Nathan Bransford - The Forums

Over President's Day weekend, I attended my second San Francisco Writers Conference. It was exhausting. All the networking, pitching and self-promoting wore me down. For an introvert like me, it was like being at a high school reunion for 36 hours. Sober. With a cold sore. But I persevered. Despite ...

One tool that may help with the speed-writing part: I just bought some voice recognition software. I’ve heard that some authors use this almost exclusively to type their manuscripts. It takes some getting used to. When I first tried it, my writing looked like email-spam from the deposed prince of Ni...

With all our research, workshop critiques, homework assignments, books about writing, blogs, tweets, emails and pesky day jobs, it’s no wonder we can’t make time to write our own stuff. How do you manage the overwhelming amount of information we’re expected to process on a daily basis? How do you wr...

There are definitely writers conferences outside the U.S. I just don't know which ones are reputable, popular, etc.

I feel your pain. I think most people who've never tried to write a book have a skewed view of how long it takes to complete one. They think of guys like James Patterson pumping a thriller out every ten months. Don't let them rush you... you'll know when it's done!

sophie --
if you've never been to a conference it's definitely worth the money to go to your first one -- because you learn so much. I'll let you know if it was worth it the second time around.

I sit down at the table, elevator pitch in hand, book manuscript in my lap. The bell rings. I have three minutes. The agent across from me is already skeptical; that's his job. I have to find a way to make myself -- and my novel -- stand out. It reminds me of that scene in the movie "Hustle and...