writing tagged posts

Acting is all about making a choice. You’ll hear directors and critics refer to a performer’s “choice” as being bold, or weak, or confusing. The words are on the page for the actor. It’s the way he or she chooses to interpret those words that dictates the performance. The relationship between writer and actor or director can sometimes become strained because the writer pens his or her words exactly as they should be delivered. Depending on the egos of the individuals involved, any deviation from the master plan can be interpreted as a criticism.

However, ultimately, writers have the same decisions facing them as performers. As a writer, you still get to make choices. Choosing to move boldly or in an unexpected way can totally change an audience’s perception of your story.

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Everyone is an expert in their own field. They’re immersed in a topic, learning everything there is to know about it … for roughly eight hours a day. Sometimes those topics even run into your personal time or after hours. The point is, however, that you know a whole lot. People come to you with questions, and if you don’t know the answer offhand, chances are you can get it very quickly.

During all of that brainstorming, you’re likely to come up with some new ideas.

So why not share them? No, not in the way that everyone can steal what you thought up, but in the way where you can get others talking and show your expertise.

And you can do so on your blog.

The days of marketing for marketing’s sake are over. Customers are looking for value in your content...

I’m on a beach, yo!

Okay, so I’m not actually writing this post from the beach — I can’t risk breaking my computer — but for the last week or so, I’ve been at a beach, both literally and figuratively. This blog finds you midway through my annual family vacation to Cocoa Beach, Florida.

I’m only 10% bringing this up to brag. Of course I’m enjoying some sun and some adult drinks, but in the last five years, this trip to the South has been more than just a buzzed family gathering; it’s been a writing retreat.

Writers will do anything to escape the maddening effects of writer’s block. You compile ideas throughout your day or week or life, and when you finally have time to write, that’s when the machine grinds to a halt. The switch flips so quickly...

We’ve all heard of the term “writer’s block.” Even if you’ve never experienced it – as a writer or otherwise – you know exactly what it means. How someone gets caught up without the words to say, or without the ideas to create, and it leaves them frustrated and un-typing. Sometimes before they’ve already started a piece of text, and other times, right in the middle of an incredible plot twist … only the person who invented it doesn’t know where to take it next.

As a writer, it’s a condition that’s about as terrible as it gets; it keeps you from continuing your craft. Sometimes altogether, while others, you are stuck with all of the “bad” ideas and none of the good ones...

When I was a copy editor in college, I learned a lot of lessons publically. My first day in the seat of head copy lady, the university president’s name was spelled three different ways. Three. It was my first experience running a team, and I assumed that writers, let alone copy editors, had done their jobs. By the end of my 2 am shift, I wasn’t checking much for spelling so much as I was writing headlines and making sure stories weren’t cut off mid-sentence. This ignorance on my part led to several emails, public jokes, and a level of embarrassment that, seven years later, I’m still not quite past. I should have known better.

That, of course, was the worst mistake, but there were plenty of others. Like the time we printed “remberance” in a headline...