Authors Electric

Cover illo for the 25th Anny edition of The Suiting 8/2013. I had a date with a model last night. I can’t talk about her, but I can tell you this: the road to hell is truly paved with the best dimensions. Then again, years ago, I found the road to heaven’s gate in a cross-country move. Act 1             Time: the middle-Eighties, when we still sent letters.             I set out from San Francisco, where a strayed loin is the quickest way to get from Pant A to Pant B. Destination: New York City, the heart of the publishing action.  I arrived with fire in the belly—and more in need of a fresh start than any hundred writers.              Why? In the previous decade I’d sent out thousands of queries. Though I now had something wild and fresh, a query recognized as mine would call to mind yesterday’s...

No doubt about it, blogging and social networking are inescapable and will be for a long time to come. But if you’re a writer, you need to know how it works and how you can make the most of it. So this is what happens. First, no need to write an actual novel. Just jot down a few paragraphs – enough to put extracts online now and again. You can probably get away with just a few pages. You’ll be telling the world you’re a writer and, with no evidence to the contrary, who’s going to contradict you? Just to be safe, though, prepare a few snippets of writerly wisdom. Mix and match them a bit because you want to tap into as many potential readerships as possible. Intellectuals are the easy ones. For them, just look up some huge words and juggle them into sentences. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know what they mean; if they sound obscure enough no one will dare question them because that might suggest inadequacy on their part. Another easy target is the literary snob. To satisfy ...