Two months ago I headed out the front door with my lanky, moody, shaggy-haired teenage son, unlocked the van and, with not a little discomfort, slid into the passenger side. Placing his shiny new driver’s permit in the console, he turned to me with just the hint of a smile. “Mom, the key?” With just the hint of a smile, I handed it over. He took a deep breath as he backed slowly down the driveway. I felt my shoulders tighten and my brake foot tense (what if he hits the mailbox? what if he forgets to look both ways? what if he takes a curve...

I had some great professors in college, although even the best of them made me want to fashion voodoo dolls from old leg warmers (hey, it was the 80s) and spend afternoons slashing their little voodoo term papers with a thick red pen. One I remember quite vividly is my freshman English Lit. professor. I had spent tons of time on a paper that was returned to me with a pulsating “C” on it. “What gives?!” I thought and marched up to her desk, requesting an explanation for why she panned my 18-year-old brilliance. “This is nothing...

The secret to being extraordinary is simple – go against human nature. “Real leaders are ordinary people with extraordinary determination.” ~ Anonymous 1. Ordinary: Rush to get in every game, pitch a tent on every platform and call yourself an “expert” after six weeks of non-stop twittering with the rockstars. Extraordinary – Be patient. Listen and read a lot more than you tweet and write. Concentrate on one social media network at a time. Experiment, observe and learn what works and what doesn’t. 2. Ordinary: Go...

When I began trying to break into professional writing I was obsessed with writing “clean” copy. Grammatically correct? check. Everything spelled correctly? check. Thoroughly fact-checked? check. Boring? check. It was so clean I had scrubbed all the personality out of it. Lucky for me, an editor explained that creativity was much harder to come by than good grammar. It took a while, but I learned to quiet my inner editor and let the words flow. Every passionate writer knows the ecstasy of hearing her “muse” whispering sweet nothings...

Dane Cook does a great bit about his days working the drive-through window at BK. One customer who really drove him crazy was the “soft talker.” She – it was usually a she – would talk into the speaker so softly that the conversation would sound something like this:    Cheeseburger…pssst….pickles…iccce…pssst…how much? Hard to have it your way when the guy in the window can’t understand what “your way” is. This carries over to lots of other services you request, including copywriting....