Here's guest writer M.R. Jordan sharing some wisdom about life in the public eye. You may want to check out her contest, too. She doesn't demand an entry fee, which is rare and refreshing, and she even offers to critique your first page. Read her full guidelines here: M.R. Jordan's Winter Writing Contest and Critique
Wm. Luke Everest
After Wm. Luke Everest sent me an email inviting me to write a guest post the first thing I did was check him out via Google. The second thing I did was read his blog. Why did I Google him? Due diligence. Thirty seconds on Google can save you a lot of heartache in the future. Imagine, for example, a stranger emails you for a guest post so you quickly dash off something and send it over. And let's say you're not a writer. Let's say you're a teacher. Well, at some point in the future the guy you wrote a post for ends up on 60 minutes to catch a criminal for soliciting underage girls.
Writers need to do their due diligence in checking out agents, publishers, and even little contests like mine. (The M.R. Jordan Winter Writing Contest and Critique in case you didn't know. It's free. )
Two years ago one of my stories was published without notification. Despite wording on the site that made me suspicious and a requirement to sign up before I could submit, I jumped without looking. I got burned, which at the time seemed like the worst thing that could happen to me. It turned out to be the best lesson I could have learned.
Anyway, don't let ambition get in the way of good judgment. If you're persistent, study writing, study grammar, study editing, and most of all, write, write, write, you'll do fine.
Tip: A writer's best resource for checking out agents and publishers is the absolute write message boards. The most efficient way is to search Google 'Name of Agent/Publisher here' plus 'absolute write.' (Thank you, Victoria Strauss, for all your efforts protecting writers from predators.)
And thank you Luke for letting me use you as a lead in to this topic.
M.R. Jordan
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