The Renegade Writer Blog

Last week Linda and I conducted a telephone mentoring session with the writer who’d won the drawing for the free half-hour of mentoring for signing up for our Renegade Writer e-courses. Both of us were impressed with this part-time writer’s magazine credits. We’re talking top-of-the-heap consumer publications that have a certain cachet.
One thing that struck […]

Eve Adamson is the co-author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Zen Living, a book that I turn to whenever my work is driving me crazy. I interviewed Eve to get her take on the Zen of writing.
How does the practice of Zen relate to magazine writing, book authoring, or copywriting? I think many people […]

You could say I’m a slow learner. I’ve been writing and editing professionally for more than 20 years, and only this year did I realize that I’ve been approaching my freelance career backwards. The conventional wisdom suggests that success comes to the freelancer who studies the markets and pitches stories that she thinks editors are […]

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 […]

Whenever my husband Eric has to get a shot, he pinches the skin on his hand so hard that the injection feels like nothing in comparison. Sure, the pinch hurts, but it makes Eric feel better that he’s the one controlling the pain.
We can do the same with rejections. If rejections from Family Circle and […]

A day or so ago, Linda posted a notice about our second meeting of Way North Writers, a group for New England writers to network and share leads, inspiration and advice. I’m happy to say that we have a wonderful coach coming to lead us through a workshop on clarifying our dreams and achieving goals […]

Please watch this amazing lecture by Carnegie Mellon University professor Randy Pausch. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry … and it might change your life.

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Are you the type of person who always has a long list of to-dos? Do you manage to check off items fairly easily, but never feel like you accomplish much despite being “busy”? Or maybe you’re a writer who has a lot of projects on the burners, but you rarely complete them to your satisfaction?
If […]

Summer’s over, the kids are back in school, and all those projects you put off till the fall (when you’d have more time) are screaming for attention. For weeks you’ve been dreaming about having a full day to get your work done.  Now that time is here — yet at the end of the day, […]

Last year I wrote an article on the Japanese form of therapy called Naikan (which is still waiting to be slotted for publication at a certain national health magazine!), and I learned so much that can be applied to freelancing.
To practice Naikan, you ask yourself three questions while focusing on a particular person and/or time […]