Author: Steve Parolini
-
Publishing: 10 Years from Now
You’ve read everybody else’s predictions. You’ve heard from the experts. The insiders. The pundits. Well, goody for you. Those prognosticators may have knowledge. They may have expertise. They may even have credibility. But what they don’t have…is a really good imagination. So forget all those boring predictions and trust mine instead. They’re based on years…
-
First Impressions: Common Sense Advice for Writers
Long before Twitter made the under-140-character limit de rigueur for quotable quotes, someone said “You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.” This is good advice. What it means in practical terms is that if I greet my new boss with “I sure hope you’re not the same as the old boss…
-
Soon, But Not Yet
As most of you probably know, Real Life has been rather difficult these past few weeks. My premie granddaughter, Ayla, has been fighting for life since she was born on November 11, sixteen weeks early. I’ve been spending much of this time focusing on the needs of my young son, his equally-young girlfriend and their…
-
From the Office of Admissions
Let’s not call them confessions, okay? Because that reeks of guilt. And for many of the following, I feel no guilt whatsoever. I admit… I am immediately turned off by best-selling books because I hold fast to an erroneous belief that for something to be popular, it must cater to the lowest common denominator and…
-
A Guest Post Elsewhere
First of all, if you’re coming here from @katdish’s “Hey Look, a Chicken” blog, don’t click on the link below. It’s just going to take you right back to her post and then you’ll be stuck in an infinite loop and will eventually die of starvation. Or boredom. But since you’re here, feel free to…
-
When Editors Go Bad
If you’ve been reading my little blog for any length of time, you already know that editors aren’t prefect. [Yes, I just wrote “prefect.” Squirming yet?] As evidence of this, I present to you some of the most common mistakes editors make. By “editors” I mean me. And by “mistakes” I mean errors in judgment…