The Renegade Writer Blog

So who here is participating in National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo) starting tomorrow?
Gulp. I am. I can’t believe I’m doing this, considering I’ve got a bunch of other projects begging for attention, but I’ve had a story idea nipping at my heels for the last year and I want to explore it. What better [...]

The second session of my story idea workshop begins this Monday, November 3, so if you need a kick in the pants to generate some good story ideas, you might want to consider signing up. If you can’t do the November session, then I’ve scheduled two more, one starting December 1 and the other on [...]

This post is by Monica Bhide, who teaches our Introduction to Foodwriting course.

My email box has been overflowing with messages from friends, students, strangers all worried about the economy. If you think fear is a great motivator, forget it — in these emails I am seeing signs of panic. People are getting paralyzed with fear [...]

If you’re getting started as a freelancer, these are the tools you’ll need to develop to get magazine work.
The Query Letter
If you’re a magazine writer, the query is your most basic and indispensable tool for getting new work. While there’s no one right way to write a query letter, the basic components are:
• A lede [...]

A Renegade blog reader had the following situation:

I have a positive relationship developing with an editor at magazine X. She’s assigned several of my queries, and is likely going to assign others from my last batch of pitches. Recently she rejected one of my ideas because “we’ve already got a package in the works on [...]

Today I had to call a few retailers for a short piece I’m writing for the Boston Globe. Many of my freelancing colleagues hate talking to professors (”they’re too academic”), doctors (”they’re totally unreachable, and when you do get them, they can only spare a minute”) or corporate types (”jargon city!”).
For me, it’s mom-and-pop shops. [...]

With the economy being what it is, you may have had the idea to start pitching more in hopes of bringing in more cash. Or maybe you were inspired by my idea of doing a pitch blitz in How to Gain Control Over Your Freelancing Life. Whatever the reason, you want to expand your client [...]

We’re finding more and more markets that are asking writers to include links in their online articles, create podcasts, write blog posts, and add other interactive media to their work. Here’s a quick list of resources that should help you get started.
• First, Michelle Rafter of the WordCount blog tells us why we should [...]

I’ve been struggling with a book proposal for going on two years. Every couple of weeks, my husband asks, “How’s the X book coming?” and I feel the pool of despair inch out a little farther in my gut. This weekend he asked again and I snapped, “It’s not, okay? Lay off!” I rarely snap, [...]

When our lives feel out of our control, it tends to make us anxious, worried, and depressed, and can decrease motivation. We feel as if life is happening to us, and we’re just reacting to what life throws at us. On the other hand, when we feel in control of our time and our careers, [...]