Blog
WRITING
A literary agent’s advice for book-writing entrepreneurs
This is a guest post by Lucinda Halpern, head of Lucinda Literary. Lucinda gets writers book deals with traditional publishing houses. Even if you don't harbor the fantasy of publishing your book with a big New York house, you'll want to pay attention to her advice....
The best writing advice I ever received
I once had a lovely, wise professor who said, “If you write about a person, tell the truth, and do it with love and compassion.” To show what he meant, he read a scene from one of his books in which he described, in gorgeous language, the boy he once was, his drunken...
Dead men give great advice
Plato had it right when he said, “Those who tell the stories rule society.” In other words, if you want to get ahead--and ahead does not mean taking over Greenland--you need to open your mouth and share your experiences. A piece of advice I took to heart early on in...
Why writing a chapter could be better than writing a whole damn book
I was talking to a potential client yesterday about her dream of writing a book. She's got this amazing story about rebuilding her life after losing everything—and I mean everything—in 2008. The kind of story that makes you realize your own problems aren't quite as...
READING
Or you could just write an essay
When I was in grad school, I took an essay writing course. We were assigned an anthology called The Best American Essays, which still sits, all marked up with black ink, on my bookshelf. (If I could find a link, I'd put it here, but I can't.) In it, I discovered the...
The life changing magic of cleaning our house
Walt and I were finally cleaning out the basements (yes, that’s a plural); and the over-stuffed three-car garage; and the attics (again, the plural); and all of the closets; and each of the seven, count them, seven bedrooms. This in preparation for our move to...
What to read on vacation
It's the holiday week. Business has all but shut down. And I know precisely how I'm going to spend much of my time. I have a stack of books I've been dying to read, so, baby, here I come. Which got me thinking...which books might I recommend for your reading...
The Sane Food Solution
Tuesday, December 10, 2024; that's the day The Sane Food Solution:Transform Your Relationship with Food and Change Your Life hits the market. This book, Summit Press Publishers' latest release, captures Theresa Wright's nearly 40 years of experience treating food...
LIFE
The best piece of advice I ever received
A long time ago, when I was selling photo copiers for a living, I met an older woman who gave me a piece of advice I'll never forget. “Darling,” she said, smoothing back her hair with steady hands, “there’s a time and a place for everything. You can’t do it all at...
Dead men give great advice
Plato had it right when he said, “Those who tell the stories rule society.” In other words, if you want to get ahead--and ahead does not mean taking over Greenland--you need to open your mouth and share your experiences. A piece of advice I took to heart early on in...
Momento Mori
I was doom scrolling on Instagram when I came across a Ryan Holiday post about his 2022 book, Discipline Is Destiny. In it he writes, “To procrastinate is to be entitled. It is arrogant. It assumes there will be a later. It assumes you’ll have the discipline to get to...
The typical death march
One Saturday several years ago, Walt and I decided to hike the Grand Canyon. We went down the South Kaibab trail to the bottom, meandered along the banks of the Colorado River, then headed back up to the top along the Bright Angel trail. It’s a pretty big day: roughly...
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Straight-talking, funny and brutally honest, How To Eat The Elephant will give you–yes, you–the push you need to haul your ass off the sofa and position it in front of your computer long enough to produce a real, live book.
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