Apr 10, 2021Why I Made 100 Life Goals — And You Should, TooIt’s Easier Than You Think to be a Success One day I woke up and I was forty years old. I couldn’t believe it. Where had the time gone? What had I DONE with all that time? I wasn’t in a bad place, really. I was safe, relatively healthy. I…Success7 min read
Nov 19, 2020How Jigsaw Puzzles Made Me a Better WriterPuzzles do more than kill time — they’re a writer’s best friend. Like many people I know, I developed a love for puzzles early in 2020, just as the pandemic reached the United States. Goodbye nights out with friends. Hello jigsaws! At first I viewed them as mere distractions. They…Puzzle5 min read
Dec 20, 2019Why I Stopped Making New Year’s Resolutions — and You Should, TooHere’s what I do instead. — I started freelancing full-time as a writer about four years ago. The shift from having a predictable, full-time job to a very unpredictable, freelance lifestyle was jarring to say the least. Everything was up in the air: my income, my work flow, my clients, my daily schedule, and all my…Productivity4 min read
Nov 16, 20195 Writing Tips I Learned From My CatYes, really! — Let me start by getting one big thing out of the way: My cat can’t write. She can’t even read. On a good day, she can catch the mousy toy I toss at her on her first try. But only on a good day. She sleeps constantly, eats more than…Cats5 min read
Published in The Writing Cooperative·Jul 5, 2019Four Positive Ways to Deal with Rejection as a WriterOne of the hardest parts of being a writer is dealing with rejection. All writers seeking to publish face it — it’s a fact of the profession. And it hurts when it happens. But rejection doesn’t have to be all pain; there’s a lot of good that can come from…Writing4 min read
Published in The Writing Cooperative·Jul 1, 2019How to Write the Perfect Opening ParagraphThese techniques will keep your readers coming back for more. — We know it when we see it — the perfect opening paragraph that immediately grabs our interest and holds it, until the next thing we know, we’re deeply absorbed in the writing. So how do writers do it? How do they capture their readers’ attention in just a few sentences? …Writing4 min read
Published in The Writing Cooperative·May 17, 2019How to Stay Positive as a Writer5 Ways to Get Through the Hardest Days — Writing is tough. It’s hard to stay motivated when the pay is low and the rejections are many. But for many of us we have to keep at it, because writing is in our bones — it’s in our souls. As Richard Bach once said: “A professional writer is an…Self Improvement4 min read
Published in The Writing Cooperative·May 11, 20195 Ways to Boost Writing ProductivityHere’s how to get more writing done in a short amount of time. — How many writing projects did you start this year, only to have them fizzle out before you finished them? If you’re like me, it’s way more than you’re proud of. But the important thing to remember is that it’s not your skills that are lacking; it’s your time. Contemporary society…Productivity4 min read
May 9, 2019How Danielle Steel Wrote 179 NovelsThe Prolific Author Reveals 4 Secrets to Her Success — Today Glamour magazine published a profile on Danielle Steel (not an affiliate link), the world’s most prolific author. How prolific you ask? Steel has published 179 books to date (!) and is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for having books on the New York Times’s best-seller list…Writing3 min read
Apr 7, 2019The Only Revision Strategies You’ll Ever NeedRevision is one of the most intimidating aspects of writing. Here’s how to break it down. — I’ve been a professional writer for more than 10 years, and let me tell you — revision is still for me the hardest part of writing. It’s harder than brainstorming, harder than outlining, harder than the actual writing. Why? Because revision is about undoing what you’ve already done, and that’s…Writing3 min read
