Publishing is brutal. It's the first thing you learn as a new writer, and it's a lesson reiterated at every step along the way. From drafting to critiquing to querying to subbing. Brutal. All of it. Previously, my record on receiving a rejection for a query was thirty minutes from the time sent. Thirty minutes. [...]
A large part of succeeding as a writer boils down to your willingness to put in the time. Can you accept sitting at a desk, dreaming up worlds, typing (or scribbling) the words, and getting it done? The answer to these questions has always been a resounding yes for me, but I tend to fail [...]
Can you measure the worth of a year? How do you set the price? In dollars? In euros? In pesos? Can you put a price on it at all? When you get a cancer diagnosis, you find out just how much your time with loved ones is really worth, and just how much more of [...]
There’s a job opening in a microbiology laboratory where I used to work. I’ve said often to friends and family how much I missed working in the micro lab, how much fun the testing could be, how interesting the job. And yet… I have no less than four headhunters who have emailed me about this [...]
My sink is full of dirty dishes, my dishwasher full of clean. The laundry needs to be moved to the dryer and the carpets could certainly use a vacuum. But I am a writer waiting on betas. Which means I must refresh my email exactly 12,483 times a day to see if anyone has left [...]
If you’ve been following me for a while, odds are good that you know the health crisis we’ve been through over the last year as my husband faced a scary pancreatic cancer diagnosis last spring. The kind of diagnosis you’re not supposed to get at 43. It was awful. It was traumatic. And until this [...]
I won’t lie. When I first began writing with the intention of finishing and someday publishing a novel (or fifteen), I didn’t have the first clue as to what kinds of water I was dipping my toes into. (Hint: Deep, dark, swift moving, filled with odd creatures who will take a bite out of you, [...]
L. Ryan Storms 