While editing, yes, be the "editor," but also be the "reader." What do you, as reader, think of the story? When I teach Writing for the Media, I talk a lot about audience. It's the first thing we talk about at the start of the semester, and as we move through our writing projects - traditional news stories, features, radio and TV commercial scripts, and mini advertising and public relations campaigns - I sprinkle audience across each project. From the pre-writing, research, legwork phases of their projects to the revising and editing, the students keep their focus on audience. Like I tell my students, we live in a fast-paced, technological society, and readers can go to any number of outlets - offline and online - to receive information. What are you going to do to make sure readers are reading you?  If the students aren't focused on their readers, those readers will definitely not be focused on them. Image by marin from FreeDigitalPhotos.net Fict...

This month marks my fourth year participating as a contributing blogger for the BRP, and it's a ride that I've enjoyed immensely. I have connected with some wonderful editors, writers, and advocates of the writing craft here on BRP, and as I reflected on that and these last four years, I found myself pointed toward one topic for this post: the importance of community in a writer's life. Sure, we all know the saying, writing is a solitary act , but the success of that writing, the success of the writer is connected to the community the writer belongs to. And what community is this? Well, there are many communities, to include (My category titles are fairly loose; I apologize in advance for that.): The "familial" community, those in our family (and I would add close friends) who support our zany idea of becoming an author, who listen to our doubts and help to push them away, who put the pot of coffee on in the late-night hours, who clean the house and make d...