Tag Archives: writing life

advice, editorial

Top Five Productivity Enhancers

Every once in a while–like today–I find the need for an extra something to keep the work flowing properly. Here is my list of current productivity enhancers:

1. The “off” button on my phones.

2. A large pot of PG Tips tea. By noon, it’s all gone.

3. iTunes on “shuffle”. Alternatively, Adam and The Ants “Dirk Wears White Sox” on repeat and very loud. I’m old-school.

4. Laptop and PC running simultaneously.

5. Once-hourly breaks for NPR news or some other update.

The most valuable is the “off” button. “Dirk Wears White Sox” makes me write faster for some reason, and having the laptop and PC on at the same time lets me multitask even more…I run all media from the PC, e-mail and research on the laptop, and sometimes compose on both at once. I’ll alternate between blog entries and articles and sometimes submit two unrelated pieces of writing within seconds of each other. This probably qualifies me as a bone fide nut job, but I don’t care. So far, so good.

Feel free to post your own productivity enhancers in the comments section, the stranger or more innovative the better.

editorial

Top Ten Uses For Rejection Letters

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Rejection letters are great, aren’t they? I remember getting one from the Slamdance Film Festival for a short subject film submission I sent way back in 2002. Now that’s a strange one to write about in context of freelance writing, but it was one of the first rejection letters I actually put up as a badge of pride. “See? I TRIED!”

It stayed on my refrigerator for two years. Then one day I spilled some coffee and I looked at that damn thing and decided that its time had come, especially since I had just run out of paper towels.

But there are actually plenty of uses for rejection letters besides the obvious. If you are struggling, maybe a little discouraged and fed up with all the trees being killed to tell you that you aren’t wanted at Publication X Inc, try these cathartic recycling methods to put those rejection slips to good use.

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