Archives
Need some editing help?
Posted on December 4, 2014 Leave a Comment
You’ve completed your masterpiece. An essay. A report. A story. A novel. A thesis. There are lots of documents that might qualify as your masterpiece. Now it’s time to revise and you feel your sternum seize up, a growing dread from your intestines to the deepest reaches of your brain. Paralysis takes over. Wait, wait, […]
The moment(s) to celebrate
Posted on October 20, 2014 Leave a Comment
When you write to publish, the impulse might be to celebrate the moment of publication. That’s certainly the moment your family and friends celebrate because they can SEE your writing in print or online. Tangible evidence that all those months of mysteriousnous when you said you were “working” finally has something to show for it. […]
Pitching stories
Posted on September 29, 2014 1 Comment
When I was a freelance journalist, pitching story ideas was my business’s lifeblood. As an academic now, I also find that sometimes pitching an idea ahead of all the research and writing to gauge an editor’s interest can be a valuable option to save time and be more efficient. First, have an idea. Coming up […]
Five journals said no. Now what?
Posted on September 26, 2014 Leave a Comment
Rejection is hard, especially after you worked on that piece for months and months. You spent all that time polishing and revising, seemingly to no avail. You dutifully submitted that piece to one journal at a time, waited for each to respond, received “thanks, but no thanks” emails, and repeated this process five (or more) […]
How to find a publishing home for your writing
Posted on September 15, 2014 Leave a Comment
Now that you have imagined, written, revised, polished, and crafted a piece to the point of being ready to send it out into the world, some writers pause here and hesitate, unsure about how to find a place for their work. Depending on what it is that you’ve written, you have plenty of options and […]
Time to revise
Posted on August 11, 2014 Leave a Comment
Writing original work is obviously the lifeblood of a writer. But that’s only one part of the equation if you want to be a published writer. Just ask my students. After teaching the genre of creative nonfiction in my Advanced Composition class for four semesters, and requiring that students not only write two pieces for […]
