Why I Considered Changing My Name — Martin Sheen was President Bartlet. He was Captain Queenan. He was Captain Willard. Martin Sheen has played iconic roles in a wonderful career on the big and small screens. And he did it using a stage name. His real name is Ramón Estévez. Changing his name, he said recently in…

How “Positive” Affirmation Hurts Querying Writers — Querying is a humbling process. Understandably, querying writers look for ways to process rejection, which exacts a psychological and emotional toll, but some writers don’t just cope, they rationalize. These writers need to face the possibility their writing just isn’t good enough. The “Perfect” Writer There is a sizeable segment of querying writers…

Why Pitches Are More Likely to Get You Media Coverage — The press release is a longtime staple of public relations, but as a PR pro with more than 15 years of experience, I’m here tell you you’re better off focusing on pitch letters. Why are pitches better than press releases? It’s not that they’re inherently better, it’s that they’re better suited for most promotional situations. Usually, a…

Dos and Don’ts at the End of Your Articles — Most of my Medium posts are “chosen for further distribution,” the last 9 out of 10, in fact. That’s not a brag. I bring it up only to point out it’s unusual that my last post, “What I Learned About Americans by Living in England,” published yesterday, was not curated…

Spoiler Alert: We’re the Uptight Ones — I moved to England soon after graduating from college. Living and working in Manchester for a couple of years, I learned a few things about the British, but more importantly, I learned a few things about us Americans. Disclaimer: This doesn’t apply to all Americans, of course, just as it…

Why “Intentional In-Person” Is the Future — Almost half of employees who work remotely don’t want to return to the office. Can employers entice them back? Should they? And how? Companies are taking different approaches to the transition back to the office. Some retain a remote-work holding pattern, some are leaning into the hybrid approach for the…

Dear conservatives, I’m a liberal, and I’m not interested in a debate about the Second Amendment. I already know how it plays out. You’ll say it’s your right enshrined by the Constitution, and I’ll say a “well-regulated militia” was intended to fend off a tyrannical government armed with muskets, not…

Melee Combat Bonanza with the CSI Treatment — The only time I’ve ever put down a loaded shotgun was in Condemned: Criminal Origins. In this game it’s more satisfying to bust someone’s head open with a pipe. There aren’t too many first-person melee combat survival horror games out there, but it’s an itch you didn’t know needed scratching…

Today’s horror games boast monsters so painstakingly rendered that the grunts in Amnesia: The Dark Descent look like goombas by comparison. Frictional Games is often praised for the use of a sanity meter in TDD even though previous Lovecraftian horror games, like Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem, have utilized them. So…