I am usually a planner by nature, but you wouldn’t know it lately. After writing a few weeks ago about how much I love to do lists and calendars, I haven’t been using either much recently. Facing two out-of-town trips, the end of school, the start of swim lessons and goodness knows what else, no […]
My 3 Favorite Productivity Tools
I get a lot of things done. I don’t always feel like I do, but usually, when I can be objective about it, I realize that I really accomplish a lot. I ended a recent week feeling like I hadn’t gotten a lot done, or at least not everything I meant to. But when I […]
5 Things You Can Do to Make Sponsored Post Clients Love You
There’s been a lot of talk lately in my little corner of the blogging world about professionalism and being a writer versus being a blogger versus being more of a reporter or writing for the web from a news perspective. While it’s certainly fine to give yourself any of these labels — or storyteller, family […]
What I Learned from (Almost) a Year Doing Morning Pages (Almost) Every Day
On January first, I decided to pull out a notebook and start writing. I’ve done morning pages on and off for years, and I had been doing them a little bit in 2013, but I don’t think I consciously set out to do them daily when I started. Now that the year is almost over, […]
Attention Bloggers: You Don’t Have to Do it All {Craft Your Blog}
I love our blogging community in Northwest Arkansas. We meet up once a month, and it’s one of the rare times I go out by myself, so it’s especially special. We go to a restaurant, talk and laugh. We usually don’t talk about blogging all that much. But last night we did a little, and […]
Blogging Advice for My Cousin {Craft Your Blog}
My cousin Katey — who is a certified Insanity instructor, fitness coach and goodness knows what other awesomeness — got in touch recently because she was planning to start a blog for her business. It was right at the end of my book deadline, so I didn’t have a lot to say, but in the […]
What “Mad Men” Can Teach You About the Creative Process
I have been a fan of “Mad Men” for a long time, for a lot of reasons, and while I haven’t been enjoying this season so much, I loved this week’s episode (706, “The Strategy”) in part because of the really accurate illustration of the creative process. In the pitch meeting, Peggy feels pretty good […]