Dave Swan is querying
LightNews LightNews
banner
davesswan.bsky.social
Dave Swan is querying
@davesswan.bsky.social
740 followers 550 following 220 posts
Writer, ex-journalist, freelance editor. Querying #HistoricalFiction; short stories at daveswanauthor.wordpress.com/. This feed shames fascists. #GoBlue https://linktr.ee/davidsswan.
Posts Replies Media Videos
davesswan.bsky.social
Some people and characters speak decent English, others don’t. You can capture their language without making them look dumb (unless they really are). #amwriting #writingcommunity #writingtips #writinglife
Vintage typewriter and Steve Martin quote: “Many very fine writers are intimidated when they have to write the way people really talk. Actually it's quite easy. Simply lower your IQ by fifty and start typing!”
November 11, 2025 at 3:30 PM
davesswan.bsky.social
People will sniff out a cardboard character, a wildly impossible plot or boring dialogue. Respect your readers on every page. #amwriting #writingcommunity #writingtips #writinglife
Vintage blue typewriter and Rod Serling quote: “Whatever you write, whenever you write, never make the mistake of assuming the audience is any less intelligent than you are.”
November 4, 2025 at 2:16 PM
davesswan.bsky.social
The Gulf of Mexico in the afternoon, as it always has been and will be. #Florida #PanamaCityBeach
Sun shining down on Gulf.
October 29, 2025 at 10:28 PM
davesswan.bsky.social
Characters say things you didn’t expect. Beta readers call you out on a half-baked story line. It’s tough. But from chaos comes art. #amwriting #writingcommunity #writingtips #writinglife
Vintage blue typewriter and Lillian Hellman quote: “Nothing you write, if you hope to be good, will ever come out as you first hoped.”
October 28, 2025 at 3:13 PM
davesswan.bsky.social
Once again our young sugar maple leads the pack in changing color.
Tree with orange and yellow leaves
October 23, 2025 at 11:00 PM
davesswan.bsky.social
Some crossover advice from a giant of jazz. Whether it’s notes on the bandstand or words on the page, choose the right ones and don’t waste any. #amwriting #writingcommunity #writingtips #writinglife
Vintage blue typewriter and Thelonious Monk quote: "What you don't play can be more important than what you do play."
October 21, 2025 at 1:10 PM
davesswan.bsky.social
Do you, writer, take this manuscript to be your life partner, in lousy first drafts and big sales, in beta reads and submissions, in despair and in glory? #amwriting #writingcommunity #writingtips #writinglife
Vintage blue typewriter and Hilary Mantel quote: “Fear of commitment lies behind the fear of writing.”
October 14, 2025 at 3:09 PM
davesswan.bsky.social
As writers, we’re always waiting for something: an agent’s decision, a cover designer’s vision, a beta reader’s thoughts. Read my thoughts on coping with these pins and needles in my Substack post for @atlantawritersclub.bsky.social: awc1914.substack.com/p/the-weight.... #amwriting #writingcommunity
Hourglass with sand running through.
October 10, 2025 at 1:39 PM
davesswan.bsky.social
If the floor isn’t level, the foundation isn’t solid. #amwriting #writingcommunity #writingtips #writinglife
Vintage blue typewriter and Billy Wilder quote: “If you have a problem with the third act, the real problem is in the first act.”
October 7, 2025 at 1:20 PM
davesswan.bsky.social
Listen to everyone around you - friends, colleagues, folks on the train or in the bar. That’s not snooping or plagiarism. You’re building your book’s LLM. #amwriting #writingcommunity #writingtips #writinglife
Vintage blue typewriter and Judy Blume quote: “Nothing teaches you as much about writing as listening to it.”
September 30, 2025 at 1:11 PM
davesswan.bsky.social
Early and lots of unknowns but please keep watch and stay safe.
National Weather Service graphic of possible storm track towards southeastern Atlantic coast.
September 27, 2025 at 2:45 AM
davesswan.bsky.social
Once again @newyorker.com strikes with pinpoint accuracy. #stoptrump
New Yorker magazine cover showing remote labeled Power with buttons to stop, banish, muzzle etc.
September 23, 2025 at 2:21 PM
davesswan.bsky.social
If you’re bored, your readers are too. Sex won’t cure a bad situation in real life or on the page. #writingcommunity #writingtips #writinglife
Vintage blue typewriter and Walker Percy quote: “I sometimes think novelists write about sex in order to avoid boring themselves to death.”
September 23, 2025 at 12:13 PM
davesswan.bsky.social
Dogs and cats are excepted unless they get too pushy. #amwriting #writingcommunity #writingtips #writinglife
Vintage blue typewriter and Zadie Smith quote: “Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.”
September 16, 2025 at 1:04 PM
davesswan.bsky.social
Your last book is never as amazing as you might think once it’s done. Your next one is nowhere near as hopeless as it seems when you wake up at 4.a.m., panicked and sweating. #amwriting #writingcommunity #writingtips #writinglife
Vintage blue typewriter and David Milch quote: “Never believe anything you think about yourself as a writer when you’re not writing.”
September 9, 2025 at 2:07 PM
davesswan.bsky.social
How to be alone today? Put your phone (far) away. No email, no browser. Do your best to push your human acquaintances out of sight and mind. Settle in with the ones you’ve invented. #amwriting #writingcommunity #writingtips #writinglife
Vintage blue typewriter and Susan Sontag quote: “One can never be alone enough to write.”
September 2, 2025 at 2:09 PM
davesswan.bsky.social
More true than ever. #resistfascism #stoptrump
Molly Ivins and quote: "I prefer someone who burns the flag and then warps themselves up in the Constitution over someone who burns the Constitution and then wraps themselves up in the flag."
August 26, 2025 at 7:25 PM
davesswan.bsky.social
#WritingCommunity From someone who 's trying to sell me her writing and editing services. I am not now and have never, anywhere, been "Sapie," which Google says is a meat-based Chinese sauce.
Hi Sapie, thank you for the follow! It's always great to connect with an author. I'd love to hear more about your writing journey what genre do you write in, and what project are you most excited about right now?
August 26, 2025 at 4:13 PM
davesswan.bsky.social
You’ve got to love rewriting. That’s where the real alchemy happens, where the raw and the sloppy become the polished and purposeful. #amwriting #writingcommunity #writingtips #writinglife
Vintage blue typewriter and Paddy Chayefsky quote: “I’m not a great writer. I’m a great rewriter.”
August 26, 2025 at 1:02 PM
davesswan.bsky.social
Once they start, don’t quiet them. Let them find their voices and they’ll lead you to yours. #amwriting #writingcommunity #writingtips #writinglife
Vintage blue typewriter and Joan Didion quote: “I don’t have a very clear idea of who the characters are until they start talking.”
August 19, 2025 at 1:23 PM
davesswan.bsky.social
Trump wants to kill public media to end honest reporting on his authoritarian crimes. Please support PBS, NPR and your local stations. #PBS #NPR #publicradio #WABE #WEMU #WWOZ
Dave in NPR shirt that says Stand with the facts.
August 12, 2025 at 9:22 PM
davesswan.bsky.social
Don’t sweat it if that other world seems hazy and remote. Keep writing. The fog will lift and your story will appear. #amwriting #writingcommunity #writingtips #writinglife
Vintage blue typewriter and Patricia Cornwell quote: “Writing should be like a pane of glass – there’s another world on the other side and your vision carries you there, but you’re not aware of having passed through a barrier to get there.”
August 12, 2025 at 1:47 PM
davesswan.bsky.social
Lightning never strikes idle hands or a butt that’s not in the chair. Just get something on the page, then something else, then something better. #amwriting #writingcommunity #writingtips #writinglife
Vintage blue typewriter with Dan Poynter quote: “If you wait for inspiration to write, you’re not a writer, you’re a waiter.”
August 5, 2025 at 1:24 PM
davesswan.bsky.social
Developmental and copy editors, critique partners and beta readers are great. The final judge? Your own eyes. #amwriting #writingcommunity #writingtips #writinglife
Vintage blue typewriter and Cheryl Strayed quote: “I write to find out what I have to say. I edit to figure out how to say it right.”
July 29, 2025 at 1:00 PM
davesswan.bsky.social
Every scene, every paragraph, every doggone word has to pass the test. Edit, revise, repeat, and repeat some more. #amwriting #writingcommunity #writingtips #writinglife
Vintage blue typewriter and Alexander MacKendrick quote: “If it can be cut out, then CUT IT OUT. Everything non-essential that you can eliminate strengthens what’s left.”
July 22, 2025 at 2:08 PM