One of my favorite bloggers, Cal Newport, writes about how to succeed at college. And yes, I’ve been out of college for donkey’s years, so what am I doing reading his blog? I’m getting really good information on things like hard focus and how to excel. A case in point: his recent blog post — which…
Month: December 2009
“Thank you for everything. I have no complaints whatsoever.”
A colleague of mine passed this saying along to me some years ago. It seems his martial arts grandmaster would greet each morning by speaking those words to the universe. For some reason, this struck me as a beautiful thing to do and I’ve taken to making this my own ritual. Which is not…
Finding the time
This is the time of year when everyone else in publishing seems to take the month off and drink a lot of eggnog. I, on the other hand, always find myself scrambling to get everything done and feeling overwhelmed by the effort. Partly this is because I’m thinking, “The year is almost over! I didn’t do…
Being a professional
Today I was going to write a gentle blog post about how to conduct your relationship with your agent/potential agent, but Jessica over at Bookends beat me to it. Two of the most important things she says are, “I don’t want an author who disrespects me” and “agents are only as successful as their reputations.” …
Thank zeus for newbies
I have a colleague who sometimes grumbles about newbie writers. “There’s another nurse/teacher/yoga instructor/high school dropout with no relevant credentials. What makes her think she can break into freelancing?” This is a point of irritation for a lot of established writers: just because everyone can write, everyone thinks they can be writers — as if learning the craft and the business were…
On getting to the next level
Every single stage of my writing career has been a pain in the ass. I think the last time my love of writing was pure and unadulterated with any concept of “why does this have to be so hard?” was when I was five and the lightbulb went off in my head and suddenly I…