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It’s easy to get caught up in the notion we are artists, and forget about the business side of our business. This is one of the reasons we need to be honest about our goals. It’s a noble goal to want to earn a living, a good living from writing. Yet, if we want to make money writing, we have to feed people what they want to eat.

A Tale of Two Parsnips

I remember being in NYC in 2012. It was our final day in the city and we were celebrating a member of our group’s birthday. Since I have a bazillion food allergies, we called ahead of time to make sure the restaurant could accommodate someone with allergies to half the known universe.

Since the place was an Asian-Australian fusion restaurant, they assured me that there were lots of grilled meat dishes that could be easily adjusted to…

Theory is great, but it may or may not jive with reality. My goal as a blogger, author, teacher is to equip you guys for success from all angles—craft, brand/platform, and business. Yet, want to know what all these have in common?

We have to DO them to get better.

We can read all the craft books in the world, but we only grow as writers by writing. We improve on Facebook or Twitter with practice. As authors, we are corporations of ONE. We need to make business decisions. The more decisions we make, the more we grow.

One of the biggest business decisions we’ll make is which publishing path to take. This is why I dedicate a lot of time to educate you guys about how all forms of publishing work in my new book. We have to choose a path that fits our personality, our lives…

When I first started teaching social media to writers, I was new thus insecure. Often, I’d give advice like, “Well, if you don’t like it, don’t do it.” Bad advice. Hey, I’m learning and growing, too. There are a lot of writers out there only doing what they enjoy. That is the masses, the average.

“Average” is the top of the bottom, the best of the worst, the bottom of the top, the worst of the best.” ~John C. Maxwell, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth

This advice to only do what we enjoy might have flown four years ago (though barely). These days? Discoverability is a nightmare for all authors. If we want to do this “writing thing” long-term and be successful?

Average=DEATH

Chasing Sasquatch Wastes Valuable TIME

Thing is, I want that job where I never have to do anything I don’t enjoy, but it doesn’t exist. It’s…

I’d like to blame it all on Jay’s roast, but having time away, true downtime, allowed me to do some thinking (which is generally dangerous and has a wide blast radius). For any of you who’ve done any yard work, you know that for a vine to bear fruit, for a rose bush to produce more flowers, for a tree to grow taller, it needs to be pruned.

One of the key ways we grow in our careers (or even as people) is to be pruned. Pruning hurts. It sucks. It takes away all the pretty fluff we thought was “progress” and renders us naked and vulnerable. After pruning, we might not look like a lot to others, but inside and beneath, great things are happening. Our roots (commitment) dig deeper so we can stand taller.

The first step to being pruned is honestly and critically looking at where…

All of us want to do a good job. We want to put our best foot forward. We all say that we want feedback and critique, but deep down, if we are real honest, we want people to love everything we say and do. Unfortunately, this isn’t the reality. We can’t please everyone, and it is easy to fall into a people-pleasing trap that will steal our passion, our art, and our very identity.

I’ve seen this happen time and time again with writers. They rework and rework and rework the first chapter of their novel, trying to make it “perfect”—which is actually code for “making everyone happy.” Here is the thing. Not gonna happen. Ever.

One person will say our book is too wordy. Another wants more description. We add more description and then another person is slashing through, slaughtering every adjective and metaphor.

Lessons from Aesop

I find…

It would be lovely if, when we decide to pursue our dream to become a writer, that friends, family and acquaintances would roll out the red carpet of support. Maybe some of you are fortunate enough to have had this happen, but I’d wager most of us could have joined a cult of UFO worshippers in New Mexico and received a better response.

New Level, New Devil (Thank You, Joyce Meyers)

Any time we seek to do something remarkable, something that deviates from “normal”… expect rejection. I was “fortunate” to experience a personal apocalypse so massive, that up was the only way to go. With a misdiagnosis of epilepsy, I’d lost my job, my home, my savings, my health, my identity, and my pride. I’d suffered such a sweeping personal extinction that I very literally had nothing left to lose.

Why not become a writer? I’d always wanted to, but…

Since I am dedicating this week to the apocalypse to support my friend, Piper Bayard, I thought we’d take a day to look at the Bookpocalypse. What IS a Bookpocalypse? The Bookpocalypse is when you realize that first book you’ve been working, reworking, taking to critique, etc. is a train wreck and, for all intents and purposes, unsalvageable.

I went through this, too. Back in the 90s, when I began my tome, I mistakenly believed that making As in English naturally qualified me to be a best-selling author.

Yeah, um. NO.

And there comes that point that we need to be honest why our book is being rejected (or, in the new paradigm, not selling). This can be a very depressing low for any artist. I still remember the day it dawned on me my first book was mess and it was time to pull the plug. This is…

SHARKNADO is a phenomena that is taking the world by storm. I mean, how can it get better? SHARKS AND TORNADOES! Tonight, SyFy is re-airing the show and we will be holding a #myWANA #Sharknado party on Twitter so we can all share in the goofy fun, because sometimes stories are so BAD they are AWESOME.

But what can writers learn from Sharknado?

Belief is Already Suspended

One mistake new writers make is they feel the need to EXPLAIN, to make an idea PLAUSIBLE. Here’s the thing. The second someone actually decides to give our stories a chance? Belief is already suspended. The Force was better before it was explained.Metachlorians ruined Star Wars. An entire generation had already fallen in love with Star Wars and accepted The Force. We didn’t need to know what it was or what caused it.

Really.

Don’t feel the need to break down your…