by mike | Mar 16, 2015 | Adventure fantasy, Books, Editing, Horror, Publishing, Thrillers, Uncategorized, Writing |
Advice about the business and the craft of writing seldom gets dated. Every so often I will be revisiting previous posts, such as this one from 2012. Did you expect to see the word “profit” in that title? Not likely. Let me share some thoughts from what I’ve...
by mike | Feb 2, 2015 | Books, Editing, Mystery Novels, Uncategorized, Writing |
Victorian-era writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created two of the most memorable characters in all of fiction: amateur sleuth Sherlock Holmes and his chronicler, Dr. John Watson. Their adventures spanned four novels and over fifty short stories. Obviously, there had to...
by mike | Jan 5, 2015 | Books, Editing, Publishing, Read & Critique, Thrillers, Uncategorized, Writers' Conferences, Writing |
Back in my salad days, when I took on just about any writer who had a pulse, I worked with a woman from the Midwest—let’s call her Helen—who had written, according to her, about three-quarters of a thriller. I first evaluated what she’d completed, and quite frankly,...
by mike | Nov 24, 2014 | Books, Editing, Historical Novels, Native Americans, Publishing, Uncategorized, Writing |
I managed to nab the URL of mikesirota.com a long time ago, and ever since then it has connected people to my Mike Sirota Writing Services website. That time has come to an end, as I’ve officially retired from coaching writers, and evaluating/editing manuscripts....
by mike | Nov 3, 2014 | Books, Editing, Publishing, Uncategorized, Writers' Conferences, Writing |
Okay, this week I’m going to be a curmudgeon—something that I do quite well, actually. There are organizations, conferences, workshops—whatever—that stress sitting down with your laptops on fire and writing novels just as fast as you can. Write 5,000 words over a...
by mike | Aug 25, 2014 | Books, Editing, Publishing, Uncategorized, Writing |
In my centuries of evaluating and editing manuscripts I’ve probably been through five million of ’em. (Wait, I’m not supposed to exaggerate; it’s only one million.) With that large a sample size it’s clear that many of the same mistakes plague writers, whether they’re...
