One Thing You Really Have

The Two Mistakes That Come To Mind Are People Who Introduce A Flood Of Characters In The First Few Pages. Where The Reader Has To Stop And Get Out A Flow Chart And Has To Figure Out Who Is Who. And You Just Can't Do That - Introduce The First Four Generations Of A Character's Family In The First Chapter. You Can Introduce Four Or Five Characters At The Most In The First Chapter. Another Mistake Is To Use Big Words That Are Not Normally Used In Conversation To Try To Impress Folks With Your Vocabulary.

So Many Book Sections In Newspapers And Magazines Used To Be Lively And Vibrant Places. Now They Are Gone. You Just Don't See Many Reviews Anymore. I Can't Control That, So I Don't Worry About It. I Just Try To Do What I Do And Write Books That People Find Every Entertaining. I Don't Worry About The Critics.

I Always Do Book Signings With The Same Blue Pen. That Way, If I Add A Personalised Message To A Book I've Already Signed, It'll Be In The Same Colour As My Signature.

I Remember Stephen King Did A Fundraiser One Time With J.k. Rowling And He Was Very Impressed With Her. But We Talk A Lot About Publishing, Bookselling, And Book Writing. He's Been Around For Ten Years Longer Than Me And Was A Bestseller Right Off The Bat. And He's Seen And Done Everything. It's Rare To Be With Somebody Who Has Been Through All Of That.

I Was A Lawyer For 10 Years, And Several Of My Clients Had The Misfortune, Through No Fault Of My Own, Of Going To Prison. I Visited Them Occasionally.