Rob Parnell's Writing Academy Blog

Are you the kind of person who dwells on the past? We all do it to an extent. Some of us more than others. But have you ever found yourself getting stuck in a groove, replaying a mistake in your mind, over and over, ten, twenty, even thirty years after the fact? You know the old maxim: "You get what you focus on." Has it occurred to you that when you dwell on past mistakes, you're setting up yourself to fail - again? We all make mistakes. That's why there's a delete key on your computer. If everything we did was perfect first time out, our lives would be bland and most likely, unmemorable. Our mistakes, our errors in judgment, our embarrassing interludes, help us grow and learn and become wise. But replaying them in our minds, cringing and wishing they'd worked out differently is a surefire way of ensuring the same kind of result in the future. Don't Make Excuses Have you ever noticed that most people have a hundred reasons why they shouldn't pursue t...

I get asked this question all the time. Writers everywhere want to know what's popular, what will sell now and in the future. They think there might be some great oracle out there that can answer this question - or that maybe publishers and agents on the inside might know this information and are somehow keeping it to themselves. Would that this were true! Think about it. Five years ago could you have predicted what you are doing now? Most of us don't know where we're going to be living in five years time - and even if we think we do, events conspire to change our plans. Life is organic, some might say unreliable. Even two years ago, is there any way you could have foreseen today's news? Could you have known which celebrities or politicians were going to be in the spotlight? Or which ones had faded from view? Of course not. It doesn't work that way. The bestselling books and movies that are with us today were conceived and written AT LEAST two years...