The Most Counter-Intuitive Advice You Can’t Live Without
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 […]
Interview with Literary Agent Christopher Ferebee, a Living Legend
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 Dirty Little Secret…and Why I’m OK with It
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 […]
Who Are They? Who Are You?
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 […]
The Three Essential Movements of Creativity
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 […]
Which Book Should I Write?
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 […]
Over at Books and Such…
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 […]
Reviewing 2012, Dreaming about 2013
I started this blog back in mid-August, 2012. I had been thinking about blogging for a while, and then these three books pushed me over the edge (I highly recommend all three; these images are attached to affiliate links): My idea was to write about writing, publishing, and creativity, and my commitment […]
How to Come Up with a Great Book Concept
Let me start with three reasons working on a book with a lousy concept is a bad idea: Beautiful, compelling writing is terribly important to publishers, but if your beautiful writing is in the service of a concept that no one will buy, publishers will have a hard time getting excited. A far-reaching platform is […]
Why Asking Why Is So Important
In 1939 Herman Baker was twenty-eight years old. He had a young family and a steady job working for his uncle, Louis Kregel. Everyone would have expected him to continue in that job, providing for his family and moving up the company ranks. It was, after all, the Great Depression. Herman was lucky to have […]