A couple of months ago, I read about an experience an aspiring author had with an editor, and boy, was I disappointed. She said she’d received her manuscript back from her editor, and the comments were just straight-up mean. Every single one was insulting, so much so that she dreaded reading them. She used words like disheartening and disrespectful and discouraged. It’s experiences like this that make writers nervous about trusting their “babies” (their stories, that is) with

Many, many moons ago, I used to write. I wrote poetry and plays and short stories and all of the fun things I could think of. Then, I started copywriting and ghostwriting, and writing just for fun slowly became a thing of the past. Now, I get to work with writers and help them tell their stories in the best way possible. But somewhere along the way, I realized I got away from my own writing. And my definition of "writing for fun" looks a lot different now...actually my whole