"Some people think publishing is a business, but it's really a casino." This was one of the memorable quotes and ideas I jotted down while attending a panel of published authors, agents and editors produced by Sue Shapiro, an award-winning writing professor, last...
Let me cut to the chase. If you're at all creative or in any way desire to put your talent out in the world, WATCH THIS DOCUMENTARY!! It's on HBO and is called The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling. Even if you have to try out a free subscription for a month, it is...
As I further navigate the journey to publication, I find that continuing to do readings of excerpts from my memoir is invaluable. I had my 8th one today at a friend's home in Connecticut. She had previously attended a reading I gave in Sarasota a month ago and...
There's a satisfying story, originally created by Russell Conwell, called Acres of Diamonds about a landowner (long story very short) who traveled the world searching for diamonds to create wealth, only to return home broke and broken. Home again, he discovered...
Two weeks ago I'd never heard of Gad Elmaleh (had you?), and now he's a hero of mine. I was introduced to him by Ira Glass, host of This American Life, when his story was in re-run during the holidays originally broadcast in November 2016. I would have missed it...
For months in 2008, my mastermind group encouraged me to start a blog. Let me set the context here in a time where blogs are now everywhere. It would be the equivalent of my saying to you, my audience in 2017, that you should start posting on snapchat. You've heard...
I get so much out of attending the Entrepreneurial Women's Club (EWC) in Stamford, CT that I don't even mind the commute from NYC that I make once a month. The October lunch was an great example of why I choose to attend. I was picked up at the train station by the...
I know there are classes you can take to pump out your book in a week, a fortnight, or "6-weeks to writing your bestseller." I had all that optimism when I enrolled in Ann Randolph's Take Your Story to the Stage in June, 2014 at Kripalu. Three-plus years later, I'm...
I had a business class professor who answered tough questions with a smile and this quote: "As it says in the Talmud, 'It all depends.'" Here's an example of how prescient those words still are. I just celebrated my 1st anniversary as a member of the Writers Room...
I completed my week in Amherst, MA where I wanted to go through every edit I'd received on my memoir manuscript, make the adjustments--that took the first five days--then read the entire book out loud into my recording device. Seven hours and 40 minutes of...
Here on my writing retreat in Massachusetts, I'm on the next step of the memoir process having gone through the entire draft of edits. What amazes me most is that I thought I was done a year ago. Twelve months later, I think I'm only about halfway there. With the...
I got up before 5am (went to bed before 9pm last night) and immediately continued editing. By 9am, I had only two chapters of notes left to go through, and they weren't as daunting as the ones from earlier. So I decided to reward myself with a walk on the rails to...
There's some debate about who coined the phrase "kill your darlings," but whether it was Faulkner or not, I'm in the process of execution. I just excised several pages about my mother, mostly about her hospitalization, a story I relished telling. But, according to...
I'm deep into the editing of my memoir after receiving notes from my developmental editor a few weeks ago. These are not simply "Capitalize this word," or "Put this in the past tense," but "More reflections on your bigger themes." Stuff I have to mull, figure out...
My old White Plains HS classmate, Erica Baird, now co-founder of Lustre.is, mentioned her friend Eddie Joyce when I told her of my current writing journey. "The nicest guy!" she said describing him. She soon connected us via email, and I had the pleasure and...
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