YES. I am totally committed to holding a retreat for women who want to write commercial fiction. Just working out logistics, application process, funding, all that sexy stuff. But I swear it's going to happen. My favorite quote is "be the change you want to see in the world." When I was 22 I would have killed for a…

Luck never hurts. Any honest successful writer will cop to an element of luck in his or success. But I don't believe that you just sit around waiting to get luck. You read, you write, you revise, you submit, you tweet, you blog, you publish, you work. And then it happens, and the world calls you an "overnight…

Well, I was a newspaper reporter, and I'd published short stories, so I felt some legitimacy in believing that I was a writer. However, I did once get a VERY condescending rejection letter from an agent in which she took great pains to explain to me the difference between being a writer (which I was) and an AUTHOR…

Tina Fey (another hero of mine) said something very smart. When confronted with sexism, ask yourself: does this keep me from doing my job? If the answer is "no" ignore it. If the answer is "yes," go over, under, around it. Find a mentor, sidestep the assholes, figure out a way to do what you want in spite of a culture…

The pesky inner editor NEVER shuts up. I seriously have to restrain myself from taking pens to bookstores and editing published books. I'd ask for help. Get someone you respect, ask, "Is this book done?" If they say it's as good as it can be, then let it go. Release it into the universe. Pray. And don't ever ever EVER…

Just getting noticed is the hard part — especially if you're not one of the lucky handful of writers the establishment decides to coronet (I'm lookin' at you, Jonathan Du Jour!). In 2001, when GOOD IN BED came out, there were something like 50,000 books published each year. These days, it's many, many times more. I…

See above. GOOD IN BED on the screen would make me so happy!

Just finished GONE GIRL and a book that's not out yet called REVISED FUNDAMENTALS OF CAREGIVING. And the whole story of how I wrote my first book is on www.jenniferweiner.com. Basically, got dumped, had no social life and lots of free time, had read (and loved) BRIDGET JONES' DIARY but was frustrated by her obsession…

I don't know how old you are, but I was twenty-eight, with a few unfinished/unpublishable manuscripts hanging around under my bed before GOOD IN BED showed up, more or less fully-formed, in my brain. Give yourself time. Read everything you can. And pay attention to the world. As an aspiring writer, that's your job.

Like Ruthie, I went to Hollywood with the intention of making a show starring a big girl...and, like Ruthie, I had the network basically hand me a star without mentioning that she'd lost a ton of weight (and would go on to lose even more between the pilot shoot and the pickup). It was heartbreaking.

Oh, God, that's like asking a mother to pick her favorite kid...but I have a soft spot for GOOD IN BED. I would LOVE to see a big girl as the star of the show, the one who lands the hot guy and gets the best lines.

When they staple both Olsen twins to Michelle Williams.

It's weird — I've become a book-a-year person, when I think that I'm really a book-every-eighteen-months person. So I start in the springtime, while I'm wrapping up the coming summer's book. But now I'm working on non-fiction — my first ever! — and I'm worried I'm already late!

Just finished (and loved) GONE GIRL. My whole how-I-got-started story is on jenniferweiner.com. Basically, I've always been a writer — I was a reader my whole life, an English major in college, and a newspaper reporter for ten years before I sold my first book. And I'm thrilled you think I tell a good story. That's…

Regime change. People who think differently getting the big jobs. Stephen King once gave this incredibly frank quote that I love, and repeat all the time. He was asked how he went from being regarded as a schlocky horror-meister to a serious, prize-winning, New Yorker-published author, and he answered, "Well, a lot of…

Start at my website, where I've put all my advice for writers. Get on Twitter. Get yourself a blog. Put your work out there. I am a major believer in the idea that if what you write has merit — if it's funny — then people are going to find it.

I've trashed an entire book. I've cut chapters, cut pages, wrote stuff I thought was brilliant at night, then read it the next morning and decided it was unmitigated crapola. But writing's just like any other discipline: you put your ass in the seat and you make yourself do it. I'm a big believer in not waiting for…

Again, I talk a LOT about this on my advice for writers at www.jenniferweiner.com. Self-publishing used to be the kiss of death. That's changed. Now, it's a place to launch a book, and get a traditional publishing deal (if that's what you end up wanting).

That bugs me too. I just picked up a current bestseller and counted a dozen brand names dropped — clothing, liquor, even cupcakes! — in the first chapter. I try to stay away from that in my work, or at least limit it. I try to be aware that, while there's always an element of escapism in fiction — nobody wants to read…

Make friends. Seriously. Spend time networking on Twitter and Facebook — not in an obnoxious way, but maybe just send an author you like a note saying "I like your book." Get on people's radar. Be kind and supportive. I think you need to give before you can expect to receive...so if you're known as someone who…