7 Writing Muse Kickers to Fill Up That Blank Page Nothing is more daunting for any writer than having to stare at a blank sheet of paper. When we stare at a blank sheet of paper, we often think, “What am I going to write?” A few minutes later, it becomes, “Oh my goodness, I can’t think of anything to write!” And several minutes later, it turns into something like, “Write, darn it! Write! Write! ...

While writing an entertaining child book is obviously more art than science, most successful child stories pay attention to the following 8 elements. #1: Theme A good child story has an underlying theme. The underlying theme of “Peter and the Wolf,” for example, is “don’t tell lies” or “be honest.” The underlying theme of “The Sneetches” by Dr. Seuss is “don’t be racist” or...

9 Ways to Motivate Yourself When You Just Don’t Feel Like It Achieving the really big goals and dreams always involves breaking it down into do-able little steps. Assuming that you’ve picked a goal or dream that you really love working at, then most of the steps are a delight to take. No matter how much you love your dream and no matter how much you love your work, there are going to be tasks alo...

10 Hot Tips For Conducting A Winning Interview 1. Determine your bottom-lineBefore conducting an interview, get crystal clear about what you want and why. Without this understanding, your interview is like a car rolling along without a driver. It may have momentum, but it doesn’t have direction. Once you’ve identified your bottom line—the information you have to walk away with in order to write y...

10 Steps to Keeping an On-going Journal Where do comedians, novelists, and playwrights get the raw material for their writings? From life, of course! Writers know that the anecdotes of the day, conversations overheard, and experiences, feelings, and subtleties of a moment may be the seeds of a short story, or the building blocks of a novel, or the spark for a magazine article. Keeping a journal k...

10 Tips for Effective Proofreading Proofreading may not be terribly fun, but it’s one of the most important parts of writing. Have you ever read a web page or a document that had typos, grammatical errors, and punctuation mistakes? This reflects badly on you and your business, and you could easily lose a customer over a simple spelling mistake! Everyone reading such a failed article will think, ...

25 Ways To Fail As A Freelance Writer 1. Don’t set yourself a writing routine or stick to it. 2. Always make sure that doing your writing is at the bottom of your list of priorities, and even when you are writing, if something else you have to do that day springs to mind, then go and do that instead. 3. If one of your friends comes round to invite you out for coffee, just go, no matter how busy...

28 Reasons Why Publishers Will Buy Your Book Editors will buy a book for one or more of the following reasons. By knowing what these reasons are, you can then design a marketing plan with these features in mind. 1. The author’s previous books have sold well. 2. They love the book and think it will sell. 3. They think the book will sell. 4. They love it enough to publish, regardless of its com...

A Crash Course in Submitting a Manuscript While the submission process may feel like second nature to experienced writers, it’s easy to forget that newcomers aren’t aware of the specific procedures. And since everyone can benefit from a refresher course now and then, here’s a rundown of the steps: First, collect addresses of appropriate publishers by perusing market guides like Children’s Writer...