No, this is not about a certain retail chain changing locations. ;)

The more I learn about publishing, the more I realize that the easiest part of the publishing process is the novel writing itself.

Everything else is a moving target. Genres heat up, genres cool down. Some publishers are fine with your name, others have a pen name in mind for you already. Agents retire, new agents start out. One day everyone is selling novel series, the other day stand-alone sales are it. Contracts are iron-clad, contracts are revised. And let's not get started on the covers. Le sigh.

So what's a writer to do? Write.

Sure, that's easy for me to say, especially when getting words on a page can feel like trying to tweeze my eyebrows with a plunger at the best of times.

For all I know, novels about narcoleptic accordion players could be totally out by the time I'm shopping my manuscript around. But then I can just change him into a guitarist. Without the beret.

How about you? How do you keep tabs on what's in, what's out and what to write?

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