How Do I Get My Ideas in Front of an Editor?

This week, I'm working on pitching ideas to new markets, so query letters are on my mind. Query letters are the ones we writers send to newspaper, magazine, and book editors, telling them about our fantastic story ideas and our amazing writing skills, so that they feel their publications will be woefully incomplete unless they have purchased our story or article. For a lot of money. Using checks with commas in the "amount" box.

Paul Lima over at the Six Figure Freelancer's Blog, has an informative entry on how to write query letters. He provides a helpful template and a sample letter. Check it out, and get those letters out there!

By the way, his sample mentions clips - copies of the published work you've already done. If you don't have any of those pesky things, send the query anyway. Someone will take a chance on you, just like someone gave you your first job at the Dairy Queen. Just make sure you emphasize why you're uniquely qualified to write the sotry you're pitching.

Be Coachable

Recently I attended a weekend seminar for business leaders. There were many speakers over the weekend, but one speaker in particular stayed with me. She was a grandmotherly lady who had recently attended the company's incentive trip to Cancun. While she was there, she noticed a young man with the company talking to each of the sales directors, VPs, and other attendees; he asked for their advice and listened to their stories. Then he came to talk to her, and, "He wrote down everything I said!"

This man was her definition of a coachable human being. He knew that each person had something to offer him and he went seeking their knowledge. I imagine he probably heard the same things a dozen times, but that only served to underscore the importance of the message. At other times, he probably heard something new and powerful for his own business, things that he absorbed and used because he kept an open mind and accepted the knowledge that was offered to him.

We have so much to offer each other that sometimes we forget that we don't know everything, or even a fraction of everything. We have blind spots where we don't see ourselves clearly, and others can point out opportunities for us to grow and improve. It is in our best interests to stop pushing our own knowledge and learn from others. We need to listen to what other people tell us. When we ask questions, listen to others, and apply their knowledge, we become so much more than we would have been alone.

Our Words Have a Complex Power

God never tires of trying to make me a better person. And yet, sometimes it hurts. I have learned in a new and painful way how much power our words can have.

I recently found out that someone I know has a wildly popular blog with huge readership - as a matter of fact, it is actually listed in the top blog sites by companies that measure such things, and she has been on national TV shows related to her blog work. Thrilled by this information, I began reading her current posts and archived ones as I have the time.

Then I found a post that she wrote about me, and my wedding. A post in which she made fun of my ceremony - not, as she indicated in her post, for the purpose of being genuine in her writing, but simply because the funny things she was thinking were too funny to keep inside her own head.

I was not OK with this. Her words hurt me, and I was also hurt by the many comments to her post in which people also laughed at the story and not a single person said, "Gee, I'm glad you didn't talk about me that way."

I thought of many snide, sharp comments that I could make to her about her post. Then I realized that the best response is no response at all. But of course, God loves me too much to leave me where I am. God showed me the times that I have said, written, or thought things primarily because they were funny, even though I had a great potential to cause pain with my humor. God reminded me that my job as a Christian is to rise above my own feelings and show love when I am hurt (though I don't want to, sometimes).

Through this experience, I am reminded of the complex power of our words. There are many who would claim that to censor ourselves is to sell out or to water down our work. I believe that we, as professional writers, have a heavy obligation. Our words can hurt, can give voice to the truth, can empower, can instigate trouble. Words have sparked revolutions and reconciliations. We do not always get to see the end result of our words. Writers know that a simple statement can be crafted to slight someone, to rebuke them, or to embarrass them, as well as to neutrally offer information. We can trigger many things in each other by what we say, and writers know how to say it to best effect, even if there is no overt message that someone can point to as an intention to hurt someone.

I would like to propose that writers should consider whether a thing truly needs to be said before it is communicated. Of course, we are not responsible for another person's actions. Like the wind, we have no control over where our words go or who they might touch - especially when the words are written. This should make us doubly cautious about what we write and how we write it. I would like to encourage writers to question their motivations. Is this writing honest, kind, and genuine? Is it written or said to impress others with our wit or intelligence, or does it truly serve a purpose? If the writing is likely to hurt someone, are we willing to accept responsibility for that hurt and to make amends?

God has given writers the talent to communicate, and we should always use that talent responsibly. Since God has given us our gifts, we should honor God in what we write.

Growing Windowsill Plant Book

My latest book, The Complete Guide to Growing Windowsill Plants: Everything You Need to Know Explained Simply, is now available at Amazon.com. If it sells as well as The Complete Guide to Food Preservation, I'll be a very pleased author!