With the passing of editor Richard Jackson, and amidst the talk about him, the question quite naturally came up: What makes for a great editor? My own response is highly subjective. I think every writer would say so. The person who is a good editor for writer X is not necessarily a good editor for
On Sunday I went through my manuscript one final time. By saying final, that means I am no longer making substantive changes, or I’m bored with going over and over and over the same thing, which means I am in need of other eyes. I ran the text through my spell and grammar checker, thereby taking
In many different ways, yes. When I feel that a book I am writing has reached a certain level of quality—after about seven months—I read the manuscript to my wife. She knows, generally, what I have been writing about, but I have not shared specifics. Not only is my wife exceptionally well read, she is a good
As I continue to answer the questions I am most often asked, I’ve been given two more questions. Question one: “Do you work to write the way the people spoke in the past?” This is actually a complex question. The answer, simply put, is that it depends on the context of the book I am trying
It is the way of most art—a piece of writing, movie, painting, dance, etc., etc.—that it is generally created to be experienced by others, and in so doing exposes itself to both public praise and criticism. That is inherently part of the art-making process. Moreover, this critical response comes to the artist, for the most
I was terribly saddened to learn of the death of Dick Jackson, a good friend and one of the great editors. Over many years I worked with him on some twenty books, but I had to go back and look at my list, because there may have been more. I worked with him more than
Read. Read. Read. The more you read the better writer you can become. When you are setting out to become a writer it’s more important to read than it is to write. Reading is the best teacher of writing. My own mantra is: Writers don’t write writing, they write reading. And remember, when you write
Sixty years ago. It was some time about 1961 and I was a student at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. At the time, I was working on my master’s degree in the Speech Department, wherein was housed the Theatre Department, for it was theatre I was interested in, working at trying to become a playwright.
Lately, in this blog, I have been providing answers to the questions I am most often asked about my books and writing. I’ve also invited readers to ask new questions. Here are two recently posed questions. “Will the 4th book in the Crispin series ever be published?” I rarely have a full sense of how the
How many books have you published? There have been seventy-two novels, both long and short, and that includes two books scheduled for next year. There have been three collections of short stories and a fair number of short stories published individually in anthologies. There have been a few pictures books. There has been a published one-act play.