I write articles for regional parenting publications for love and money. And one of my favorite topics is how to take better care of mom, whether that means mom taking care of herself or family members appreciating mom as they rightly should.

Here’s a guided tour of some of my more mom-centric work:

The Art of Making Time for Yourself
Published in MetroParent, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Moving Beyond Mommy Burnout
Our Kids San Antonio, Texas

150 Mother’s Day Gift Ideas!
Red River Family, Lawton, Oklahoma

10 Unique Ways To Say “I Love You” This Mother’s Day
Neapolitan Family, Naples, Florida

Happy Mother’s Day 2012, moms!

If you are seeking a writing career you will love, I would love to serve as your guide and coach in one of my highly praised, widely respected six-week classes.

A lot of folks go for bells and whistles today. They go heavy on the social pressure. They OD on technology. They want to hurry writers up and get them overloaded with information and tools.

That’s not how I work with writers. It’s also why I can work with anyone, meet them where they are, and help them take their writing career to the next level via my classes and dream teams. I don’t put things in the way, I help my students take things out of the way.

Maybe you have read one of my books. Maybe you have been wanting to take a class with me for a long time but you have just been waiting for the right moment. Maybe you saw me speak and thought you might like to work with me one day.

Working with me is a huge gift to your creative self. It’s a gift because you grant yourself permission to focus on yourself and your own ideas. Focusing on your own ideas is key because this is where everything else in your writing career comes from. Nothing else can happen until you create a context within yourself where you can court and woo your own ideas into something greater.

Nurturing ideas is a key part of my writing classes, my platform development classes, my query writing classes, and my eBook classes.

Of course, having an idea is only the beginning of a writing journey. Sometimes a writing journey is a long journey and sometimes it’s a comparatively short journey, but it’s always an experience involving ups and downs, challenges and breakthroughs, and determination and letting go. There is no way around the sheer hard work of nurturing a writing career.

And that’s where I come in. I can’t nurture your writing career for you, but I can assist you in nurturing it. I can validate your urge to do so by helping you get to work and grow your writing career in ways that make sense to you. Every skill I teach is a career-long skill that will keep benefiting you no matter what you write.

And you know what? Creative growth is a great feeling. And the world is full of creative opportunities right now despite the droning on of the naysayers’ chorus.

What those people are really saying, when they say, “Don’t create, because you’ll never succeed,” is not about you. It’s about them. They are saying, “I am blocked and I want you to be blocked with me.” They are saying, “Don’t create because if you succeed, then I am wrong.” They are saying, “If you succeed while I fan the flames of my fears, then I will end up frustrated and jealous.”

And they will be. And so what if they are? It’s not your problem.

While they are creating a portfolio of grievances, you can create a portfolio of small accomplishments. And those small accomplishments will begin to pile up over time.

You can create. And succeed. And it is not a reflection on anyone but you.

This is why I say, naysayers be damned. I am going to keep creating and keep working with those who love to create. And we’re going to keep succeeding without giving a rip what all the naysayers think.

We have a pretty good time, working hard, believe it or not. We’re a pretty satisfied bunch, so long as we are creating. We create a whole world of possibilities that never existed before we came along and that’s pretty exciting every time.

So, if you want to get creative, stop tangling yourself up with naysayers and do your darn work. You don’t have to change them or save them. Just save yourself. Take a step forward. Focus on creative productivity for six weeks rather than dissipated distraction and you just might amaze yourself.

Classes begin on April 11th and 12th and I’ll be teaching them. I’ve been teaching them for ten years.

I hope you will join us! Please visit my classes page to learn more about the following classes that begin in ten days:

Writing & Publishing The Short Stuff

Discover Your Specialty & Launch Your Platform

Pitching Practice: Write Six Queries in Six Weeks

Micro-publishing for Mom Writers

If you have taken classes with me before, then you know a few things about them.

For one thing, my classes are designed to take you from where you are right now to the next level.

Each class delivers actionable skills that can pay off for writers in the short and long runs.

You are not “done” when you finish a class of mine, but you definitely have skills and you know how to use them.

What you gain from my classes are insights into your desires and the ability to turn ideas into value.

Most writers who take my classes are willing to work steadily at reachable goals for cumulative success.

These philosophies permeate everything I teach and coach about. You’ll find me beating the drum of steady, gradual growth in my classes, coaching, and writing.

Teaching is the core of my career. It informs everything I do. Developing and offering writing career instruction is what I love.

I have gotten pretty good at it over the years and I am always improving.

If you are ready to expand a skill set and I teach a class in that area, I’d love to work with you.

My students tend to be a pretty satisfied bunch. I ask them to work and they work hard and grow.

In my experience, this is all most writers need to succeed.

Don’t you wish someone had told you a long time ago that it could really be this simple?

Grow, repeat, grow, repeat, grow, repeat—you need to find a way to make this your career dynamic.

Here’s a list of the classes I’m offering that begin on April 11th & 12th:

• Writing & Publishing the Short Stuff LINK
• Discover Your Specialty & Launch Your Platform LINK
• Pitching Practice: Writer Six Queries in Six Weeks LINK
• Micro-publishing for Mom Writers LINK

Next round of classes begins in August after this round.

All of my classes will be updated in August and the prices will go up to $299.00. So last time at this price!

Also, certain classes are required to join Dream Team training groups that begin in August.

Scholarships for WPSS and DYS-LYP will be posted next week.

Hope to work with you!

If you purchase the new September Premium Kit “Build Your Platform” from Writer’s Digest, you’ll see that my thoughts on platform have evolved and deepened since the release of Get Known Before the Book Deal, Use Your Personal Strengths To Grow Your Author Platform, which came out in November 2008 when there were like, you know, ten posts online about author platform.

I have learned a lot working with hundreds of writers over the past ten years, and also from writing many articles on platform and a new book, The Writer’s Workout, which covers the topic at new depth.

Here’s a round-up of ten things you are going to get from me as a platform instructor. You will find that these are the hallmarks of all of my teaching on platform building, regardless of the form or format, so long as the topic is how to develop and grow an author-worthy platform.

1. Experience. I am an author, a freelance journalist, a teacher, a speaker, and a trainer, so I’m not just talking about platform hypothetically…I’m living it. My career has grown steadily and continues to gain momentum, across forms and formats. I have many people to thank for this, but I also credit my consistent platform-building efforts.

2. Context. I never talk to writers about platform without taking into account their particular audience of readers. What works for one writer won’t necessarily always work for another. You want each interaction to be authentic, whether live or virtual, to ensure that your efforts will be enriching for everyone involved.

3. Commonality. On the other hand, there are several things that will work for most any writer when the writer stays present and in the process. I know what those touchstone steps are and I encourage writers to work on them to help activate your platform confidence.

4. Incremental growth. Platform building is an initiation of sorts. It can be counter-intuitive for some writers at first. Most writers learn incrementally, as they go along, just like they would learn anything whether it be craft or selling or growing a niche. Some writers relax more quickly into letting platform be a process.

5. Experiential progress. Nobody else knows about your platform better than you because nobody else lives in your skin. This doesn’t mean that some writers don’t sometimes make rookie moves. Sure they do. We’ve all made them. But you need to learn to steer your platform ship in win-win-win ways that address basic human desires and needs.

6. Your “dynamic.” In Get Known I talk about the definition of platform being what you DO with your expertise. And in my new self-study course, Build Your Author Platform, and in my new book, The Writer’s Workout, I share how to maximize the best of what you do until it becomes habitual. I call this your platform dynamic. Do you know what your platform dynamic is? I help writers find theirs.

7. Growing respect for your waxing expertise. Of course, your expertise may be writing best-selling mystery or romance novels–it really doesn’t matter what your expertise is. The point is that you grow your expertise into something mighty, the way the acorn becomes the mighty oak…eventually. You might feel disappointed in the response if you act like a mighty oak when your professional experience level is more like that of a sprout. (Conversely, you don’t want to act like a sapling if you are already a mighty oak.) Be where you are.

8. Write across genres. Platform isn’t only for nonfiction writers. It is important for every genre writer. Since nonfiction writing and copy writing are generally the most important method you can use to communicate who you are and what you do, every writer needs to become a multi-faceted writer, who can write across any genre.

9. Stand on your own two feet. When I work with writers, I expect them to grow their own platforms, not borrow other people’s platforms or piggy-back their platform caboose on somebody else’s platform train. I want to see what each writer can do, not encourage him or her to mimic others. Patience is any platform builder’s greatest virtue.

10. Envision your creativity as service. What matters is that you know what your expertise is, you communicate it concisely, and that you grow whatever you already offer into something cool that impacts others. If you did nothing beyond these simple things, you would become extremely successful in a fairly short time (when I say “fairly short time,” I always mean years, of course).

Platform is not something you dabble in. But it’s not something that needs to be hyper-analyzed, either. It won’t really matter what’s going on in the world at the time you embark on yours; it only matters that you begin so you can start making platform-aware choices.

I hope you will check out the tools that my colleagues from Writer’s Digest have created. I feel proud of the work we have done. And I think you will really appreciate them, too.

Feel free to contact me if you need more information or have questions.

Happy platform-growing, writers!

We interrupt this series of inspirational (and I hope empowering) messages on creativity for some thoughts on what is going on in politics right now: specifically the fact that the war against women is hitting a new high.

The media has long and regularly made a mockery of women and now we are all going to pay for it by women losing every important right we have ever fought for.

I am angry and disappointed in the way the media portrays women. I believe that their lack of respect now threatens to undermine all the strides that women have made in my lifetime.

Because of the way women are depicted (or not paid attention to at all) in the media, as trivial, throw-away objects of either sexual desire or mass ridicule, I now have to drop everything to fight for rights that should be universally granted to all women as long as we are the rightful owners of our bodies.

Going forward, I am ONLY going to give my attention to media resources that portray women as empowered, equal members of this democracy, and portray us with dignity and respect.

I invite all of my friends, whether Democrats or Republicans, to join me in withdrawing attention and funding from media that undermines women’s rights and dignity and join me in rallying around and sending money ONLY to media outlets that treats women as equal players in this democracy.

And here is my message to the media: Get powerful women on your radar, media, and start writing intelligent news about us as though we were equal players in this democracy.

Because guess who writes the checks in most families? We do.

And we are not going to support major media outlets who trash women, no matter what our political affiliations.

Our daughter’s rights to govern her own body are now on the chopping block and this will, very much, affect our daughter’s day-to-day equality in the future.

What this means to me as a mother is that the depth and breadth of our daughter’s future rights as women are being written in the halls of government right now.

Do I want my daughter to have the same freedoms, I have had?

Then I have to act.

Do you? If so, then you need to act, too.

Please join me in writing an equal future for our daughters and boycotting media that trivializes women in any form of coverage.

And let’s start paying more attention to media that eschews sensationalism and throwing the dirt of the day against a woman in the spotlight for thoughtful, intelligent, equal coverage of women in world issues.

If you are thinking that you might want to start freelancing, what are you waiting for? Here are 21 great reasons to get started:

1. So you can get edited
2. So you can work with editors
3. So you can find your voice as a writer
4. So you can experiment with a variety of forms
5. So you can test-drive different styles of writing
6. So you can hone your craft
7. So you can work from home
8. So you can become self-employed and get tax write-offs
9. So you can start working part-time and grow from there
10. So you can learn about what interests you
11. So you can learn about what you are curious about
12. So you can be helpful, serve and give back
13. So you can become a better communicator
14. So you can gain self-confidence
15. So you can exercise your competitive nature
16. So you can channel your ambitions
17. So you can work on your own schedule
18. So you can create a handcrafted career
19. So you can associate with other mom writers
20. So you can attend professional writing conferences
21. So you can gear up for writing a book in the future

Like these ideas? Learn more in Writer Mama, How To Raise A Writing Career Alongside Your Kids (Writer’s Digest Books 2007) LINK

Classes for writer mamas with me or Abigail Green begin on January 12th. LINK

The next round of Writing & Publishing the Short Stuff Begins (Especially for Moms) and Pitching Practice: Write Six Queries in Six Weeks begin on November 3rd.

In the meantime, here’s a round up of some of my best recent blog tips and inspiration:

• Tips for Practicing Writer Mamas Who Want to Get Published (Link)

• Even Writers Get Sophomore Slump: What To Do About It (Link)

• How to Ignore Interruptions & Get Your Work Done (Link)

• Prospering in the Gig Economy: Simple Habits That Pay Off Quickly (Link)

• Top Ten Questions About Breaking In As A Freelance Writer (Link)

• Helping Mom Writers Transform Frustrations Into Published (Link)

• 21 Reasons to Take a Writing Class (Link)

• A Busy Mom Writer’s Typical Day By The Numbers (Link)

Also beginning November 3rd, Abigail Green will also be offering her first Level 2 of Personal Essays That Get Published.

Happy writing!

Some people think that freelance writing is over but it isn’t. Far from it. Most of the people I know who were making money as freelancers are still making money. But the people who panicked and freaked out when the economy started to tank are not making as much money as they once did. And I have heard that some folks who were once making very nice money are not making such nice money any longer.

In the meantime, down here in the land of I-just-need-to-make-a-reasonable-income, things are just fine. I don’t work with folks who need to make six figures, like yesterday. What I teach is what I have always taught: sane, satisfying, sustainable strategies for writers to start getting published and grow a nonfiction writing career over time.

People think that it’s really, really hard to break into freelance writing. I think the people who teach blogging for dollars love to perpetuate this myth. Speaking as someone who teaches mom writers how to break in as writers, I can tell you that it’s not nearly as hard to break in as it is to move up the ranks right now. It is harder to move up right now because there are a lot more experienced freelancers in the stream to compete with. But at the breaking-in place, there are tons of opportunities just as there have always been a ton of opportunities.

The question that remains is: do you have the chops to get published? These skills can be taught and they are what I teach. Then I watch my students’ results and they consistently demonstrate that the skills I teach work.

Most writers don’t have time-management issues, they have determination issues. In my experience, writing for publication has nothing to do with talent and everything to do with focus and consistency. I see busy writer mamas learning and applying what they’ve learned to create steadily-building writing success year after year all the time.

Here’s my take on the ten most typical questions people ask about freelance writing:

1. What if I’ve never been published? No problem. There is no need to have been published before to get started.
2. What comes first, the article or the query? The way I teach beginners, the article comes first. We tackle queries at the intermediate level because articles are so much easier to write than queries. Many of my students turn right around and get their practice articles published, so why not start with the easier form?
3. Should I write for free? Not in the long run. But if you are a person who just can’t get any momentum going with your writing, I’d rather see you write for free for an editor than not write at all. (Notice I said “for an editor” and then see my answer to #7.)
4. Should I blog? If you are a busy mom, I’d rather see you write articles for publication for at least six months to a year before you start blogging. I’ve taught bloggers article writing with success but I always treat the two as separate and different because they are.
5. Will people steal my ideas? At any one time hundreds if not thousands of people are having a similar idea. The person who ultimately wins is the one who writes it down and submits it. You can’t protect every little idea and move forward in your career at the same time. And copyright law is always there if you absolutely need it.
6. What if I have a great idea for a book? If you have a great idea for a book and you are not yet an established professional writer with a solid platform on that book topic, I’d sit on that idea for a bit. I’d work on writing articles for publication and building a platform. You’d be amazed what you can accomplish in a year. You are so much likelier to get that book deal on the first attempt to pitch it when you are actually ready and can demonstrate that readiness.
7. Should I write for content mills? Nope, never. (See my response to #10 for more.)
8. How much money can I make as a freelancer? Well, how well can you write? How fast can you come up with appropriate ideas? How smoothly can you sell your words? All of these things come into play when we are talking about how much you can earn as a writer. Most writers find out how much they can make through actual experience, not promises from other people. Besides people who are promising you a certain amount of money are most likely trying to sell you something.
9. How long will it take to make any decent kind of money? Again, this comes down to your answers to some questions: How much time do you have to work each day? How consistent will you be? And are you writing to beat some kind of ticking clock? Because if you are writing for money is a really bad idea. Consistently I notice that the moms who make the best money are the most grounded and the least desperate.
10. What is the best thing I can do to break in? The  best thing you can do is three-fold: learn how to write well enough to compete, find an established writer who can work with you and mentor you over time, put what you learn from each teacher/mentor into immediate action. Then watch yourself progress.

The successful writers I know are all humble and hardworking. If you are thinking you are going to be the exception, you might want to try a different field. If you think there is some magic law of attraction at work or some lucky vs. unlucky game at play, I’m sorry to disappoint you. Success in this field is simply about getting the job done as well as you can again and again and again.

The professional world can always use more good writers. I’ve seen women grow leaps and bounds in self-esteem by flexing their writing muscles, myself included. In fact, I feel there has never been a better time to be a writer. I’ll have more to say on this topic soon.

In the meantime, write on!

Look what Andrea did to her copy!

Thank you for celebrating the three year anniversary of Writer Mama, How to Raise a Writing Career Alongside Your Kids with me. I am going to keep celebrating for the rest of the month since I am launching my first e-book, Author Mama (which is like the sequel to Writer Mama in case you were wishing there was a sequel).

I’m very excited that Debbie Ridpath Ohi has granted me rights to one of her cartoons for the cover of the e-book.

Initially I am going to launch my e-books in a beta format at a lower price, so that all of my long-time fans and writer friends won’t have to pay full price and can participate in the final phases of development of the e-book, if they wish.

Some days, including today, I am amazed to learn that moms are still cracking Writer Mama open and reading it, and even doing the exercises. I guess we (Jane Friedman and myself) were hoping that’s what would happen when we envisioned the book way back in 2005.

I sure do appreciate every bit of support that I have received from readers over the past many years. 2007, the year that Writer Mama was published, was a huge year, and I will always look back fondly at my initiation into the author’s journey.

And now without further ado, the following five Prosperous Writer subscribers have each won a signed copy of Writer Mama:

• Debbie Williams
• Jessie Haynes
• Alexis Ahrens
• Becky Levine
• Coreen N

Congratulations to everyone who won!

Please send your snail mail address to katz christina at comcast dot net (please note my new address) and I’ll send you a signed copy of Writer Mama. Let me know if you would like a particular inscription.

And if you have yet to read Writer Mama, you might want to get a jump on it before the “sequel” comes out. You can pick up a copy from your local indie bookstore, your local library, or order from Amazon or Writer’s Digest. You can also read Writer Mama as an e-book from Writer’s Digest, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble.

A conversation with Sage Cohen

Author of Writing the Life Poetic: An Invitation to Read and Write Poetry

As the holidays approach in a down economy, Sage Cohen proposes that poetry can provide a meaningful way forward. Author of Writing the Life Poetic: An Invitation to Read and Write Poetry, Cohen sees poetry not just as an art form, but a way of life. Following is our conversation about the possibilities of poetry today.

It’s the holiday season. Why poetry? Why now?

In today’s economy, many people are seeking alternatives the typical holiday spending frenzy. The good news about hard times is that they challenge us to find creative new ways to give, share and create meaning. Poetry can be a powerful instrument for conjuring such alchemies.

These days people have less cash than usual. How can poetry help?

Poetry can’t change our bank statements, but it can change the way we think about wealth and prosperity. In fact, it is my lifelong relationship with poetry that has taught me that income is one thing, but prosperity is frequently something else.

For example, a few years ago, I heard Mary Oliver speak. She reported that a critic of her poetry complained that she must be independently wealthy to have so much time to lie around in the grass and ponder nature. This made the poet laugh, because the critic was reporting in an underhanded and confused way about a truth that Oliver tapped into long ago: the act of lying in the grass and listening to the world IS wealth.

The truth is, we don’t need to go anywhere special to tune in to poetry. Our lives are already inundated with sensory information that is the raw material of poems. All we need to do is slow down, pay attention and write down what moves us, intrigues us or stirs our curiosity. This does not require an inheritance or a 401K. It simply requires a willingness to welcome the abundance that is already ours, and to follow the golden thread of language wherever it leads us.

What poetry can give us is something far more valuable than money could ever buy – it gives us ourselves. Poem by poem, we write our souls into existence. Weighted in words, the spirit that animates us becomes palpable. By the same token, each poem we read offers a small window into the human condition, in which we may better recognize some glimmer of our own being.

The world seems to be falling apart around us. Why should we be focused on poetry when it can’t help change anything?

You’re right; poems may not stop the clubbing of baby seals, domestic violence, child trafficking, dog fighting, genocide, conflict in the Middle East or whatever it is that feels most difficult on any given day. But as the motorcyclist must lean into the turn to prevent a fall, poems become a kind of machinery of transport, giving us a context for leaning into the pain that we meet and safely navigating through it.

My father always said, “Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.” And poems are the treasures that can be exhumed from those undesirable experiences. Just think all of the great, poetic opportunities for understanding that lie coiled at the heart of every mistake, heartbreak, disappointment, and regret.

What if you were to literally look to your poetry practice as a way of moving through what pierces you to the core? What injustices might it help you examine unflinchingly? What epicenter of pain or grief might it help you enter and consider? How might you relax into the universal truths of divorce, death, intolerance, and change, and make a poem offering that illumines these truths with compassion?

How do you recommend that readers get started with their holiday poem-making?

I always remind people that their ordinary lives will offer more than enough source material for poetry.

The following exercises are designed to get folks mining their own daily experience to see what inspired thoughts and language might be awaiting them below the surface.

Choose an activity you do regularly that is the absolutely most routinized, unremarkable event of your day. (Mine would be doing dishes.) Write down the answers to these questions about it:

• Notice the physical feeling of this routine. Which muscles are involved? What kind of rhythm or tempo does it involve? Are you cold or hot, energized or depleted?
• How do you feel emotionally when you do this?
• What are the smells associated with this activity? (I use lavender soap, so my sink smells like a French garden.)
• What do you see when engaged in this routine? (I look out at the butterfly bush and magnolia tree in my back yard. I enjoy watching meals erased from plates and glasses.)
• Pay close attention to your thinking. What images and ideas bubble up as you are doing this activity?
• How does the time of day or weather or location (indoors vs. outdoors, your home vs. someone else’s home, summer breeze or snowfall) affect your experience?

What wildlife, plants and trees do you see out your window at home, at work, or en route? What do they look like, feel like, sound like? What are their names? What are the visual cues and references in your home and/or workspace?

• Make a list of the 20 things you come into contact with most.
• Write down something else in the world that each of these 20 things remind you of. For example, The red teapot reminds me of the robin red breast. The worn wood of the mirror over the sink reminds me of the door to Grandpa’s barn. The curlicue pattern on the silver platter makes me think of storm clouds.

Think of someone you see regularly in passing but do not know well, like your mail carrier, barista or neighbor. Write a poem that imagines what their life might be like:

• Who do they love?
• What have they lost?
• What do their pajamas look like?
• What are their aspirations?
• What do they eat for breakfast?

Explore your holiday archives:

• What was your biggest holiday surprise?
• What holiday is most meaningful to you and why?
• Who do you yearn to see during the holidays?
• How has Santa (if you have a relationship with Santa) satisfied you and let you down over the years?
• What is the most embarrassing thing that ever happened around the dinner table with your family at holiday time?
• What outfit comes to mind when you think back on past holiday celebrations?

This should give you a foundation of source material to start playing with. Circle a few words or phrases that interest you, and let those be the kindling for your poetic fire.

Don’t know where to go next? Freewriting can be a useful way to take your ideas and language a little further into the realm of the poetic. Set your timer for 10 minutes, sit down with your notebook, and keep that hand moving across the page, no matter what, without stopping, for the entire 10 minutes. You’re not trying to be brilliant here – just to get loose and let words start coming without thinking too hard. The more you practice, the looser you’ll get. And the looser you get, the more your language will surprise and delight you.

I’d like to send readers off with a thought about poetry and holiday cheer.

Egg nog, move over. Rudolph, there’s a brighter light guiding our sleigh tonight.

I’ve never experienced any holiday cheer that rivals the state of grace that poetry invites into our lives. That is why I often give poems I’ve written as holiday gifts. I print them on pretty paper, place them in an attractive frame and presto – the most treasured holiday gifts I’ve ever given only cost me the time I spent creating them.

Try it! You just might get hooked.

Wishing you all a peaceful and poetic holiday season.

* * *

Sage Cohen is the author of Writing the Life Poetic: An Invitation to Read and Write Poetry (Writers Digest Books, 2009) and the poetry collection Like the Heart, the World (Queen of Wands Press, 2007). An award-winning poet, she writes four monthly columns about the craft and business of writing and serves as Poetry Editor for VoiceCatcher 4. Sage has won first prize in the Ghost Road Press poetry contest, been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and been awarded a Soapstone residency. She curates a monthly reading series at Barnes & Noble and teaches the online class Poetry for the People. To learn more, visit www.sagesaidso.com. Drop by and join in the conversation about living and writing a poetic life.