I found myself sitting in the HR department of one of the most famous companies in America. My ice queen soon to be boss wanted me and I knew it. After all, I had graduated from a pseudo impressive university and I looked really good in my Ann Klein suit. Problem was, I’d never worked [...]
The only good teachers for you are those friends who love you, who think you are interesting, or very important, or wonderfully funny. ~Brenda Ueland
The doubt demon loves artists. This sensitive bunch of individuals falls prey to it so easily, from cartoonist Charles Schulz to writer Virginia Woolf. This little demon reared its ugly head [...]
Sitting down in front of a blank screen, you type out a sequence of words followed by a period. You pause for a moment, you backspace it all away and you type another new string of words. You know what I mean?
Why is it that at times writing comes easily, but at other times it [...]
Before I became a full-time writer, I had a job counting envelopes. Not colored envelopes or large manila envelopes, mind you, but white #10 envelopes. I had to count them in series of a hundred. Even now I can see them flashing in my eyes as I flipped through them, blinding myself as though I [...]
It comes along more frequently than not: The thought that you’re insane and should pursue a career that doesn’t stomp on your pride or demolish your ego. You have the hopes of fame and fortune to comfort you at times, but not often enough to keep doubt from gnawing at your mind.
Discouragement is a constant [...]
When I was functioning as that lowest of all life forms, the unpublished author, I benefited from established novelists willing to share their experiences. This article is intended to give something back, especially since my experience had some unexpected turns.
I quickly learned to prefer sending queries by snail mail. Yes, it is slower, expensive, [...]
You do realize that the main goal, when writing an article, is to have your readers interested in your article. You are halfway done - readers who found your article and ran onto it are surely interested in the topic your article covers. Now you only need to have something that will gain their interest [...]