The Renegade Writer Blog

First, what’s a hack? A hack can be a writer who churns out copy, yes, but here I mean a tip or trick that makes your workday more productive. And hey, I welcome any and all tips that help me churn out the words. Here, the ten productivity hacks I use most often and recommend […]

I started taking a meditation class at the local yoga studio, and my teacher said it’s her job in life to “fail well.” That really resonated with me, and I think it pertains to writing as well as to the rest of life. As writers, we need to really put ourselves out there and do […]

It’s funny because it’s true!

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If you’re anything like me, you’ve got a to-do list that’s a foot long, filled with a variety of tasks — everything from the mundane to the critically important. The critical stuff always gets done, and I notice that the mundane does too. It’s all the stuff in the middle that languishes from day to […]

Imagine you had a half-hour to ask Linda and Diana whatever you wanted about freelancing:

“I’m getting a lot of positive feedback from editors at women’s magazines, but no assignments. Is there anything else I can do to help my cause?”
“I’m bored writing about health and want to try my hand at travel writing. How can […]

A writer’s forum I frequent has been discussing the acronyms often used when talking about writing. It can be hard to understand a post or article that’s riddled with terms like WIP, RPP, and WFH, so here’s a handy list I came up with. You can see acronyms that are more related to fiction writing […]

Yesterday I was reading a Haruki Murakami book and he mentioned Tom Swift. I didn’t know who that was, so I asked my husband, and he said, “I don’t know who he was, but I know there is a type of phrase named after him.” So I turned to the magical Wikipedia, which said that […]

Kristen writes: I have 23 articles due between now (August 21) and August 31. My total pay for those articles will be around $2,300. I quit my staff writing job after 10 years in January and, out of fear of never eating again, lined up many local paper and magazine assignments. They’re fun and easy […]

by Diana Burrell and Linda Formichelli
(Diana) Writers love to talk trash about crazy sources. Most experts I interview are smart, funny, well-spoken, and interesting. There’s always the expert source that defies reason, though. Like the renowned negotiation expert who expected me to negotiate with him — hard — for a 15-minute interview. Or the PR […]

Alison asks: Is having an MFA in Writing worth mentioning on a query letter? I hear conflicting things: on the one hand, that it will show that I’m serious, and on the other, that it’ll show that I’m an overeducated, pantywaist buffoon.
I didn’t know the answer to this, so I contacted some editors I know […]