Success Points Highlights
ON TIME
Who can turn the world on with her smile? I grew up watching The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, so I was bouncing off the wall, as a young screenwriter, when Mary Tyler Moore’s MTM Enterprises (co-owned with Grant Tinker) wanted my script. Mary...
LIMITS
I was raised to believe that when I came to an obstacle, it was a personal shortcoming if I did not push through, a personal failure if I did not succeed, and a personal cowardice if I gave up. Those beliefs inhabited the marrow of my bones and festered in the...
LISTENING
I always believed that human glory and life’s meaning were found in the senses: what I saw, touched, felt, heard, smelled, and tasted as I sped down the passing lane of accomplishment. These things provided the richness of living, complementary to the mountainous...
THE CHAIR IS STILL THERE
Mostly working from home for the majority of my life, there was no boss to meet, no comptroller checking my clock-in for work, no meetings I had to be on time for, only me, waking up and stretching in bed, thinking of how I envisioned my day to play out. Most days...
MAKING IT BEFORE IT HAS A NAME
There were periods when I began something simply out of interest, long before I understood why, and, oddly, the not-knowing at times unsettled me more than the effort itself. I am, by nature, a planner and a builder, and to be the best at that, one needs to know from...
WORKING WITHOUT AN ECHO
There are stretches when work and life carry on, yet the world goes strangely muffled, and I’m left facing a reflection I don’t repetitively acknowledge. The first time I became aware of this was after years of working in the collaborative arts of television, film,...
THE WORLD GOT WIDER
For a long time, I believed that anything worth pursuing should come with a clear signal, some sign, momentum, or external confirmation that I was moving in the right direction. I think I was waiting for the circus to come to town. Looking for that exterior...
Patience: The Invisible Skill That Builds Every Writing Career
Every writer wants to move faster. We want to hurry to finish our current draft, to sign a deal with an agent or publisher, to see our book on the shelf, to build a colossal number of social media followers, to make it on a bestseller list, to win an award, our list...
Build a Platform: Developing a Presence That Connects
Many writers and marketing experts think of a platform as a box a writer stands upon and shouts from. Nothing could be further from the truth. A platform is simple. Its full extent is the bridge between your work and your potential reader. Whether you are an emerging...
Show, Don’t Tell: Use Sensory Details to Immerse Readers in Your Story
By nature, we see what happens in a story and hear some of it in the dialogue. But every reader also wants to feel the story in the emotions, to also hear the footsteps in the attic above in the empty house, to smell the oncoming rain in the ozone, then smell the...
Write a Strong Synopsis: Practice Writing Effective Summaries of Your Work for Agents and Publishers
A synopsis is often misunderstood as a summary of a story. That’s not its purpose. Its point is to prove to someone else (agent, editor, publisher, bookseller, reader) that you understand story, not specifically the story, but how to build a story. It’s a preview...
Reading to Write: Why Great Writers Are Always Great Readers & How to Be Both
Writers tickle our senses and imaginations across space and sometimes time. This is how writing and reading work. For most, it’s a sensory and passive experience. For writers who are reading, it should be more. Every page we turn—good writing, bad writing—can teach us...