Things that make me smile

My friend Marilyn over at Simmer Till Done is getting ready for her daughter’s Bat Mitvah and has been in a fever of baking and crafting for the past couple of weeks.  I ran into her at the coffee shop the other morning, where she taught me the secret of putting lists on pink paper so you can find…

Patience and preparation

Nothing epitomizes the phrase “Hurry up and wait” so much as publishing.  Actually, it’s probably more accurate to say publishing epitomizes the phrase, “Wait and hurry up.”  Of all the attributes a writer can have, patience is among the most important (okay, talent helps).  It doesn’t matter how much you wish it weren’t so, no…

Open the office door

Yesterday I talked about how we can sometimes get a little too narrow-minded in pursuit of goals, filtering out everything extraneous and “irrelevant.”  As writers, though, we need to be exposed to new ideas, new thinking, alternative points of view, so that our work can stay interesting, worthwhile and meaningful.   It can be hard…

Timing is everything . . . and nothing

Before I get to today’s post, read this interview with Dan Baum, former staffer for The New Yorker, now a freelancer.  I agree with everything he says, which is how I know he’s brilliant.  Pay particular attention to how he crafts every story pitch with a particular market in mind.   I have been trying to…