Category: Publishing

Essays by Shalon Sims on education, creative writing and literacy

Using a Strategic Plan to organize and plan a novel

Have you been working on a novel or other large creative project for a while, and feeling like organizing and managing the project has become a big challenge? Have a million ideas captured in a million documents or none at all, just free-floating in your head? In this blog post, I’ll outline a method for…
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Let children read books for adults!

Was I alone in my quest for adult reading materials? Around the age of nine or ten I discovered Stephen King, and I would never go back to the Sweet Valley of children’s books ever again. I recall sneaking my mother’s horror and thriller books from her bedroom bookshelf, one at a time, and reading…
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What a top New York agent wants: the element of surprise

Sitting down with Don Maass of the famous Donald Maass Literary Agency last week, I wasn’t all that nervous. Probably the lack of sleep and my impending major surgery scheduled for four days later had dulled my need for validation. Or maybe it was because I actually believe in the book I was pitching; I…
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Writing a standalone with series potential – the magic words every agent wants to hear

Just got back from the Surrey International Writing Conference where I pitched my novel series successfully to three agents. Sounds great, right? Well, yes, it is, but there’s a big but. BUT, the agents have all basically made it clear that they want me to send them a standalone book “with series potential.” Not a…
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