Time to get serious about yourwriting career
You won’t be able to quit work and write, but you might find a grant to make your writing goals easier. Or a crowdfunding opportunity to fund your project. Find serious contests, too. Only those that pay in cold hard cash. No pay-per-click, $1 per blog or exposure markets either. Hope Clark writes for a living. If she wouldn’t try these opportunities, she doesn’t post them. Our newsletters are our world. Free subscription.
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Thought of the Week
This is how you come up with ideas. By understanding that every stimulus in your life is fodder for a story. Any and all of it. After making it a habit, you realize there are more stories out there than you could ever write.
Latest posts
What to Expect from a Developmental Editor—and Why Hire One
Jayne Benjulian / 2024-03-15My first editor worked with me on five revisions of my debut story in a major magazine. Decades later, when I wrote about him, I understood what had inspired his stamina: my trying and failing and trying again to express what I wanted to say. The piece wasn't spectacular, but... Read More
The Biggest Grant Myth
C. Hope Clark / 2024-03-15A week doesn't go by without someone asking me for money to self-publish their book. Nine times out of ten, they are beginning authors. There are no grants for this. And there are lots of reasons why. I'll try to toss most of them in here, in abbreviated form so... Read More
Top 7 Things a Producer Wants From Your Screenplay
Mark Heidelberger / 2024-03-15What makes a screenplay successful? This question has haunted many a writer since the dawn of motion pictures. No single genre, subject or storyline has so dominated the box office as to be dubbed a surefire winner. If one had, that’s all Hollywood would make. We’ve seen hits and flops... Read More
Referrals
C. Hope Clark / 2024-03-15Most of you reading this have published somewhere. In newsletter, magazines, or blogs. Maybe you've done podcasts or YouTube episodes. Or you've published in an anthology, or even published a book or two. Along this journey, you've met people in the business. Don't forget these people. Some will be editors... Read More
Writing Critique Groups
C. Hope Clark / 2024-03-15I no longer belong to a writer's critique group. I used to belong to two at the same time. One in person and one online. The first was 25 miles away, and we met biweekly, with a limit of ten double-spaced pages. The second was online and international. It was... Read More
Leveraging Substack and Public Speaking to Monetize Your Passion
John Atwell / 2024-03-01As a starving freelance writer, I always look for ways to turn craft into coin. Enter Substack. Think of it as a personal online publishing platform with which you build a paying readership. Setup is free, intuitive, and quick. Fill it with previously published work, new articles, OpEds, short stories...whatever tickles... Read More
Imposter Syndrome
C. Hope Clark / 2024-03-01I'm someone who does not believe in writer's block. However, I have to admit that everyone, sooner or later, is touched by Imposter Syndrome. For those unfamiliar, it's when you believe you cannot write up to the standard to be taken seriously, you feel you cannot fulfill a task, or... Read More
Another Contest Purpose
C. Hope Clark / 2024-03-01In having coffee with a local writer, we started talking contests. She has a goal of entering one per month with her works in progress. She writes mainstream and romance, so she has to select contests open to other than literary fiction (which makes up a lot of contests). She'd... Read More
Expand Your Writing Practice With Book Reviews
Erica Goss / 2024-02-23Whether you write poetry, nonfiction, gardening books or novels, writing book reviews is an excellent way to expand your writing practice and your publication credits. The task sharpens your skills, deepens the reading experience, and helps support the writers' community. The niche also separates you from the crowd: literary journals... Read More
Normalcy
C. Hope Clark / 2024-02-23I am a fan of The Marginalian newsletter/website, aka Maria Popova. She is insanely well-read and looks at humanity through the lens of many classic creatives. Recently she wrote on normalcy. . . and its affiliation with rejection, or in the case of those frequently rejected and distraught, breakdown. https://www.themarginalian.org/2021/10/13/alain-de-botton-normalcy-breakdown/ The... Read More