I recently did one little thing that increased traffic from LinkedIn to my websites almost three fold: I customized my link descriptions. Before and After My link descriptions used to read “Personal Website” and “Blog” — the standard LinkedIn defaults (along with “Company Website”). Also, I never used the third slot LinkedIn allows for links […]
Hooray for Failure
It seems that failure’s received a good rap lately. While there are still those who are terrified to take a step toward the things they want to do for fear of things not working out perfectly, most people in the creative community have come to accept that getting better takes some failing along the way. […]
Dealing With Writing Distractions
Right now I’m working and can hear the TV in the living room. In an ideal world, my wife and I would have plenty of room to spread out and fall completely into our own little worlds for as long as we needed to create. But that’s not happening anytime soon; we share less than […]
Merlin Mann Talks About Creativity
Erik Lundy is a very funny guy and one of the people in my closest circle of creative friends with whom I chat about anything and everything. I’ve never met Erik in real life, even though he lives in the same town in Missouri where my father lived. Still, that hasn’t stopped us from talking […]
The Influence of Movies
When I was a kid, my father took me to movies I shouldn’t have been seeing when I was 5 or 6. When The Enforcer came out, the theater ran the original Dirty Harry along with it. More than remembering the movie, I remember the theater — how it smelled like smoke, sweat, and the […]
Agents’ Week Off (From Us)
I hear people complain about all the e-mail they receive throughout the day. Most of it is spam, or mailing lists they’ve signed up for, but never unsubscribed from. Many of the people I hear complaining about their full inboxes are writers — the same writers who have no problem sending out blanket queries to […]
The Juggling Writer Podcast – What Would You Like To Hear?
I’ve been having a blast doing the Hell Comes With Wood Paneled Doors podcast. I’ve mentioned before that I want to do a Juggling Writer Podcast. I’m still thinking about it… Some Ideas I don’t want the podcast to be the exact same content covered by The Juggling Writer blog. While I know there are […]
Monday Motivation: Teetering on the Edge
In Kurt Vonnegut’s Player Piano, a character named Ed Finnerty expresses reservations about seeing a psychiatrist, saying: “He’d pull me back into the center, and I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the […]
How to Write Like a Small Business
Tomorrow is Small Business Saturday. While people lined up [in some cases, last night] for Black Friday deals at large chain retailers, there’s a movement planning to shop locally tomorrow. It’s not about getting the best deals on mass produced electronics; it’s about supporting the people who actually live in your neighborhood. I Understand Being […]
When Getting Published Was Hard
With the rise of self publishing, I’ve heard many people over the years say, “When it was harder to get published, it weeded people out.” True, writers have more options than ever to get their work out there, but I still wouldn’t say it’s easy. I think what people mean is when it was harder […]
Monday Motivation: Do Your Own Thing
I have a couple empty Moleskine notebooks tucked away in my desk drawer. Within reach, though, I have an almost full Mead notebook. (And several small Mead notebooks scattered about–even in my car.) * * * I have a good friend who’s an artist. Years ago, when he read that Mark Schultz uses a Windsor […]
How to Back Up Your Writing
I turned on my computer last weekend and nothing happened. I had a moment of panic: “My writing!!!” Fortunately, I back my writing up. The worst part of last weekend was reinstalling Windows 7 and reinstalling all my programs. It would have been a terrible weekend and week if I didn’t keep back ups. Here […]
Building A Solid Writing Foundation
I’ve picked up books that floored me with the writing. I appreciated the way the authors put words together — going as far as wondering what it must be like to have a mind that can write such beautiful prose. Many times, though, about 40-50 pages in I stopped and thought: “Okay, this is nice […]
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