Before I became a full-time writer, I had a job counting envelopes. Not colored envelopes or large manila envelopes, mind you, but white #10 envelopes. I had to count them in series of a hundred. Even now I can see them flashing in my eyes as I flipped through them, blinding myself as though I were looking out at a blanket of snow polished by the sun with dilated pupils. At the end of the day I’d leave the office with spots in my eyes. Why I had to count envelopes for six ...

It has become obvious to all but the most unrelentingly stubborn apologists for the oil industry that we now stand at a pivotal moment in the history of our planet. As much fun as it would be to make fun of Al Gore's pretentious drawl and expanding bald spot, none of us can afford to ignore his clarion call for global change. With humankind's carbon footprint leaving a catastrophic impact upon Mother Earth, it is the sacred responsibility of every citizen to make a change for...

Ask a bunch of aspiring magazine writers what editors are looking for when they read article queries and I'll bet most of them answer, "good article ideas." Well, sort of. What editors most want to find in queries are good article ideas from writers who have an appealing edge over other writers. Contrary to what most beginning freelancers think, that edge need not be writing talent. A good many other qualities, some of which don't show up in a query, make a writer valuable...

Over the years, many people have asked me to look at their writing. "I need to know, do I have talent or not," they say. "Then I’ll know if I should pursue writing or stick to accounting." Their request is seriously flawed, I'd reply. Anyone can become a better writer. When I taught English Composition at various colleges, I saw irrefutable proof of this. Students who submitted hackneyed, half-dead writing to start with turned in lively, well-written essays by the end of t...

Authoring as a Risk-Taking Endeavor Being an unpublished novelist poses all sorts of dilemmas. Writing is entrepreneurial in nature, more than most people realize, and it is fraught with make or break decisions. Which side of the political spectrum do you show yourself? Do you embellish this or that social issue, perhaps the one most fashionable, or do you hide from them all? If your goal is publication for its own sake, and you've decided to write, say, Gothic romance ...

I have lived in New York City my entire life. I often feel privileged to be a part of the energy and magic of this Mecca of celebrity. Under the semi privileged dome of my existence, I encounter the rich and famous at every turn. When I was a teenager, I crossed paths with Jerry Lewis in Times Square and bumped elbows once with Marvin Gaye. As a passionate college student of Cinema Studies, I dined across the room from Woody Allen and stopped to compliment his latest film...

When Warner Books, one of the world's largest publishing companies, published my first book, The Angry Clam, back in 1998, the most common question I was asked was, "What were you smoking when you wrote this book?" This was quickly followed by the second most common question, "How in the world did a 40-page, hand-written book with bad drawings of a clam get published?" The answer to the first question was easy - pure Turkish Hashish - just kidding. (Actually, I awoke in th...

It's important to keep in mind, that not all ghost writers are skilled in all kinds of writing. Many times, ghost writers earn a quite a nice salary do something they love, which is writing. Ghost writers are more common than you think. Of course, not all people who use ghost writers are going to create books. Ghost writers are no new phenomenon. Ghost writers are drawn from those vast majority writers who do not have big book contracts of their own. In many countries, academ...

You know? When you publish a book and send it out into the world, it's like giving birth to a baby. Everyone checks out your baby. Is it breath-taking? Does it have ten toes and ten fingers? Is it pink and sweet or does it look like an extra from "Alien?" We writers are baring our souls, our deepest thoughts, and our feelings lay open like a cavernous wound. We can't hide anymore. They know us inside and out. Now they see our baby, and they get to pick it to pieces, bit by bi...