Dana Sitar's Blog, page 8

A Hat-Tip to the DIY Writing Community (and Our New Ebook!)

The past few months – er, years – have been a whirlwind for DIY Writing. This week I had a conversation with a fellow blogger who noted, “Just thinking about all of the launching you’re doing – the website, the bootcamp, the books, oh my! …” and it really hit home how non-stop development at DIYW has been since I set that first blog in motion in 2011.

It’s a littletoo much.

Where 2013 alone saw the launch of 3 ebooks, 2 blogs, an e-course, coaching and speaking services, a crowdfunding ca...

A Writer’s Pink Slip to the Neverending Struggle

Dear Reader,

I’m leaving you. I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry; I know this probably comes as a shock after all these years of hustlin’ and chuggin’ along to grow this platform.

But you’ve only seen half the journey. The stuff behind the curtain has me pulling my hair out daily until there’s nothing left, and I’ve gotta stop doing that.

I got into this all those years ago, because I love writing. All I’ve ever wanted to do is write (even when I didn’t know that was an option). But this b...

How to Be Loved for the Work You Do

I’m happy this week to be back at Positive Writer! I stopped by this blog by author Bryan Hutchinson to share my simple “rule” for successfully doing the work you love.

Here’s an excerpt – you can read the full post and leave your comments at Positive Writer:

As it turns out, to “do work you love” is just as easy as we all make it out to be.

To be loved for the work you do, however, is a much trickier pursuit.

Unfortunately, the latter is what you need to be successful in a creative career....

Build Your Writing Career, Your Way

by Shawndra Russell

Earlier this month when I read Dana’s blog post “Entrepreneurship and a Writing Life for the Rest of Us”, I got to thinking about the definition of writing career. To be a “real”, professional writer, do you have to:

have an article published in O, The Oprah Magazine?
have your novel published by a New York publisher?
make six figures?
attract 10 thousand unique visitors to your website each month?

Well, the beauty of building your own writing career is you get to design i...

Your Writing Doesn’t Have to Be Good

A lot of writers might find this unfortunate to hear, but a good composition doesn’t actually have to be good writing.

Here’s the example that prompted me to draft this post from the passenger seat somewhere in Tennessee this week: Brad Paisley’s song ‘Alcohol’ came up on our iTunes, and gaily filled the car. If you don’t know it, here’s a YouTube video with the lyrics:

It’s a pretty horribly-written song. Lyrically it’s atrocious, and from my limited understanding, it’s pretty bad musica...

What’s YOUR Big Idea?

What's YOUR Big Idea? Share it + connect with others on the @DIYWriting Big Idea Board!
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You write, because you have something to share with the world. Whether that’s a fantastic story, a life-changing message, or a personal challenge, you have something to say. And someone wants to hear about it.

Releasing your message into the world can be a huge challenge. I want you to take the first step RIGHT NOW. Share your message with the Writer’s Bucket List Commun...

10 Big Mistakes You Might Be Making in Your Freelancing Career

Illustration by Ramiro Roman, Jr.

Freelance writers making mistakes? Is that even possible?

If you think I’m talking about grammatical errors and typos, you’re wrong. Those mistakesbarely matterin the bigger scheme of things. The mistakes I’m talking about are much more sinister – and much more detrimental to your freelance writing career.

And much more common!

I don’t knowanyfreelancers who haven’t made at least one of the 10 mistakes written below. And that’s . . . not so good.

So here we...

Back to Basics (How My iPad Changes My Writing Business)

I can fall pretty quickly into a social media spiral or a website design black hole (anyone else?) Because I’m 100 percent responsible for the success of everything at DIY Writing, I obsess over details and fear letting anything go.

For example, in this moment, I’m physically uncomfortable remembering that the “Buy” buttons on my e-course sales page are not aligned properly. The HTML says they should sit a certain way on the page, but they don’t. It’s driving me crazy.

But I had to let it...

10 Free Ebooks to Motivate, Inspire, and Guide You in Every Writing Adventure

I started putting together this list last year and intended to share an epic list of 100 free resources. Impressive and exciting, right? Sharable? Sure. But also — let’s be honest — kind of too overwhelming to be useful. And, admittedly, probably padded with some fluff, those ebooks about writing that everyone is always talking about and you’ve all heard of already.

Instead, I pared the list down to these 10 that I think you should reallycheck out. They’re written and published by DIY Writers...

The Difference between Knowing and Not Knowing

Over Christmas, I played Cards Against Humanity with my family. My sister (whose innocence I adore and hope it never changes) and my cousins didn’t know many of the depraved terms and phrases that are the foundation of that game, and turned to me a few times for definitions.

(Because I’m a writer, I’m the de facto walking dictionary among family and friends. Anyone else?)

Some of the terms I knew, and for some I was just as ignorant as they were.

But there was a difference.

When no one knew...