One of my clients is an executive coach, Barbara A. F. Greene, MCC. She always talks about connecting rather than networking. Networking often turns into an exercise of making contacts for the benefit of the person making the contact, but connecting brings people together in win-win situations. Thinking about this, I considered how my clients find me … Read more
EPIC, an organization of writers, publishers, and other professionals in the e-book industry, is sponsoring the 2007 EPIC New Voices Writing Competition for middle school and high school students. Students in public, private, or home schools may enter short story (fiction), essay (nonfiction), and poetry categories at either the middle school or high school level. … Read more
Who reads your work-in-progress? I recently read some advice – rules of life – from a famous writer. Sorry, I forgot who it was! This great writer said he never let anyone read his works-in-progress, and he advised other writers to follow his example. He said most people don’t know enough about writing to recognize … Read more
I’ve been helping a writer find an agent or publisher for his novel. He’s received several rejections, so I’ve been giving rejection a lot of thought. None of us like rejection, of course, and since I edited the novel for this writer, I feel the rejection as much as he does. But having been at … Read more
Booklovers will love Books We Love. You’ll find lots of great books by great authors, including my novel Stroke of Luck (a little blatant self-promotion!), Spring House by David Bowles, The New Day Dawns by Grace Anne Schaefer, plus fiction and nonfiction by 125+ more writers. Books We Love runs contests to introduce readers to its member … Read more
Ten years ago, at the end of July 1996, I sold the interior landscape company I had owned and operated for nearly 20 years. Four years earlier I had a stroke as a result of a chiropractic manipulation. I’d always dreamed of writing “someday,” but it took that major wake-up call to realize “someday” is today! … Read more
A young writer wrote to me recently as part of a language arts career project. He’s interested in becoming a writer and asked me some specific questions. Here are the questions and my answers: 1. Where do you get most of your ideas on a book? Ideas come from everywhere. My novel Stroke of Luck … Read more