A Little Advice and 101 Success Secrets for Gifted Kids

In honor of the amazing Christine Fonseca's early release of her second book, 101 Success Secrets for Gifted Kids, a few fellow authors and I have been offering up bits of advice.

Don’t compare yourself to others. Most of the misery in my life has come from comparing myself to someone else. It took a very long time to learn that I was a pretty cool person, all on my own. 

Everyone’s journey through life is different and no good ever comes from comparing yourself to someone else. Everyone has their own trials, their own talents, their own limitations, their own hopes and dreams. You are your own wonderful, unique YOU and no one else can do the things that you do or be the person you will be, quite like you will.

Christine has been featuring awesome advice from several different authors and also has some fun giveaways going on, so head to her blog to check it out!

What would your advice be? Grab the graphic and join in the fun! :)

Blog Chain - Writerly Advice

Time again for the Blog Chain! This round was started by the fabulous Cole, and this is the topic she chose:

This blog chain is a game! Your subject is writerly advice. Pretend you are addressing a crowd of aspiring authors eager to soak in your words of knowledge. The problem is, you've only been given a time slot of five seconds. In one sentence (no more than 20 words), please summarize the most important words of wisdom you can impart.

If you do not belong to the blog chain please feel free to play along. Just post a link to your own blog in Cole's comments section (Click Here to do this) and she'll make sure your sentence is listed in the final blog.

This one was hard for me, mostly because I am near the end of the chain and those who have posted before me have shared AWESOME advice. Bonny posted her pearls of wisdom before me, so be sure to check her post out.

As for my advice...well, since I am one of the few writers on the chain who also does non-fiction, I'll say something a little more geared toward that genre, though this also works for fiction, especially when talking about queries and submissions. This is something I posted on recently, but I think it's good advice that bears repeating....

Write with authority; remove all the "I thinks," "I believes," and "I hopes," from your writing and
WRITE WITH CONFIDENCE.

Ah ha! Twenty words exactly :D Though I will just cheat a bit and add, this works not just in your literal writing, but in your writing attitude as well. Be confident when you write along with being confident with your actual words, and you can't go wrong.

Next up is Shaun, so head over and see what wonderful words of advice he has for us!!