Sometimes life feels aimless. We go through our days wandering or, worse, floundering. And of course some of this is just part of the human experience. It’s normal, and we shouldn’t beat ourselves up too much for it. But if it goes on for too long or if it’s too pervasive, life itself begins to […]
I couldn’t be happier to be interviewing literary agent Esther Fedorkevich of The Fedd Agency. Esther is a first-generation American, the daughter of Ukrainian immigrants born in Argentina and China — and she has that indefatigable immigrant spirit in spades. After breaking records selling Bible studies for Lifeway and then working for The Lampo Group, […]
Earlier this week I was listening to a conversation between Michael Hyatt (@MichaelHyatt), author of Platform, and Stu McLaren (@StuMcLaren), a startup entrepreneur. At one point in the discussion Stu emphasized the importance of knowing your audience’s pain. What is your audience’s need? What is the problem your audience has that you can solve? And […]
A counselor friend recently enrolled in a program to learn a particular kind of therapy. I asked him how it was going, and he told me he loves it. “Get this,” he said, “Our first homework assignment is to practice ‘exquisite self-care.’” “What?” I said. “Isn’t that a little self-absorbed?” “I know, right? That’s what […]
When I heard that readers of this blog wanted me to interview literary agents, one of the first people to come to mind was Christopher Ferebee (@caferebee). Chris is an experienced agent with a strong reputation. I think you’ll enjoy hearing from him. This interview kicks off what I’m calling the Living Legend series because […]
My mom and dad did something to me as an infant that stayed with me for the rest of my life. Now before you go thinking it was something truly awful, I’ll just tell you: they misspelled my middle name. My middle name is Randell. When my fiancée at the time, Alyssa, was creating our […]
I’m reading Bob Goff’s book, Love Does. It’s a good book, I recommend it. I just finished a chapter in which Goff relates how awful he was as a Little League baseball player. He was so bad that everybody groaned when he went up to bat. Their only hope was that he would get hit […]
Recently it was “Be your favorite storybook character” day at my son’s school. Last night at dinner we talked about how best to embody Pete from Pete the Cat. Not one for makeup, my son opted for drawing a picture of Pete and pinning him to the canvas of a white T-shirt. My son is […]
Every time I have taken a risk to engage this blog’s community, I have been pleased with the results. It always feels like leaping from a high dive and hoping for the best, but I’m doing that again today. So here’s my question for you: Which book should I write? For a while now I’ve […]
A while back two commenters asked how big a platform was big enough. “How many Twitter followers, Facebook fans, email subscriptions should I be shooting for? What’s the goal I should have in mind?” In a guest post over at that Books and Such blog, I address these questions. The post is called 5 Questions […]
