Kristin Nelsen suggests that writers treat their work as a business, and then gives some advice on how to do that. Here's Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

watchmebe gives some good advice on what one should study in college if they want to be a writer. I heartily agree.

Cheryl Herbsman, author of Breathers, is not on twitter. You can find her here: @cherylherbsman

Just for fun: here's a great collection of Dr. Who inspired cakes.


Um, I think that's all I've got for now. Not much of a salad, but I wanted to share these before I forgot about them.

So, I'm in the process of actually putting together a couple of webpages. (I've been talking about doing this for a while now.) I'm planning on using wordpress.org to design the sites, and have a fairly clear idea of what I want to do. But I need some advice on what sort of webhosting I should go with.

I originally planned to go with godaddy.com, but was told that it was the worst for being complicated to use with bad customer service.

The other suggestion I got was fatcow.com, which is supposed to be better on both counts, but supposedly has slow loading times.

I'm not really sure which way to go.

So please help me out here. If you have your own website, what hosting do you use? Do you like it? Is it fairly easy to use?

Teresa Ponikvar, a friend of mine, wrote a great article answering the question of whether one needs to get a degree to become a professional writer.

Before completing and posting her story, she asked me and several others our opinions on the topic. So, I decided to post what I wrote to her here.

My answer:
Degrees (and by extension writing classes in general) can be very useful things. They provide and avenue in which to grow as a writer. The classes can expose the writer to new styles and points of view that they might not have considered on their own, while writing groups offer commentary and diverse opinions, allowing them to get immediate feedback on their work. Both of these benefits can help a writer develop a personal writing tool box, that will help them as they shape stories and articles on their own. Classes and workshops also provide deadlines, which can help a wayward writer stay focused on the task at hand.

That being said, a degree is by no means necessary for a writer to achieve success. Developing a personal style and writing toolbox can be done through developed practice, and the internet offers more than enough resources for a writer to be able to find tips, tricks, and advice, as well as exposure to great samples of writing. Many websites offer online critique groups.

The one thing that a degree a writer can't get on their own, is the degree, which is kind of a trophy. It says, see, I accomplished something. Here's proof that I can write. In that sense, it can help get a foot in the door, letting an editor know that the writer already has a body of work under their belt.

However, the absence of a degree is not a deterrent to getting published, either. Writers can begin to create a body of work through creating a focused blog, or by publishing where ever they can, online and in print. The main thing editors want to see is that a writer can, well, write, but also meet deadlines on time and be easy to work with. A degree is not a guarantee of professionalism, which is the main key to getting offered more work at a particular publication. Many editors publish blogs or articles aimed to help writers learn what kind of behavior is considered appropriate (or inappropriate) in the marketplace, so writers (with or without a degree) should pay attention to these suggestions and act accordingly.

Bottom line is classes and a degree are not necessary to becoming a professional writer, but they can help improve one's writing skill set.

Edited to Add: Please read a few of the comments, as a few make good points in favor of degrees and writing communities.

Wow, my goodness. I actually wrote something today. Not an actually story or chapter on my novel, but I have worked on an outline and world building for a story/ novella. 1699 words of world building. Any words are good words. It's not much, but it's something. And with how dry I've been creatively, I'll take what I get.

It makes this a really good day. I can go to bed with a sigh and a smile.


I owe at least a small part of this small dribbling of words to Vision: A resource for writers, which helped inspire me out of my funk.

Hopefully I will continue to find reasons to keep me going.

I love to read writing advice (sometimes as a way to distract myself from actually writing*). So here's some advice that was just pointed out to me from forward motion.

The 39 Steps

Although, it appears to me, upon reading, that there only 34. But I guess you could count the sub-steps, too.





*As as foot note, I seem to not just be avoiding my writing lately, but any and all responsibility--period. I find this extreme level of distraction frustrating and depressing. I know that all it will take to change this is a shift in perspective, but I havn't found the little switch to flip, at least not yet.