Writer Unboxed

What Makes a Book Magical?

Ann Aguirre — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:11:12 +0000

For me, it’s character development. Interesting characters, those that are different, unusual, flawed: those are the ones I remember. I love reading about people who shine, who stand out from the literary pack. By shine, I don’t mean perfection. Flaws make or break the character. I remember reading one manuscript when I was judging a [...]

Second-Chance Auction & Honor Roll

Writer Unboxed — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 06:00:48 +0000

As many of you know, our first-ever WU auction was plagued last weekend due to a distributed denial-of-service attack, which took out our site, forced us to change hosts and IP addresses, and generally gave us a lot of gray hair and required the scheduling of massages. Because many of you were either – a. [...]

What’s In a (Baby) Name?

Jael McHenry — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:00:05 +0000

My first baby is two months away from needing a name, but I’ve owned baby name books for more than a decade. It’s a writer thing. In the first short stories I wrote, way back in elementary school, I think I mainly named my characters for people I knew. Erica. Ben. Mike. Dawn. (My class [...]

Comic: The Bad Date

Debbie Ohi — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 11:00:38 +0000

‘Social’ media: What isn’t in a name

Porter Anderson — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 12:00:11 +0000

O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power Dost hold Time’s fickle glass, his sickle, hour… Sonnet 126 The so-called “social” media, currently our lovely boy of communication, hold in their darting packets of data, surely, unimaginable power. They collapse distance across continents and seas we once showed on [...]

Happy Birthday, Book Baby

Guest — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:00:50 +0000

Therese here. I’m so pleased to bring you today’s guest: author Sarah McCoy. Sarah’s second book, The Baker’s Daughter, about the daughter of a German baker during WWII and her continuing story in the present day, was released just last week by Crown (and with a deckle edge; I love a deckle edge). Said Tatiana de [...]

The Role of Editors: A Writer’s Viewpoint

Juliet Marillier — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 13:00:33 +0000

It never feels good to set a manuscript aside when the writing’s going well. Sadly, because I’ve never mastered the art of working on two books at once, I’m putting my half-written YA novel on hold for the next few weeks while I attend to the editorial report on a historical fantasy for adults, Flame [...]

Research vs. Observation

Donald Maass — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:00:11 +0000

Do you research your novels to the point of obsession or do you not research at all? Historical novelists are research junkies. Coming-of-age novelists mostly rely on memory. The majority of fiction writers fall somewhere in between: They study just enough so that their settings are accurate and their characters’ occupations feel real. The rest [...]

VOTE in the WU Logo Contest

Writer Unboxed — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:12:09 +0000

Thanks to all who contributed logos in the Writer Unboxed logo contest. The competition was fierce, with forty entries vying for our affections. In the end, we gravitated toward a few logos that used imagery to show a sort of unboxing. Here’s what we loved, now you tell us what you love. Take a look [...]

WU Wonky-ness? Here’s What’s Up.

Writer Unboxed — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 22:17:29 +0000

Hi everyone, If you’ve experienced problems with links, or any other form of wonky-ness relating to your experience at WU between Friday and today, we want you to know you’re not alone. On Friday, our web host informed us that WU was under a distributed denial-of-service attack, and needed to shut us down. We’ve been [...]