Writing Tip of the Day: Maintain Your Cool

It’s easy to get overheated as a writer. You put your talent out there to be observed, reviewed and critiqued and sometimes the criticism is unfair, biased or just plain nasty.

Blog comments, editor’s remarks, reader mail – it all has the potential to give you a serious case of the grumps, but keeping your cool in the line of fire can make you a better writer.

Instead of blasting a rude blog comment, taking a deep breath and responding in a professional manner, if a response is warranted, will go a long way in establishing your reputation as a pro who can take the heat with grace.

Firing back at an editor can earn you a reputation as “hard to deal with” whether fair or not, engaging in positive, constructive conversation (at least on your end) will earn you respect and will help you and your editor reach common ground.

Think of it as a writing exercise – you want to say “Go to Hades you life sucking troll! You wouldn’t know good writing if it showed up sitting on your morning donut.” Now think of a creative, positive and constructive way to voice both your concern and willingness to seek common ground.

How do you handle criticsm? Share your thoughts with us!

Writing Tip of the Day: Simultaneous Query Submissions

Every so often I’ll get a timeless writing question: What about simultaneous queries?

Old school rules dictated that unless the magazine indicated, you never submitted the same query to anyone else until you received a rejection from the first publication. This is a oft grumbled rule with writers because it could take months to receive a rejection for a piece and then after waiting those months you have to start the process all over again.

Editors cite concerns over their processes and the time it takes to approve an article, place it, pay for it, publish it only to see the same article in a competitor’s magazine.

Over time, the lag time between article submission and approval or rejection has been cut dramatically with the use of email submissions. Now a writer can receive a yay or nay almost as soon as they send it out, which can be a bit disconcerting when it’s a nay, for some reason fast rejection stings a little bit more.

Alternatively, editors have begun to understand and receive more pushback from writers who don’t want to wait on a long approval process. So they have begun to accept simultaneous submissions as long as the piece hasn’t been submitted to a competing publication. So what should you do?

Ask.

I personally like to wait on acceptance or rejection when the publication explicitly requests no simultaneous submissions. However, I’ve talked with writers who incorporate their simultaneous submission request in their query letter. There are others still who just take a chance and submit regardless of publication preference or notification.

I don’t recommend the last course of action because should you happen to get accepted at competing publications you’ll have some awkward explaining to do.

Got an opinion or tip on simultaneous submissions? Tell us below!

Writing Tip of the Day: Join a Writing Group

Joining a writers group can help a writer take their work to another level. You want to find a group with writers moving in different places in their career, established writers, newbies and middle-of-the-roaders. Too many of one kind may leave the group a bit one-sided. For example, a group with a majority of newbies may look to you to be the teacher of the group and while you can learn something from everyone, you want to have a an opportunity to learn from someone with more experience than you as well.

You also want a group that can offer constructive criticism. A bunch of haters will ruin the group and a bunch of yes men lead to the lemming scenario in the above cartoon and no one experiences much growth from either.

Online or in person the choice is up to you with upsides and downsides to both, but date around and see which group works for you.

Have you joined a writer’s group? What has been your experience?

be sure to visit debbie ohi’s web site for more cool writer-themed cartoons & products

Writing Tip of the Day: Know your style guides

I love my AP Stylebook. It’s worn and scribbled up with notes and stains and Post Its with changes from the latest editions, etc. It makes me feel like a real writer and I browse through its pages just for fun. On the other hand, my Chicago Manual of Style guide is less than loved. I don’t have to use it often, but in an effort to be all the writer I can be, I’ve been trying to cuddle up to it and you should do the same.

Get to know your style guides. Writers faithfully follow the “don’t guess, know” mantra and will turn to their guides to fill in any uncertain areas of writing style or grammar, but just think of the time you’ll save if you begin to become one with your guides, slipping back and forth easily from each style.

Got a writing question for me? Email me! I’m taking your writing questions and answering them here!

Writing Tip of the Day: Ask the tough questions

By Terreece M. Clarke

Most of the time when say “ask the tough question” we are talking about asking tough questions of an interviewee, however, the term “asking the tough questions” can apply to almost any aspect of freelance writing.

Are you as well prepared before an interview as you should be? Could that article undergo one more round of edits before you turn it in? And yes, did you ask your interview subject questions beyond the superficial? Each day ask yourself the tough questions – it’ll make you a better writer.