Ten years ago, I would have told you to review Cliff Garstang’s ranking of literary magazines for nonfiction and begin by submitting to the best. I did that for many years, dutifully submitting my short memoirs and personal essays to a prioritized list of literary magazines, with limited success. Thankfully, I eventually realized there was […]
Reading Others While You’re Writing Yours
/ 2021-08-13“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” — Stephen King A friend recently said she cannot read someone else’s book when she is writing. Jokingly, I asked her if she could walk and chew gum at the same time. . . two […]
Success as a Disability Writer
/ 2021-07-17Successful authors seem born to write. Masked by the ability to put words on paper, (or on screen) it seems these authors have never struggled at all. But in fact, many writers have a disability. Sometimes it’s even the reason they write. According to online blog Mental Up, people like George Bernard Shaw and Jules Verne, […]
Ten Unusual Places for Freelance Ideas
/ 2021-07-02Anyone who pitches articles or writes stories is always on the lookout for more sources of ideas. There are lots of well-trodden sources, but here are a few I use that might be less obvious. Foreign titles. Publications from other countries, readily available online, can be a rich source of ideas. Based in England, I […]
Right and Wrong in Your Story
/ 2021-06-25Genuine tragedies in the world are not conflicts between right and wrong. They are conflicts between two rights. ~Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, 19th century German philosopher While we like to think that the world is comprised of clear lines between good and evil, right and wrong, it is not. My opinion may differ from yours, with […]
Do You See Obstacle or Opportunity?
/ 2021-05-21This is a dilemma I’ve fought my entire life. I mean, consciously…seriously grappled with. In my earlier years, I decided nothing would get the best of me. I gave everything my all, and if I did not ace whatever it was, then I hadn’t tried hard enough. I saw life as nothing but challenge and […]
Synchronicity
/ 2021-05-10All writers have experienced synchronicity—two or more people coming up with the same idea at the same time. If you write long enough, synchronicity will happen to you, too. Historically, many inventions and theories have surfaced simultaneously, often from people on opposite sides of the globe. For example, two scientists came up with the theory […]
They Ought to Like Me
/ 2021-04-26A woman posted on a Facebook group recently how insulted she was that some of her friends and family do not appreciate that she writes romance. She commenced to explain why she wrote it and loved it and how it was the largest selling genre, therefore, it deserved respect. Others on the group echoed her […]
Notebooks of Your Talent
/ 2021-04-09I love notebooks. I keep three ongoing at all times. When I started out, I used one. It served me well then, and at the end of the year that notebook went into my income tax records. Then I evolved. Today I keep one for my business side of writing which incorporates ideas, phone calls, […]
How Do You Do It?
/ 2021-03-20In the writing world, writers hang on understanding how another writer found success. They want to know the secret, the magic, or the inherent talent required to duplicate that success. We want to know the right path out of the woods. No two writers find success the same. That is the wonder and the bane […]
Writing What You Know
/ 2021-01-29We hear that phrase all the time. Some say it is the basis of good writing, especially for new writers. Others claim it’s false, that writers should be able to write anything, or they are at their best when having to dig down and research. But there’s more to writing “what you know” than to […]
The Daring and the Tentative
/ 2021-01-16The difference between the tentative and the daring is that the tentative ask too many questions beginning with BUT or WHAT IF. The daring, however, are too busy forging ahead, diagramming how they will arrive at success. The daring and diligent are focused. The tentative are scouting for obstacles so they are not blindsided. The […]