Excerpt from Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach, April 3: What are you going to be when you grow up? Today, let’s think about paths not yet taken—the paths of our secret imaginary selves. Each of us leads many lives vicariously and often simultaneously. By acknowledging our secret lives and tapping into the wisdom of our imaginary alter egos, we can glean tips to help us develop our own personal sense of style. If you had ten other lives to lead, what would you be doing? You might want to be a radio disc jockey, a mountain climber, a Broadway lyricist, a filmmaker, a romance novelist, a brain surgeon, a syndicated newspaper columnist, a psychic, a horticulturist, a holistic veterinarian, or a potter. . . Now write down your secret selves. How do they live? How do they dress? What can you do to bring some of the magic of…
Month: April 2015
Before you publish, take one more vital step: Invite a very important person to the party.
Guest Blogger Linda Jay writes about copyediting. In 2012, Joel Friedlander asked Linda Jay to offer readers of his popular blog, The Book Designer, advice at that time, on “one of the most important decisions a self-publisher makes: hiring a copyeditor.” Here’s her reply, still pertinent today: Agreed. You’ve spent months (or possibly years) writing the manuscript that will one day be your book. You’ve distilled all those handwritten notes from pages or scraps of paper, those often-incoherent e-mails to yourself, and those ideas racing around in your brain, and typed every one of them into the computer, in some loosely organized format that vaguely resembles a book. Then one day… hooray… it occurs to you that… you’re done! Now you can’t wait to get your little gem “OUT THERE” for all the world to marvel at. You are indeed a writer (which nobody can deny, which nobody can deny)! Oh,…
This time next year . . . Prompt #150
Today’s prompt: This time next year . . . Write whatever comes up for you. No thinking. No analyzing. Just write!