Every week I get questions like this: “I don’t have a book out yet [or my first book came out last year], but do you think I need to have a website, a blog, a newsletter, be on Facebook and LinkedIn and Goodreads, and also tweet on Twitter daily? Is all this self-promotion necessary?” I […]
Month: September 2014
A Call to Excellence
Have you lost your passion for writing? Is it harder to get to work than it used to be? Is it writer’s block or burnout? Not necessarily. You may have lost your passion for writing because you’ve lost your passion for excellence. In the beginning of my writing career, even though I was tripping over […]
Beware! Burnout Ahead!
Published writers, beware! “Writing is not everything,” Lisa Shearin said in a 2010 Writer Magazine. “And if you want longevity in this business, play isn’t just important–it’s critical. We get so intensely focused on having achieved the dream and working so hard to keep the dream going, that we’re blind to the signs that if […]
Building Writing Muscle
Some years ago the doctor was considering surgery on my elbow. Why? Because I had damaged the joint with a weights routine that was too heavy…way too heavy. I thought I’d make up for a late start and build up my skinny arms overnight. Instead, for a while I couldn’t lift anything as heavy as […]
Courage and Confidence
When it comes to your writing, do you ever have a crisis of confidence? It can come from a number of things: destructive (instead of constructive) criticism in your critique group, months and years of rejections (from editors and/or agents), poor reviews or sales when you finally get published, and put-downs from family or friends […]
Rejection Stamina: How Much Can YOU Take?
I was reading an old Writer Magazine yesterday, and the article about best-selling (as in over 15 million copies) Meg Cabot caught my eye. She said you need to block out what you read about “overnight successes” in the publishing business. She points to her own experience with rejection, and I challenge you to read this […]
Obnoxious Marketing
I sat down last night to finally go through a stack of magazines and other periodicals that had accumulated. I looked forward to flipping leisurely through the pages, stopping when a title caught my eye. So why was I fuming within thirty seconds? All that infernal marketing done with post card-type inserts stuck inside. I […]
Writing Through Physical Pain
When my kids were toddlers and in grade school, I was wired shut for eleven weeks after two jaw surgeries. I’d had some health problems over the years, but being wired shut topped them all. I couldn’t talk to my four small children or even call a friend. I was dying to talk, but couldn’t. […]