Building a supportive network takes time and courage. Novelist Katrin Schumann argues that it’s worth starting to cultivate community early on, even if your instinct or your preference is to work alone. This post first appeared on JaneFriedman.com.

I’ve always found people who make movies to be awe-inspiring—in order to evoke a world and a story on screen, they need to work together with dozens of other professionals, from front-end people like actors and directors, to back-end people like sound editors

Katrin Schumann explores what it's really like for authors in the months before launching a new book into the marketplace.

A book launch is a prolonged, and frankly rather strange, experience. You've already been working for what seems like ages (and sometimes is ages) on a manuscript. Eons pass as you prepare that manuscript for the reality of a commercial marketplace: editing, cover design, interior design, more editing, acknowledgements, nightmares about who you've forgotten to acknowledge, and diving into promotional activities. Your book--it's themes, characters, the whole point of it--seems far away now. It's become a product, one ...

Authors bristle at having to fit their books into neat boxes according to genre—yet the industry and readers continue to demand that we do so. Katrin Schumann explores why, and how best to find your genre.

Personally, I've found it quite challenging to figure out the genre of my novels. It seems overly simplistic to categorize my own work according to genres, and differentiating between them can be hard

by Katrin Schumann

I'm working on a major revision of a novel I wrote some years ago and put away in a drawer. I loved and still love the story, but I think it needs a more compelling central question. Right now, I'd call it a "family saga," and while there's nothing inherently wrong with that, I'd like to create a through-line in the story that makes it more compelling. I want readers to be thinking, Oh my god, what happens next?

By Katrin Schumann

It wasn't until I saw the tiny opening that we were supposed to crawl through that I started to panic. I was in Mexico, just about to clamber into a sweat lodge with seven strangers. I frantically scanned their faces to see if anyone else was also realizing that this plan was clearly nutso.

Everyone seemed perfectly calm.