Episodes

My brother memorized the poem "Jabberwocky" when he was a teenager, and I thought that was so cool. At the time could not think of anything to memorize other than "The Purple Cow," so I decided to copy him. I memorized "Jabberwocky" with its Bandersnatch and the slithy toves and that vorpal blade. I thought I was so cool. Not long ago I heard Neil Gaiman recite it, and I thought he was so cool. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDLac7sAFsI So you see, poetry can be cool. It can be weird and funny ...

In the last episode, I urged you to send out your work even though it means you’re risking rejection—because to get a yes, you must risk a no. I even offered a case for embracing rejection as your goal, especially in the realm of literary journals, because by setting a rejection goal, you’re increasing your odds of an acceptance. A Plan to Process Rejection But you might need a plan for how to process those rejections. You can laugh it off as part of your master goal, but it'll still sting. And ...

You’ve written something, edited it, polished it, and decided to send it out. Depending on your project, you’ll be shipping it off to a literary journal, magazine, agent, or publishing house. When you do, you risk rejection. You’ve probably heard about Stephen King’s rejections from his book On Writing. He says, “By the time I […]

You may be tired of comma talk, but I want to toss one more punctuation post out to you before I move on to other topics. This one’s about the comma splice. To fix a comma splice, you first have to know what it is. A comma splice occurs when you connect or “splice” together two independent clauses with a comma. As a reminder, an independent clause can stand on its own as a sentence, with a subject and verb. For example: The writing conference invited my favorite author. That’s an independent cla...

Now that we’re down to later-order concerns, examining our work at the detail level, I thought we might talk some more about punctuation. We’ve already covered the serial comma, also known as the Oxford comma. Let's cover yet another comma: the direct address comma. The direct address comma will be review for many readers, but it’s a fun one to offer as a refresher. Friends, we cannot neglect this comma or leave it out of our stable of punctuation. With it, we save lives. Without it, the unthink...

Let’s say your writing group or an editor has given you the high-level editorial input on your content that we talked about in episode 95. They’ve offered structural and developmental edits for your piece. And you’ve incorporated those recommendations—deleting, rewriting, and rearranging material as needed so that your overall idea or message is stronger than […]

Last time we talked about commas. In particular, I brought to you the serial comma, or the Oxford comma. I emphasized the fact that details—even commas—really do matter to writers. This was on my mind because of that court case ruling hinging upon how workers, an organization, and the state of Maine interpreted its statutes […]

If you’re new to writing, you may be unaware of the fierce debate among writers, editors, teachers, and grammarians over the use of the serial, or Oxford, comma. If you’ve been around the world of words a while, you know the tension, the arguments, the passion associated with this tiny punctuation mark used—or not used—in […]

I didn't publish a single post last week. I volunteered to serve at a four-day tournament, and my commitment left no free time. I couldn't write anything new, and I had no blog posts or podcast episodes in reserve. So last week, I published nothing. May I serve as a cautionary tale? Work Ahead on Content If you're a blogger or regular guest columnist for another publication, I urge you to do what I failed to do: write several articles or blog posts and store them up—better yet, prep and schedule...

Before we revise, we need something to revise. We must compose the perfect first draft. How? We write without worrying about every comma splice or misplaced modifier. We write with abandon and get the story down. The Writer Hat During the prewriting and creation stage, we must consciously separate the writer self from the editor self. It’s as if we need to wear two hats—literally two different hats you can wear at the appropriate times. In episode 91, I mentioned my literal editor hat: a Maxwell...

Christian author Eugene Peterson wrote a book called A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. He explains where he got that phrase. Christians, he says, are looking for quick results, but shortcuts don’t lead to Christian maturity. Peterson writes, “Friedrich Nietzsche, who saw this area of spiritual truth at least with great clarity, wrote, ‘The essential […]

In chapter 7 of On Being a Writer, my coauthor Charity Singleton Craig highlighted what L.L. Barkat calls the “Fifteen Years of Writing for Your Grandmother Rule” (On Being a Writer, 86). Charity included this excerpt from Barkat’s book Rumors of Water: It is not uncommon for writers to seek a large audience too early […]

As you go about the work of writing, and the business of writing, don’t forget to study the craft of writing. Find ways to continually learn and improve. A lot of writers feel a strong urge to enter an MFA program to do this. If you feel compelled to pursue that, by all means, research it and see if that’s the right next step for you. But what I’m suggesting is you set out to invent a kind of self-study writing course using resources readily available online or at your local library. You'll lear...

In episode 86, we discussed first steps you can take to launch your social media presence. I suggested you could start simple and slow by establishing a bare-minimum presence at each of the big social media platforms. I encouraged you to secure your avatar, your handle, your username—ideally using your author name—and fill out your […]

When people talk about building a platform, they often think immediately of social media. I suppose it’s because the word “platform” is often used to describe them: Facebook is a social media platform, Twitter is a social media platform. It’s referring more to the technology that makes it possible for that service to run. But […]

There’s a proverb that says “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” It’s true of so many things, isn’t it? We would be in such a different place if only we had started years ago. Building a platform might feel a little bit like that, […]

Last week I volunteered to serve at a speech and debate tournament for junior high and high school students. One of the women I served with asked if I thought writers were expected to speak more than ever before, whether through all the video options that are popping up like Facebook Live, or in person […]

At a writing conference a few years ago, I attended a panel discussion that included acquisitions editors from several publishing houses and a couple of literary agents. I’d been wanting to meet one of the agents, so after the session, I stood in line to introduce myself. I told him I was a writing coach working with several authors who were developing book proposals. These authors had questions about platform. “What kind of numbers are agents and publishers really looking for?” I asked. “And ho...

It’s that time of year when everyone is working on their annual business plans, intentions, resolutions, habits—or even big, hairy, audacious goals, those BHAGS. Or “stretch” goals. A lot of writers are thinking through their goals for the year ahead. You may be measuring and drawing out calendar grids in your bullet journal or shopping for a bright, new, fresh yearly planner. You’re organizing and reorganizing Evernote tags and Notebooks. You’re trying out productivity apps. You’re going to tes...

Last time we talked about our writing as a gift to the world, but our writing can be a gift in a more specific, focused way when we write for individuals we know and love. When our writing is sent out to the world, it's usually enjoyed by one reader at a time, so in a way, all of our writing is for individuals. What I mean here is you can sit down and write for someone in particular—an individual who will be the only intended recipient of a given project. Maybe you write a long letter to a famil...

In this season of giving, it seems apt to talk about our writing as a gift. "Hold on, now," you say. "I was kinda hoping to make some money at this whole writing gig, so are you saying we have to give our words away?" Whether we're paid or not, isn’t viewing our words as a gift…isn’t that how we begin the process of connecting with people? We toil over our message and send off something for a reader to consider. “Here. I wrote this for you.” I recently published a blog post about the longing we ...

When building a platform, we might be told to build our email list or increase our social media numbers, so we're tempted to do a lot of things maybe before we’re ready—some people advise writers to buy a bunch of Twitter followers or set up an Instagram account even if we don't like taking pictures. We get so busy trying to follow somebody else’s plan, we forget that before any of those steps, we need to get the basics down. We need to have a solid idea of the main Whos involved. The First Who…...

This week I want to encourage you to dip into memories and memoir. Even though this veers from the more obvious platform series we’ve been in, it may, eventually, reveal more about who you are and what you want your platform to be about. I believe it’ll be time well spent. Think back to an […]

Last week on my blog I shared an excerpt from Mary Pipher’s book Writing to Change the World: I left it up to readers to decide what it meant for them, but I did hope her thoughts would encourage us to listen closely, to realize the power of our words, and then, when we choose to use them, to use our words well and use them for good. The Power of Poetry On Friday, I wrote a post for Tweetspeak Poetry that highlighted the healing power of poetry. I shared an interview with Gerda and Kurt Klein. K...