Up this week on The First Book: Jenny Gardiner and her debut novel,
SLEEPING WITH WARD CLEAVER. Go read the interview. Fun stuff.
The traffic has been steadily increasing on site, which is great for all the authors over there. There’s no reason to do this unless it’s helping writers. You may have noticed that I made some changes to the design. There were some things that bothered me about the old design — the main one being that if you linked to an individual interview, you lost the sidebar. So I switched over to this design and made a few other improvements, too. Don’t worry, I don’t plan on being one of those obsessive types who changes the design every few months. It really was for functional reasons. When I came up with this idea, I wanted to keep it simple since I don’t have much free time as it is, but I still wanted to do something that would 1) help writers — my way of paying forward, 2) help keep me up to date with what publishers are coming out with these days, and 3) raise my own Internet profile in a way that wasn’t obnoxious. I think it’s accomplished all three things, while providing interesting information for readers, writers, agents, and editors.
Other stuff:
- My goal of writing 1000 words every day, no exceptions, has paid off big time; my productivity is back where it was before my Second Child Drop Off. I wrote a post a while back on the differences between a project writer and a process writer, and it’s clear I’ve got be a process writer right now. But man, the pages do add up when you’re cranking out three or four every day. It feels good to be rolling again, and what’s really great is that I think I can even do better.
- If you’re a newly pregnant woman or know one who is, consider buying my friend Jodi Neelin’s little book, The Pregnasaurus. It’s a great little book, funny, charming, and touching at the same time. Think of it as a children’s book for adults.