We’ve probably all been frustrated with slow progress at some point in our writing career. Maybe we’re frustrated with the slow increase of our word count. Maybe we’re frustrated with an apparent lack of improvement in our writing. Or maybe we’re frustrated with our sales numbers. The point is that […]
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When we’re first starting out as writers, creating a business plan might be the last thing we want to do. However, a business plan can be anything we want it to be. In truth, there are far more non-business things we could include in a “business” plan than we might assume.
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No one will ever care about our success as much as we do. That’s why—even though we’re writers—we should think of ourselves as business people. No matter what kind of writer we are, we’ll need to make business decisions, and that’s where having a business plan can help.
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Endless advice exists telling us “life is a journey; enjoy the ride” and “happiness comes from within.” On some level, we’ve probably heard that advice so much that we dismiss what it really means.
But that advice is true and valid. Life is what we make of it.
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Life is filled with work that needs to be done whether someone loves to do it or not. I’ll be the first to admit that I write because I love it. But the problem with thinking that we should do what we love and love what we do—as a career—is many layered.
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Too many kids who were voracious readers earlier in their life learn to hate reading during their teenage years. According to a post on Writer Unboxed, one third of high school graduates won’t read another book—for the rest of their lives. For too many, reading becomes a means to an end. Absorbing knowledge. Period. And reading for pleasure now seems like a faraway dream.
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If we’re living our passions, life is pretty darn good, especially compared to the alternative. And if we’re not living our passions, that might be because we don’t even know what they are.
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Too often in the discussions about “how to be successful,” the emphasis is on income alone. For many, that measure works. But that’s not the only option.
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This past week has been a good news / bad news / good news sort of week. The conflicting emotions have been *ahem* good for making me question my strategies (yet again). On the good news side, I received the scores from my last contest, The Emily. I mentioned a few […]
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The other week, my friend Janice Hardy emailed me for insight into a question one of her blog readers had about writing contests. She wanted to turn the question into a blog post on the pros and cons of writing contests and thought I might have something to say about the […]
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