On Saturday morning, I joined 500,000+ visitors in D.C. for the Women’s March on Washington. It was awesome. By 7am, I stood near the main stage, surrounded by hundreds of women and men. Every sign, every smile, every outrageous hat unlocked a feeling I didn’t know I craved: safety. The energy of the crowd was…
When you were born, you received a power unlike anything else in the universe. You received the power of your soul’s truth—and a voice with which to share it. That voice, YOUR voice, is unique among all creation. When you were born, you became the first and last person to see the world exactly as you…
Nobody wants to sit down at the computer feeling like they’ve got a gun pointed to their head and some sweaty psychopath shouting, “Okay, go time! Be smart and clever and funny and write a bunch of things! Go!” Yet this is exactly what we do to ourselves, right? Something happens—we finally invest in a…
I stand in the front of a room full of strangers holding a piece of paper in my hands. I feel myself sweating through my pink shirt. (Hello, magenta armpits!) I’m reading a true story from my life, talking for the first time about writing and publishing my most vulnerable newspaper article ever. It was a very public…
Write for 10 minutes every day. Write down the moment. Describe what is happening, or what has happened recently. So that you have a record. So you flex your descriptive muscles. So you practice writing your ideas, your thoughts, and celebrating your life. For just 10 minutes a day. Your voice will become stronger the…
When I quit my job in September 2011, I knew I needed a website. I wasn’t sure how I’d make money as a freelancer, but I knew I had experience in marketing and writing. So I chose the title “marketing communications consultant” and decided to learn from the market itself. (Click here to read more about…
Greetings from McDonalds in Orange, Virginia, a town so tiny when you try to search for coffee shops, Yelp doesn’t believe it exists. I’m sitting here as my boyfriend referees a basketball game at the high school down the street. Once he’s done, we’ll head north for Christmas. Behind me, four men sit around a flat screen TV, swapping…
A few weeks ago, I met a fellow writer at a party. He told me a story that made me so mad I almost threw Chex Mix at him. Here’s how the scene went down: I stood in a swanky apartment full of my boyfriend’s parents’ friends, chatting to strangers and marveling at the giant seahorse…
Picture this: You’re standing at a holiday party, bopping along to a festive playlist and piling bleu cheese onto butterfly-shaped butter crackers. You feel FANTASTIC. Maybe it’s the candlelight, the rum punch, or your cute velvet dress. Who knows? Who cares? (Side note: Velvet is BACK, according to teen.com. Since I still shop at Charlotte…
It’s the nightmare inquiry made of every soon-to-graduate liberal arts major in America. The niggling worry of every newly committed entrepreneur. The unscratchable itch burning every person who hits upper tiers in Maslow’s hierarchy. “What do you want to do with your life?” The question sounds harmless when posed by the inevitable guidance counselor, business…
