A few years ago, I felt I was becoming a bit of a slacker, and so decided that it would be fun to track how much time I’m spending on what. I installed free software that would have me fill in how I spent every 30-minute segment of the day. What a bad, bad idea. […]

“Don’t worry about people stealing an idea. If it’s original, you will have to ram it down their throats.” —   Howard Aiken Persistence is necessary in this business, but persistence shouldn’t make you blind. Or stupid. I’m thrilled right now because after 32 rejections/no responses and just a little less than a year, I finally […]

I received a beautiful email recently from a reader of this blog who is having some confidence issues. Here’s part of what she wrote: Following your advice, I started to send queries out. Three a day for a while until I snagged a magazine and managed to get a few credits to my name and […]

There’s something I’ve noticed recently. Now that I’m being forced to, I’m writing faster. And better. If I have a one-day deadline, I have to do it in one day. I don’t have time to sit around and wonder if I’m motivated enough, I don’t have time to research for five days, I don’t have […]