Happy 2014, the year in which you will write that novel — or short story, or essay, or memoir, or poem, or all of the above. Amicus Scriptor will appear in even-numbered months in 2014, and I’ll be responding to “questions from the audience” as well as continuing to support you in your creative writing...Read More

  What to give the attorney who has everything? ‘Tis the season for that challenging question. Perhaps Scott Turow’s newest, “Identical” (Grand Central Publishing), Chicago attorney Thomas R. Leavens’ “Music Law for the General Practitioner (ABA) or, hey, even my own “Courting Kathleen Hannigan” (Ampersand) or “Warming Up” (She Writes Press)? That would be so...Read More

      Amicus Script or sidebar to my Law Bulletin October column, published Nov. 1. HOW TO WRITE A LOT OF WORDS FAST. 1. Set a timer for 50 minutes. Start writing. 2. Inhabit a scene. See, hear and write everything. 3. Dissect an action — write it out in excruciating, step-by-step detail. 4. Examine...Read More

Amicus Scriptor September 27, 2013       Last month, I encouraged you to submit your story or self-contained novel excerpt to a magazine, journal or contest. And today, you may be all ready to go — story polished, guidelines followed, deadline still pending in the future. But perhaps you haven’t yet worked up the...Read More

BY JENN BALLARD  LAW BULLETIN STAFF WRITER After 37 years of practice, Mary HutchingsReed is accustomed to interpreting the law for her clients. “I practice in an area w here my clients tend not to be law yers,” she said of her w ork handling marketing, advertising, trademark, copyright and entertainment law matters. “I tend to work...Read More

    In last month’s pontification, I declared that writers do writerly things — join, learn, explore, write, share. And then, of course, the dreaded “submit.”I’m not sure which is more frightening, not knowing how and where to submit, or getting back the dreaded rejection. Lawyers don’t win all their cases, and yet they keep...Read More

    July 26 AMICUS SCRIPTOR column: In the past few months, I’ve done some bookstore readings for my new novel, Warming Up, and at a couple of them, there have been people there I didn’t know!  Not friends.  Not friends of friends.  Not fellow alumni.  Generic members of the public. Why?  Why were they...Read More

Carving a story from blank marble June 28, 2013 By Mary Hutchings Reed In my new novel, ʺWarming Upʺ (SheWritesPress, 2013), amateur sculptor Dr. Haverill Richardson, therapist to the main character, is unable to take the first swing at a hunk of marble because he doesnʹt know what itʹs going to be when he is...Read More

                                                                  Read it out  loud. Read it backwards. Take out every word ending in “-ly.” Review every use of “was.” Spell check. And though it  may be politically incorrect, every editor says it: “You’ve got to kill   your babies.” In other   words, edit your work. Writing 500   words a day for the past year, you...Read More

April 26, 2013 By Mary Hutchings Reed     We’ve been writing together for a year now, and, if you did the page-a-day thing, you’ve got a manuscript ready for editing. I’m guessing, though, that a page a day — while a worthy goal — is too ambitious for a first-time novelist who is also...Read More