December 2003

The Writer

The essential resource for writers

Join thousands of successful writers when you subscribe to The Writer magazine. Each month The Writer is full of features you can use to improve your writing, including before-and-after examples of improved writing, more literary markets than ever before, practical solutions for writing problems, selected literary magazine profiles, tips from famous authors and hands-on advice.

Features

Born to write

By Jessica Hatchigan

Dean Koontz, a giant of suspense, on using characters to take his fiction to unforeseen--not to mention, really scary--places. So go lock your doors and settle in for some good insights.

Stay focused

By Susan K. Perry

Experienced writers offer a dozen techniques they use to keep their concentration focused and their minds from wandering.

Find your voice--and get it on the page

By Polly Campbell

Voice is the quality that gets your personality on the page. It's how you make your writing distinctive and memorable.

Keep it real

By Jonathan Harris

Readers of thrillers are quite willing to take an imaginative leap if the writer has built credibility and anchored his story to the concrete world.

Confessions of a word addict

By Anu Garg

The founder of the globally popular Wordsmith.org on the joy and value of enriching your vocabulary--and your writing.

Now that's a s-t-r-e-t-c-h

By Sharon Miller Cindrich

The last thing a writer needs is a repetitive-strain injury. Here are six simple exercises to do at your keyboard to help head off the problem, while increasing your alertness and cutting your fatigue.

Departments

Off the cuff

A writer's notebook

By Erica Jong

Every writer at times could use a collection of quotations to get over rough patches. Our famous author shares some choice passages from her own notebook of meditations on writing.

Syntax

Shall we coin a term?

By Arthur Plotnik

Through the years, neologisms--new words or word combinations--have enriched our language and helped it keep pace. Think metrosexual, pseudo-event, 'tude and the evergreen puke.

Letters

Dear Writer

Lots of practical advice for a writer who lives "in the sticks" and wants to know how to make connections, from the members of WritersX4.

Miscellany

How The Modern Library got more than it bargained for with a Joyce Carol Oates reprint, how poetry made Sherman Alexie feel less alone, and other literary notes.

Net//Working

Make more money now

By Anthony Tedesco

Online markets offer freelancers a growing number of opportunities. Here's what you need to know about securing the most lucrative rates and rights.

Breakthrough

Learning to think outside the box

By Laura Duksta

How a "bald chick" and a "hippie" with no writing background conceived and self-published a touching children's book that has sold more than 35,000 copies.

Bottom line

Look before you leap

By Kelly James-Enger

Before you take the leap into full-time freelancing, ask yourself some important questions and do some planning.

WriteStuff

Just in time for the holidays, a roundup of 20 great books for writers, selected by one of our regular reviewers, Chuck Leddy.

Market focus

Doing well--and doing good--in the nonprofit sector

By Joseph Barbato

Doing freelance writing for nonprofit organizations offers a way to make money while advancing a good cause.

Market update

Children's-book market expands

By Connie C. Epstein

A roundup of some new faces, new imprints and other changes.

How I write

Thomas DeBaggio

As a writer, give everything you've got, advises Thomas DeBaggio, who does so even amid the turmoil of Alzheimer's disease.