By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD This month I’m not going to write about the telephone answering service industry or customer service or any of the things I typically address in TAS Trader. Instead, I have a seasonal thought—sort of. In considering our society as a whole, the past several months have been rough: divisive news, […]
No one likes to hear “no” but it’s part of writing, and we need to understand it We work hard to write a book. We edit, seek feedback, and hire professional help. It’s our baby, and we love it. We cherish each word. We send it into the world with high expectations, but someone shoots […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD I don’t want to write about the US presidential elections, but I need to. Here’s why: Because of the election, expect changes in healthcare for 2017 and beyond. There are two scenarios: Scenario one will produce a backpedaling of existing laws and regulations as it relates to healthcare, which will […]
The journey of writing a novel in one month has much to teach about being a writer Many times in this blog, I’ve talked about NaNoWriMo—the effort to write the first 50,000 words of a novel in the month of November. I also announced in October that this was the year I would actually participate. […]
Writers can learn a lot by reading the posts of authors, agents, and publishers While it’s fun to follow my friends’ blogs (and there are more than I have time to read), I learn about writing and the publishing industry by reading the blogs of authors, agents, and publishers. I’ve followed some of them for […]
Being a writer means developing a thick skin, which is easy to say and hard to do Part of being an author is putting our work out there for other people to see. Sometimes this means sharing our writing with other writers, passing it out to family and friends, or posting it on a blog. […]
If a picture is worth a thousand words, why not use photos to inspire what you write? I’ve heard of fiction authors who tape a photo of their main character next to their computer as they write. The picture inspires their words and focuses on their character description. This seems like an intriguing idea, one […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD Long ago, perhaps in graduate school, I read a management guru who advocated that a company’s highest-paid employee should ethically make no more than seven times the lowest-paid employee. Of course, I can’t find that source now, but I remember it well. For a telephone answering service, the two people […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD I’ve been in many situations lately where people ask me what I do for a living. It’s a query I dread, not because I’m embarrassed but because I find the follow-up questions exhausting. Here’s an example: “What do you do?” the woman asks. “I’m a writer, and I publish magazines.” […]
Too many novice writers don’t invest in the craft and expect seasoned authors to give them an easy button to publication I post on this blog, send out a writing newsletter, and speak at conferences because I want to give back to the writing community, to share with others what I have learned over the […]