Last December, my Christmas present to myself came early, when I sent an invoice on December 18 that put my billing over $100,000 for the year. I was officially a six-figure freelancer. Hitting six figures seemed wholly impossible when I began freelancing five years...
The Write Life has teamed up with Self-Publishing School to create this presentation, “How to Write & Publish Your Book in 90 Days.” In it, you’ll learn how to finish your book in just 30 minutes per day. To sign up for this free training, click...
There’s a lot of things that agents do: sell books, edit, negotiate, offer advice and consultation. However, there are a lot of things that don’t fall within our purview. We hope to help guide you on your career path and offer suggestions when to consult other experts...
“The article should be 800 words…maximum.” I can’t count the number of times an editor has assigned me a word count for a piece. In the world of writing, word count matters more than we might think. Many publications determine how much to pay for freelance writing...
It happens. You’re sitting in front of a blank page, you dip into your well of inspiration, and you come up with nothing. Nada. Zilch. At most the moldy remains of an idea you had in seventh grade. I’ve been there time and again, until by chance I attended a panel led...
Editor’s note: This course only opens for enrollment a few times each year, and it’s open now through March 5, 2021. Register for DIY MFA here. I don’t have a college degree, but I’m obsessed with academics. I love learning. I just kind of abhor everything...
Ah, the em dash — that multifaceted, all-purpose punctuation mark that can act as a parenthesis, comma, colon, semicolon or even quotation mark. It’s used in so many manners: to separate clauses that still want to be close friends; to create asides or add emphasis or...
Despite the tired narrative that writers resent their editors, who slash through their hard-won lines with a flick of the red pen, many of us have come to realize that a quality editor can help a writer figure out exactly what they meant to say…and say it...
The summer after I graduated from college, I worked as a waitress at a restaurant in my hometown. I needed a way to make a few bucks while I applied to graduate school, and given my love for food and cooking, I figured a restaurant environment would be a fun and easy...
As an editor, one of the first pieces of feedback I give to writers is to vary word choice and sentence structure. But there’s one place where I go in the complete opposite direction: quote attribution. When I started managing a local alt-weekly five years ago, I...
