The scene opens with the haggard writer hunched over a dilapidated Underwood, struggling to meet his midnight deadline. The air is stale and thick with cigarette smoke and there’s an empty bottle of scotch lying on the floor. By the smell of things, it’s obvious he hasn’t slept, eaten or washed his clothes in over a week. That was the…
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15 Questions Your Ghostwriter Should Be Asking You And other tips for finding the right person to write your book
What do a Labrador Retriever, a poor Southern tobacco farmer, and a World War II survivor[1] have in common? If you guessed nothing, you’d be wrong. In fact, each was the basis of a best-selling book. Two of them even went on to become Hollywood box office smashes. The world we live in is a fascinating place, filled with thousands…
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Putting Lipstick on a Pig* How to avoid getting thrown under the bus while getting your ducks in a row
As someone who’s written professionally for a number of years, I always try to avoid euphemisms, choosing vernacular the average businessman or woman understands. Instead of going back to the drawing board for each game plan, I like to hit the ground running by thinking outside of the box. I’ll usually begin by going after customer-centric, low-hanging fruit, getting my…
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I’m 70 Years Old, Unemployed and a Complete Success Success usually has little to do with how much money you make
“Success means doing the best we can with what we have. Success is the doing, not the getting; in the trying, not the triumph. Success is a personal standard, reaching for the highest that is in us, becoming all that we can be.” — Zig Ziglar I’ll never forget the beginning of Jack Nicholson’s award-winning film, “About Schmidt.” It opened with a…
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What’s Gone Wrong with Our Hiring Practices And what we can do to fix them
Two years ago, I decided to make a bold move: I attempted to switch from the competitive world of freelance writing to an in-house writing position. Who knows? Maybe the Atlantic or the New Yorker were looking for another polished writer to wow their readers. After years of beating the bushes and competing with other cutthroat freelancers who undercut each…
