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Tag: writing advice

#IWSG Do You Have a Soft Shell Crab Phase?

I’m baaaaaack! Hey, #IWSG peeps! I didn’t mean to fall off the monthly posting wagon, but… sometimes my life feels like a blender on frappe and I end up going in so many directions that the only way to deal with things is to pull back from everything except for what I absolutely have to do. So that’s what I did! My writing life is good, but… Though hectic, life’s been great for me, writing-wise! In January, I was contacted by a publisher and after a flurry of negotiations, research, and writing, my first book with Reedy Press will be…

4 Quick Tips to Make Jealousy Work for You

Jealousy: Out of the blue, you suddenly turn green! Like most unpleasantries, jealousy often strikes without warning. There you are, happily scrolling through Facebook when you see a photo of your friend holding a trophy and… *bzzzt* There it is: jealousy’s sting. While I don’t particularly like jealousy, I no longer let it drag me into a vortex of self-loathing and despair. In fact, I now consider jealousy a helpful tool. Here are 4 tips that help me cope when the green-eyed monster comes calling: My experience with jealousy I’ll start with a quick example of how I’ve used jealousy as a tool…

How HARO Helps Writers Out!

What is HARO? For this month’s IWSG post, I wanted to pass along a helpful tip for writers. It’s called HARO, which stands for Help a Reporter Out. I found out about HARO while standing in the lunch buffet line at DFWcon, a wonderful annual writing conference here in Texas. There were two authors standing ahead of me, Nina Amir and Harry Hall, and their conversation was so interesting that I not only joined in, but I wound up taking notes as we shuffled along! Why should writers join HARO? One tip that Nina passed along was that Harry and I…

Overwhelm, Dirty Dishes & How Marie Forleo Does it All!

Trying to do it all… Am I the only creative person out there who routinely bites off more than they can chew, then needs the Heimlich Maneuver to keep from choking on their overly ambitious to-do list? It’s one of those life lessons I seem destined to learn over and over again! (Do you have any life lessons like that?) Overwhelm is like dirty dishes Overwhelm is a bit like dirty dishes. You can start off with a clean, gleaming kitchen, but then someone leaves a dirty spoon in the sink, and that hardly seems worth bothering with. But then…