“I want this book to be a bestseller,” my writing coach prospects and clients will often say to me. Who doesn’t? I think to myself as I rush to assure them that if I knew the key to writing a bestseller, I would likely be sipping a cocktail under a palm tree on a...
I love brainstorming. It’s one of my favorite things to do when working with clients, since together we can reach ideas that neither of us would have accessed alone. So, I experience the power of brainstorming regularly and see the results in both fiction and...
Winter warnings early in the week had given way to forecasted temperatures of 80°. It was time to take the pups swimming. We headed to Good Dog Park--since, true to its name, my dogs tend to behave better there than at other off-leash destinations--and prepared to...
In the anthology Lead From Within: Entrepreneurs Share Proven Traits for Success, one of the contributors--Karen Kimsey-Sward, CEO of Dale Carnegie Chicago, certified coach and faculty coach with U of Buffalo School of Management—writes about how work with her coach...
When I first began working with former LAPD cop Fanchon Blake on Busting the Brass Ceiling, she was determined that her memoir had to be traditionally published. She wanted to make sure that her heroic story about challenging the gender inequity that prevented females...
I’m not good with heights. I definitely didn’t want to climb out of my comfort zone. So, I just said no when all my friends told me that I would have to climb Luna, the 200-foot redwood that Julia “Butterfly” Hill—whose book I had been hired to ghostwrite—was living...
I just read an as-told-to article about an unexpected tool for change by former convict Richard Loya, who had joined a South Central L.A. gang at age 15 for the protection it offered, and wound up killing a man the following year. Richard was tried as an adult and...
Worried about illustrating a children's book you're writing? If you're planning to submit your picture book to a traditional publisher, don't. They're only going to want to see your manuscript, even if it's less than 100 words, since they have their own arsenal of...
A number of years ago, I became involved with Bend Food Project, a local nonprofit started by a group of friends in 2015 to help ease hunger in our area. Modeled after similar projects around the country, the door-to-door food collection system is both simple and...
I’m not great at social media. Actually, that’s a ridiculous understatement. I’m terrible, probably because I don’t like it. Pitching into an actual black hole would be a lot more rewarding than pitching into a virtual one. But at some point last year, I started to...
