www.inkthinkerblog.com — I am privileged to belong to a nice-sized greeting card writer’s and artist’s group. We meet, greet, whine, and share in a private forum on Absolute Write. We’ve all gleaned a wealth of information from Jenna Glatzer’s book Sell the Fun Stuff. On this Greeting Card forum is where most of us met.

As we converse through posts and private messages, we learn from the experiences of others, and develop great friendships. We openly share our submissions, rejects, and often times, long waits for responses from companies. We discuss the “business” of writing and illustrating, as well as sharing a few personal notes.

As greeting card writers and artists, we all toil away for days and days, weeks upon weeks, writing, submitting, editing, supporting each other and….trying to endure the long waits for any response from the editors of the greeting card companies.

Summer 2006 presented us with exceptionally long waits for some unknown reason. We are left to consider that a few editors may have disappeared. Where have they gone? Is there some type of summer hiatus to which they all scatter to discuss and poke fun at our creations? Is there a tropical island called Editorial Escape? Some one needs to let the world know where these editors have gone.

We wait and wait and wait, and finally without any word on our precious submissions, we have to whine and bore holes in our computers with our eyes as we stare at our email, just waiting for the little mail flag to pop up. Of course acceptances are the best, but a few of us have reached the limit….just give us an answer…even a reject.

I know one company that has held submissions of mine for over seven months–seriously, does it really take that long to say, “Oh yeah, this is great?” After all this time, I believe they really don’t want the submissions (but I dare not give up hope totally-because you just never know). I have to assume they are just too busy with other submissions or maybe vacationing on Editorial Escape Island, to let me know.

The ultimate insult is when a writer waits and waits on a submission, giving ample time beyond the guidelines, and then reluctantly sends a status query. One of three things usually happen; a standard form reject-pow right back ‘atcha’; a nice letter saying, “Your submissions are still under consideration, no decisions have been made”; and the all time low down yucky one, no response at all. What’s a greeting card writer to do?

• Perhaps locating Editorial Escape Island would prove to help the situation-picture a frenzied group of stressed writers and artists tossing papers and index cards at editors as they lounge by the pool.
• Of course we can just quit! Stomp feet, pout, and fold arms across chest and announce to the world “I’m no longer writing greeting cards” (Yup, like that always works…for about ten minutes).
• Ask for mercy. Whom will you ask; the editors are on the island?
• Whine with your greeting card friends-they always understand. That’s doable.

But the biggest and best thing frustrated greeting card writers and artists do? Continue writing and keep submitting-we can’t help it. Because one day (and it better be soon), the acceptances will come rolling in. The email announcement will be music to our ears, and we will have finally gotten an acceptance from the company we have wanted so badly. It will happen-we just know it!

Bottom line…greeting card writing and art gets in your blood. Every comment you hear, every song you sing, every visual you see — it all becomes a potentially accepted card. We’re obsessed, we know it, but it doesn’t matter. It has now become my personal quest to find the map to Editorial Escape Island. You can bet two acceptances, four rejects, and dead air space, that I’ll share that map with the world.

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Dana Smith-Mansell is a published poet, freelancer, children’s author, illustrator, and nonfiction author living in Pennsylvania. She is the author of the children’s book Stop Bullying Bobby! As Dana waits patiently for responses on her greeting card submissions, she continues working on other creative projects to continue her creative focus.

Although this article was published by Kristen King, the original author retains all copyright and should be contacted for reprint requests.

Contents Copyright © 2006-2014 Kristen King

by Barbara Davis

www.inkthinkerblog.com — The typical American business writer seems to have an aversion to using the word “me.” It’s as though somehow “me” got assigned to informal writing, and only “I” and “myself” are allowed into the hallowed ground of business writing. This is both illogical and ungrammatical.

Personally, I blame the parents. I think it harkens back to when, around the age of eight, you’d burst into the kitchen saying something like, “Me and Jimmy saw the biggest snake ever!” Your mom (if she was like 82.6% of American moms) would not say something like “Don’t your dare bring it into this house!” (which would be logical response), but instead, she’d say archly “*JIMMY AND I* saw a snake.” This resulted in grown ups afraid to ever utter the word “me,” let alone use it in their business writing. Unfortunately for suffers of this phobia, “me” sometimes is the right word.

Here are the symptoms: A letter that closes something like “Please feel free to contact Joe Smith or myself if you have any questions.” An e-mail that says “Between you and I, I think the customers will …”

A grammar geek will tell you that you use “I” when you are the subject – the one doing something. (“I saw the snake. I screamed. I ran away.”) Use “me” when it’s the object – the one receiving the action. Hint: When you have a word like “to” or “between” or “from” (and if some part of your brain says “I remember those little words – those are prepositions!” your former English teachers would be so pleased) immediately before, “me” is almost always the right choice – in that case, it’s the object of the preposition. Okay, no more grammar terms, I promise.

Most people find it natural enough to use “me” when you’re the only one involved: “Send it to me” or “You’ll be hearing from me.” Just remember that the same rules apply when other people are involved. “Sent it to both Jim and me,” or “Between you and me…” or “You’ll be hearing from either Susan or me by Friday to follow up.” (For that matter, it’s “Jimmy and I saw the snake.” Mom was right about that.)

So here’s the cure: Temporarily remove any other person the phrase, and see what makes sense with what’s left – which sounds right, “me” or “I”? Just between you and me, “me” just might be right.

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Barbara Davis has been in communications in one form or another for 20 years. She does occasional freelance work, enjoys the writing process, and gets great satisfaction helping others make their writing clearer. Contact her at barbarafdavis@comcast.net.

Although this article was published by Kristen King, the original author retains all copyright and should be contacted for reprint requests.

Contents Copyright © 2006-2014 Kristen King

by Cathy Rogers

www.inkthinkerblog.com — Which came first: a disorganized soul who discovers at age 42 she is able to express her thoughts through writing, or a semi-successful scribe who is unable to find the editor’s number or that most recent article revision? Surely a well-organized writer exists; but I won’t be winning that award any time soon.

As long as I am writing, there’s little hope of a paperless society. As a community news columnist and freelance article writer, I possess a plethora of folders currently occupying the seats of my dining chairs, the floor of my home office, and the back seat of my Honda. Some folders are even filed away; admittedly not ones I use often.

Dozens of paper scraps containing magazine article ideas, interview contact names/numbers, and writing website URL’s are loose in my purse, stuck in writing reference books, and stashed in those beloved folders. Articles on school events, local business profiles, and magazine submissions (all in various stages of revision) float around me like dust particles. Although I’m technologically-literate and ecologically-minded, I still seem to have innumerable paper copies weighing down the ever-heavier book bag I carry each day to my non-writing job.

With my multiple audiences and markets, the notes naturally get mixed together. For example, on a magazine subscription card is both a reminder to query a magazine and note of a company whose profits support breast cancer research (which I’ll need, of course, when I write about local breast cancer events).

The curse of the attention-deficit writer! Want to know the flip side of this dilemma? Writing this essay was a piece of cake. No research was necessary other than thumbing through the folders. The down side is I created a new “to-do” list.

Now where should I put it?

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Cathy Rogers is a freelance writer from East Tennessee. She writes community news and special assignment articles for the Knoxville News Sentinel. Additionally, she has had essays on Southern culture published online and in regional magazines.

Although this article was published by Kristen King, the original author retains all copyright and should be contacted for reprint requests.

Contents Copyright © 2006-2014 Kristen King

by John Hershey

www.inkthinkerblog.com — Have you seen those ads in writers’ magazines for books about how to write a bestselling book? Did you ever wonder if you could write a book like that? (Not a bestselling book—a book about how to write a bestselling book.) Well, now you can, with the help of my new book, You Can Write a Bestselling Book About How to Write a Bestselling Book!

This book will teach you my unique system of writing, publishing, and marketing a book about writing books. You can use this proven method to write a book that will help your readers write, publish, and market their own bestselling books.

Perhaps you’re thinking, “I’ve never written a book. How can I tell others how to do it?” Look at it this way: Once you’ve used my easy system to write your own book about how to write a book, you will have written a book! And that gives you all the experience and credibility you need to turn your book into a bestseller.

Take me for example. Before I wrote You Can Write a Bestselling Book About How to Write a Bestselling Book!, I had never written a book. But now that I have written a book about how to write a book about writing bestselling books, I am uniquely qualified to help other writers write books about book writing.

Think of all the aspiring writers out there who yearn to know the secret to writing a bestselling book. That’s a big target audience! If you can successfully market your book to this demographic, it will be a bestseller, and you will have thereby discovered the secret to writing a bestselling book, which you can easily sell to these readers because you will have already written a book about it!

My book You Can Write a Bestselling Book About How to Write a Bestselling Book! is on its way to becoming a bestseller. Reserve your copy while supplies last! If you act now, you’ll also receive a free copy of my novel, A Soothing Cup of Novel Tea, the moving story of a writer who writes a novel about a novelist’s inspiring struggle to write his great novel.

Order now!

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John Hershey is a writer who writes about how to write about writing. To read more, visit his website, www.rakishwit.com.

Although this article was published by Kristen King, the original author retains all copyright and should be contacted for reprint requests.

Contents Copyright © 2006-2014 Kristen King