One of my big goals for 2012 is to finally get control of my e-mail. Over the last year, I’ve developed better e-mail habits, such as archiving e-mail that’s important but doesn’t need action (rather than let it develop a thick coating of mold in my inbox) and unsubscribing myself from newsletters and mailing lists …
Jan 8, 2012 News you can use, productivity, Self improvement
This week one of my former students let me know that a story idea she’d generated and worked on in my story idea workshop this fall ran in last Sunday’s New York Times and was generating a ton of reader response. (Woo-hoo! She’s the third student of mine to land an assignment with the Times. …
Jan 2, 2012 Advice, Classes, Editors, Ideas, Magazines, Marketing, Networking, Speaking engagements
Imagine working three days a week while generating a liveable income that many full-time freelancers struggle to achieve. Sound too good to be true? By now you know that my co-author Linda works part-time and supports her family, and in the past I’ve trimmed my working hours and found out later that I’d done quite …
Sep 13, 2011 Writing
I tell students who take my class that it’s not just good ideas and good writing that lands assignments. There’s another essential ingredient they need, and that’s confidence. The majority of my students have very good ideas and can express themselves wonderfully on paper, but they also struggle with the curse of self-doubt:
* I don’t …
photo credit: mollypop
A couple weeks ago, one of my students — a talented writer with a couple national clips to her name — told me she’d taken a class where the writing instructor said beginning freelancers should write 15 articles for regional parenting magazines before pitching national parenting magazines.
I was flabbergasted when this dog …
Apr 18, 2011 Advice, Editors, Ideas, Magazines, Query letters, Rants, Rules, Writing
