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Hello fellow writers! Well, I started out great, then took the lazy way out, which given that today is Sunday seemed fitting. I was up with the sun at 6 am, with coffee, and an hour and a half into researching my next piece and drafts, I bailed.

There are two pieces I have in to my publisher, DemandStudios.com, and they seem to be in limbo, which is probably due to the holiday week-end. I'm guessing they'll be approved and I can look forward to payment on Tuesday in time for New Year's, but until then, I'm not going to kill myself to produce new material.

I had a newspaper that was really slow to pay, and thanks to a few of my mentors, some of them established writers I knew personally, others I just read about said "First rule of writing, of course after writing every day, is to insist on timely payment." Or just to insist on payment in the first place. Which brings me to a new feature on this blog:

For new writers - TIP OF THE DAY:Do not write for a publication unless payment is agreed upon first. Do NOT write for free "just to get published". It makes it tougher for the rest of us writers, and is also disrespectful to your craft.

So as the morning dragged on I realized that I could only get so much done, as the kids were waking and the day beginning, plus the last editorial comments I received instructed me to "re-read all editorial guidelines before submitting anymore articles,". Ouch! I needed a day to rest.

Today is the feast day of the Holy Family - I'm Catholic, and I figured getting frustrated over how my kids were "interupting" was not in the spirit of things.

It turned out to be great inspiration for other passions. I'm learning to cook, found a great new food website - www.delish.com and got all excited about a yummy mashed potato and butternut squash recipe. Even dashed off to Wal-Mart to get the needed food processor. Like writing, I can get obsessive with new loves.

Alrighty - tomorrow is skiing with the family, so I will be up at dawn hopefully to write, research, and earn, earn, earn.

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