My friend, fellow writer/UCLA teacher and marketing guru, Jennie Nash (www.JennieNash.com)  told me about a wonderful website for networking: HARO (Help a Reporter Out). You can visit as a writer looking for gigs or as a journalist looking for information. I logged on first as a writer to check things out and then as a journalist to ask writers to email me: what‘s the best advice you have to offer to writers? Lo and behold about 125 writers answered and I'm going to print all their responses on WritingTime over the next few weeks/months. (Please let me know what you think of this idea under comments.) To check out HARO for yourself go to: www.helpareporter.com/ 

 

Best Advice For Writers:

 

I'd offer up to new writers:

Never give up on timing for your book. For your queries to publishers, one may not like it but the very next one might. You never know. Even if your book is not an immediate big hit, keep pushing. Some books sell fast, some sell the same amount only slower. If you give up, the book gives up. You don't know the timing of getting a hit. So never give up on timing.    – Gary Unger  www.garyunger.com

 

Never give up your dream of being a writer, even if you start later in life.
You must always remember that writers are also readers. Read, read, read, and write, write, write.   R.J.Medak
http://www.stormywriter.com

 

 

"Have a conversation with your reader.  Don't preach, write in

inflated language, or insult.  I like to play provocateur just a bit

little to stimulate a reader to think their own thoughts, draw their

own conclusions.  I like to be interactive with a reader.  Above all,

readers appreciate authenticity."

Barbara Kaufmann

www.onewordsmith.blogspot.com

 

 

Write what you believe in, it is your only chance. There are a million people out there writing for money or what they think the market will buy. You don’t want to be one of them. People will recognize your talent, the unique quality of your writing only if you put yourself on the line and write what you truly feel. Write from emotion and the rest of it will work itself out. Anyone can come up with a plot, but only a few people can get the human condition down into words.
– William Elliott Hazelgrove
http://www.billhazelgrove.com

 

Don't rush through your query. I see so many writers labor to complete a book, only to sprint to the mailbox with a poorly crafted query letter. They think that because their piece is so great (and it might be!), an agent/editor will be begging to read the manuscript. But a bad query letter doesn't do anything to help your book see the light of day; in fact, it holds it down.
– Wendy Burt-Thomas, full-time freelance writer, "The Writer's Digest Guide to Query Letters" (January 2009, Writer's Digest Book)

 

 

My advice is for moms who want to tackle a writing career even while their children are little.

 Don't give up, it can be done, but it's not going to be easy. In fact it's probably going to be harder than anything else you've ever done. Juggling children, home and family duties and a writing career is time and energy consuming. It's like working three full time jobs with constant overtime. All the effort and none of the perks.

 If you really want to be a writer always carry a notebook, or PDA or something that you can put your thoughts into. A small tape or digital voice recorder would work great too, your moments are few and precious and your ideas are what can make you a great writer-you want to always be able to capture those best that you can. 

– Wenona Napolitano, mother of three, freelance writer and author of The Everything Green Wedding Book  everythinggreenweddings@yahoo.com