Dear Purposeful Prose, I’ve stopped reading books as much because it’s hard to pay attention through reading, and when I am paying attention, the books give or show me too many ideas. I wouldn’t use them in my own writing, but I want to come up with my own ideas. A lot of writing communities I’ve said this in have gotten angry about this and said I’m not a “real writer,” and it’s gotten to me. I’m not sure what to do.  To begin by answering the question directly, existing wor

Dear Purposeful Prose,  As an author and reader, my algorithms have taken great pains to emphasize the 120 books in a year celebration. Of course, social media is as social media does. Reading has turned into a contest or something to count. On the other side of things, as an author, I’m finding a lot of issues with this discussion that a lot of people aren’t talking about. I’ve written self-help, and I’ve written fictionalized accounts inspired by events from my childhood. I

Dear Purposeful Prose, Most of the people who I’ve seen get book deals are influencers or people whose families are already in the publishing industry. In other words, these are people who already have an “in.” While I’ve done a lot of querying, I haven’t had any responses from publishers. Am I doing something wrong? Is it even possible to get published if you don’t have a connection? It makes sense to say that the people you are seeing get book deals mostly have an “in” with