Category: Productivity

Most-Have Skills for Starting a Writing Career

What? Oh noooo! Being talented isn’t enough? We need to have a whole nuther set of skills? What? More than one whole nuther set? OMG! OMG!

Well, we have to face the truth sometime, so:

by Kristin Wong

So you want to get paid for your writing, but you’ve never been published. You have no formal experience, and no one’s ever hired you for a writing-related job. The professional legwork that comes with getting paid to write can be intimidating. Honing a few important skills can help you get started. read article

Common Career Wisdom That isn’t All That Wise

As long as we’re giving networking tips, here are a few other things you need to know. Well, “not know,” actually. Erase these Old Wives Tales and proceed onward to career victory!

futureseerby Herbert Lui

Finding your first “real” job can be anxiety-inducing, stressful, and extremely confusing. A lot of classic advice isn’t exactly concrete truth, though, even though the principle might be right. Here’s some career wisdom you should consider revisiting.

Advice: “It’s Not What You Know, It’s Who You Know.” read article

Basic Writing Principles You Can Use in Everyday Life

At last we can tell our mothers that all that writing and studying about writing (and reading and viewing and web surfing and…) actually has relevance to the real, non-writing world she’s so terrified we’ll end up in. Whew.

In other words, this particular TVWriter™ minion loves the following article to pieces:

Lovin' on this pic as well as the article. Go figure.
Lovin’ on this pic as well as the article. Go figure.

by Herbert Lui

Writing starts way before you put letters to a page. It involves processes like critical thinking, communication, and creativity. Even if writing feels like pulling teeth, you can apply the principles of writing to many facets of your day-to-day life. Here’s how. read article

Peggy Bechko: Tune In And Turn Off

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by Peggy Bechko

Hey, you, writer person out there. Do you have a routine? You know, stuff you do as a matter of course? Stuff you do every day to get your writing done, polished and out there?

Don’t give me that look, and don’t give me the ‘free spirit’ route. You need a routine. One for your writing that encompasses not only the actual writing, but exercise, research, learning, maybe meditation; whatever gets you going and keeps you going. A scattered approach has rarely gotten anyone anywhere. Really. And I take the ‘rarely’ back. It doesn’t work. Period.

Develop a routine and stick to it. No cheating (well hardly any cheating – we all cheat once in a while). If you value what you do and what your goals are, establish a routine. I’m not going to tell you again. read article

Kevin Spacey Reminds Us to Pay It Forward

…And we’re right there with him. Not just cuz he’s Kevin Spacey either. Cuz he’s smart – and right:

Um, anybody else notice how strange Kev looks when he smiles? Or is it just that we see him like that so seldom?