work that doesn't bore an innocent bystander to death, is something that I can not do for months, even years, on end. Some writers might call that writers block. I call it benign neglect and making the world a better place. DO YOU HAVE ANY ADVICE FOR BEGINNING FICTION WRITERS? I'll pass along advice a newly published fiction writer gave the crowd at the first writer's conference I attended -- "If you can stop it now, do it!" Of course, I didn't listen then, and I don't expect anyone intent on writing a novel and compulsive enough to actually do it to listen to me either. But trust me, no good can come of it! Why, you ask? Simple. Producing a book is like having children. The begetting is fun, but all too soon that fun is followed by the agony of childbirth and all those years of raising a contrary individual with a mind of his/her own. Then that child leaves home and you miss all that aggravation terribly for the rest of your life. Much the same is true for a book. The writing, the creating, is fun. Editing and polishing for publication is aggravation. Marketing and promotion is agony, something that goes on far too long. And then it's all done -- the book is launched and it is what it will be. It doesn't need you anymore. It seldom even calls home. Bottom line: Writing a novel isn't the sort of thing that should be undertaken lightly. DO YOU HAVE ANY ADVICE FOR READERS? Read books! Buy books! Don't walk pass that struggling author setting at the table in B&N hawking their book. And support your local library -- they have the best prices on books and some even have coffee bars -- because that's where every writer really wants their books to be -- in a library where people check them out often. (If your library doesn't have my books, ask them to get them!) Visit your library often and take your children with you. Teach a child to read and to take pleasure in the wonders inside books. Who knows, thirty or forty years later, he/she might starve in a garret while writing his/her own Great American Novel. Tell them to pick a garret with a great view and a significant other who earns enough to pay the bills! WHERE CAN WE GET YOUR BOOKS? Although they've been out for several years now, most online booksellers still carry the tradepaper edition. Any US bookstore can order SPLENDOR BAY or PROMISES TOWN from national wholesalers Ingrams and Baker & Taylor. Click here for the list of booksellers who usually have them in stock or can get them quickly. SPLENDOR BAY is also available in Microsoft Reader e-Book and Adobe Reader e-Book editions, and both novels are available as Adobe Reader e-books from libraries who subscribe to the NetLibrary program. The Texas State Library and Archives has issued SPLENDOR BAY and PROMISES TOWN through the Talking Book Program as a free audio book for readers with disabilities. Heck, if you can't wait to get started on one of them, just click the links below: Writing Mysteries: Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Home Promises Splendor Author Events Contact Buy Books Blogs of Note Q&A Reader's Guide Writing Mysteries Translate
Copyright L. B. Cobb. All rights reserved. This page last updated 04/21/2009 by Texas Web Houston.
Writers - Fiction Writers - Writing Fiction
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"Very likeable characters that you begin to really care about" - Murder and Mayhem Bookclub
"Promises Town hooked me on the first page and I was sad to reach the last page" - Murder Express |
