Posts under ‘Writing’

Here’s the thing about getting your writing published: You can read about other writers’ experiences until you think you know what you’re getting into, but no one prepares you for how often you won’t get published.

So I’ll reiterate. Aspiring writers, you’re going to write a lot of pieces that will be read by no one but yourself and maybe one editor who didn’t like what you wrote enough to accept it. If he or she reads it at all. I’m not a writer who’s “made it” by any means, and I can tell you that.

I have a piece on Conan O’Brien due tomorrow morning, so I don’t have much time to blog.

The good thing about deadlines is that you have to write. Speaking of which, here’s the origin of that compound word that haunts just about everyone:

The word deadline first appeared as an American coinage that referred to the line around a military prison beyond which soldiers were authorized to shoot escaping prisoners. According to Lossing’s History of the Civil War (1868): “Seventeen feet from the inner stockade was the ‘dead-line’, over which no man could pass and live.” This use is also found in Congressional records as early as 1864: “The ‘dead line’, beyond which the prisoners are not allowed to pass.” The citations for this use dry up at the end of the 19th century.

It’s November.

And if you regularly sit in front of a keyboard for hours at a time to read about other people’s lives, you know that November means NaNoWriMo or NaBloPoMo. I don’t think the tasks are equal - without a doubt, it’s easier to blog every day for a month.

Novels are another beast. I’ve tried to start them. Within three chapters, I’m tired of my plot, my characters, and words in general. A daily blog post is easier. It’s like a highly modified girl push-up. A gummy vitamin. An open-book exam.