But despite these accomplishments, she felt like a fraud. She worked more and more, had less and less of a personal life, and was never able to enjoy her success.In this deeply personal memoir, Roché shares her lifelong struggle with what she now recognizes as “the impostor syndrome,” a condition that plagues successful people in all walks of life. Based on her own experiences and those of top executives from organizations such as Eileen Fisher, Citigroup, BET, Pepsi, and Tupperware, she offers practical advice and valuable coping strategies that can help you embrace your own worth and live a life of joy, zest, and fulfillment.

    If an editor or agent (or reader) loses interest after a page or two, you've lost him or her completely, even if the middle of your novel is brilliant and the ending phenomenal. Noah Lukeman, an agent in Manhattan, has taken this advice and created a book that examines just what this means, and I have to tell you, it's one of the best I've read. I've written (and seen published) pretty close to a dozen novels in as many years -- some are still to be published and will be out shortly; others are already out of print after four years. But I wish I had read Lukeman's book, The First Five Pages, when I began writing fiction. I'm glad I did now. It has helped, immediately. I'm already embarrassed about some of the goofs I made in my writing -- and I've been revising recent prose with his advice in mind. First off, Lukeman is a literary agent who once was an editor, and his editorial eye is sharp. If every novelist and short story writer in this country had Lukeman as an editor, we'd have a lot more readable prose out there. He writes: Many writers spend the majority of their time devising their plot. What they don't seem to understand is that if their execution -- if their prose -- isn't up to par, their plot may not even be considered.This bears repeating, because in all the books I've read on writing, this is an element that is most often forgotten in the rush to come up with snappy ideas and sharp plot progressions. You can always send a hero on a journey, after all, but if no reader wants to follow him, you've wasted your time. In a tone that can be a bit professorial at times, Lukeman brings what prose is -- and how it reads to others -- into sharp focus. He deals with dialogue, style, and, most importantly, sound. Sound. How does prose sound? It must have rhythm, its own kind of music, in order to draw the reader into the fictive dream. Lukeman's tips and pointers are genuinely helpful, and even important with regard to the sound of the prose itself. Lukeman also brings in on-target exercises for writers of prose and the wonderful advice for novelists to read poetry -- and often. Those first five pages are crucial, for all concerned. But forget the editor and agent and reader. They are important for you, the writer, because they determine the sharpness of your focus, the completeness of your vision, the confidence you, as a writer, need to plunge into a three- or four- or five-hundred-page story. The First Five Pages should be on every writer's shelf. This is the real thing.P#151;Douglas Clegg Douglas Clegg is the author of numerous novels and stories, including The Halloween Man and the collection The Nightmare Chronicles. In addition, Clegg is the author of the world's first publisher-sponsored Internet email novel, Naomi.

    From learning to travel and eat alone to creating new routines to surviving the holidays and anniversaries that reopen emotional wounds, Ginsburg give guidance on:Dealing with anger and guiltMaintaining family relationshipsDating after widowhoodHandling moneyResponding to others' supportAnd moreWidow to Widow walks readers through the challenges of widowhood and encourages them on their path to building a new life.

    Vulnerable yet tough, she eventually ended up a victim of commercial sexual exploitation. It took time and incredible resilience, but finally, with the help of a local church community, she broke free of her pimp and her past. Three years later, Lloyd arrived in the United States to work with adult women in the sex industry and soon founded her own nonprofit— GEMS, Girls Educational and Mentoring Services—to meet the needs of other girls with her history. She also earned her GED and won full scholarships to college and a graduate program. Today Lloyd is executive director of GEMS in New York City and has turned it into one of the nation's most groundbreaking nonprofit organizations. In Girls Like Us, Lloyd reveals the dark, secretive world of her past in stunning cinematic detail. And, with great humanity, she lovingly shares the stories of the girls whose lives she has helped—; small victories that have healed her wounds and made her whole. Revelatory, authentic, and brave, Girls Like Us is an unforgettable memoir.

    From adjectives and exclamation points to dialect and hoopetedoodle, Elmore Leonard explains what to avoid, what to aspire to, and what to do when it sounds like "writing" (rewrite).Beautifully designed, filled with free-flowing, elegant illustrations and specially priced, Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing is the perfect writer's—and reader's—gift.

    We run for health, to ease tension, for strength, to challenge ourselves, to be social with friends, as professional athletes or the dream of being one, to turn our minds on, and to turn them off. Whether running a marathon, taking a quick jog around the neighborhood, or trying to reach the top of Pikes Peak, women of all ages and abilities have discovered running. In Women Who Run a wide range of women, including Olympians, marathoners, ultra runners, young track phenoms, and recreational runners, talk about why they run, what drives them, and what continues to spark their interest in the sport.Women Who Run features Bobbi Gibb, the first woman to run the Boston Marathon; Louise Cooper, breast cancer survivor and finisher of the grueling 135-mile Badwater Marathon; Kristin Armstrong, who found solace and camaraderie in running with other women post-divorce; Olympic runner and two-time LA Marathon winner and Kenyan Lornah Kiplagat, Wall Street Journal reporter and Muslim women's activist, Asra Nomani; Pam Reed who ran 300-miles in one run—and many more.This book will inspire and motivate you to get off the couch and find your inner runner.

    It soon evolved into a daily must-read for thousands of women worldwide. Now, in a graceful, exquisitely illustrated work with full-color photographs by award-winning photographer Elizabeth Messina, Jacobs offers an informative, therapeutic guide for people who have been diagnosed with the disease.Part personal memoir, part professional guide, The Silver Lining is the book that Jacobs wished she’d had when she began her fight with cancer. She covers what every patient can expect as they go through their specific treatment and teaches other big issues, such as nutrition and how to talk to children about illness. While the book is brimming with action steps to help negotiate each phase of treatment and recovery, every chapter concludes with “Silver Linings”—the sources of inspiration and perspective that buoyed Jacobs through her own journey and that, taken together, comprise the heartbeat of the book.“Like a good friend, this book will be by your side as you travel through the world of breast cancer diagnosis, treatment, and recovery,” says Dr. Susan Love, surgeon, breast cancer research advocate, and author of Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book. An invaluable guide, a gorgeously rendered object of beauty, The Silver Lining will be the manual for breast cancer patients and their loved ones.

    One of the best ways to get around the problem is to surround yourself with ideas. "1,000 Creative Writing Prompts for Seasons: Ideas for Blogs, Scripts, Stories and More" gives you exactly one thousand idea-generating prompts that focus on the coldest, warmest, toughest and funniest days of the four seasons. This book covers many different aspects of spring, summer, fall and winter including weather, nature, holidays, festivals, the five senses, science, literature, entertainment and more! These 1,000 prompts work for blogs, scripts, stories, poems, essays, songs and anything else that requires you to stare down writer's block and put pen to paper anyway. Originally geared for the classroom, these prompts can be used by any writer from 5 to 105 to get the ideas they need when they need them. Author Bryan Cohen has written over a dozen books of writing prompts including "1,000 Character Writing Prompts: Villains, Heroes and Hams for Scripts, Stories and More," "500 Writing Prompts for Kids: First Grade through Fifth Grade" and "The Writing Prompts Workbook Series." His books have sold over 15,000 copies. He lives in Chicago.

    Some events may simply catch us off guard for a moment, but others shatter us completely. We feel disappointed and disillusioned, and we quietly start to wonder about the reality of God’s goodness.Lysa TerKeurst understands this deeply. But she's also discovered that our disappointments can be the divine appointments our souls need to radically encounter God. In It's Not Supposed to Be This Way, Lysa invites us into her own journey of faith and, with grit, vulnerability, and honest humor, helps us to:* Stop being pulled into the anxiety of disappointment by discovering how to better process unmet expectations and other painful situations.* Train ourselves to recognize the three strategies of the enemy so we can stand strong and persevere through unsettling relationships and uncertain outcomes.* Discover the secret of being steadfast and not panicking when God actually does give us more than we can handle.* Shift our suspicion that God is cruel or unfair to the biblical assurance that God is protecting and preparing us.* Know how to encourage a friend and help her navigate hard realities with real help from God's truth.

    Taking on the boorish behavior that for some has become a point of pride, Talk to the Hand is a rallying cry for courtesy. Like Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Talk to the Hand is not a stuffy guidebook, and is sure to inspire spirited conversation. For anyone who’s fed up with the brutality inflicted by modern manners (or lack thereof), Talk to the Hand is a colorful call to arms—from the wittiest defender of the civilized world.

    We’re each trying to describe what we know about life, to create a collective sense of “safety in numbers.” When we reach the end of our traditional descriptive powers, it’s time to weave collective meaning from poetry, painting, writing, dancing, photographing, filmmaking, storytelling, singing, animating, designing, performing, carving, sculpting, and a million other ways we daily create Order out of the Chaos and share it with each other for comfort.On this journey we need a creative philosophy which will help us find our voice, discover our message, deal with the responses to our work, maintain inspiration, and stay mentally healthy and motivated creators as we strive to find “the meaning in the making.”

    Lyne's techniques, which he developed through twenty years of teaching poetry workshops, flow from an understanding that poetry is an art form open to everyone. We all can-and should-write poetry.In this enchanting and inspiring volume, Lyne will introduce you to the pleasures and surprises of writing poetry, and his methods and insights will help you tap into your own unique voice and perspective to compose poems of your own in as little as a few minutes. Whether you are an experienced writer looking for new techniques and sources of inspiration or a novice poet who has never written a poem in your life, Writing Poetry from the Inside Out will help you to craft the poems you've always longed to write.

     If you feel like you’re floundering in the deep end (Not waving, drowning!), and anxiety over the complexity and enormousness of your creative projects overwhelms you, stop scrambling to fit everything in and feeling stretched thin. DIVE DEEP AND SWIM Sustain the energy you feel when thinking of how awesome your projects could be. Value your own creative work as highly as work you do for other people. Build a reusable structure and process that will consistently get you to the finish line. Blast through your stuck-ness. Focus. Finish. Move on to the next project. You’re a creative person. Even if you have a hard time calling yourself a “writer” or an “artist” in public, making your creative work is core to who you are and how you see the world. You may be harboring a big, ambitious idea for a project. Possibly a lot of them. And it’s killing you. You lie awake thinking about it…and hating yourself for not doing more to make it real. And then in the morning you’re exhausted, and you can’t believe you “wasted” more time on this stupid idea. Who ever told you you were creative anyway? You try to shove your idea away, to forget it. But your creative work is what keeps you sane. You can’t not do this. So you live with guilt and anxiety all the time. You’ve tried to carve out the time and attention you need to devote to your creative work. You’ve made ambitious goals, you’ve written lists, you’ve scheduled calendars…you’ve installed shackles on your desk chair. But chaining yourself to your work only seems to make you more distractible and more miserable. (And those unsightly leg sores!) Maybe you've even tried to borrow time-management tips from the business world. Get things done! Build seven habits! Eat that frog! But following business-minded productivity systems just doesn’t work for you. The issue isn’t simply getting “things” done, it’s allowing yourself to devote precious time and attention to the vital, self-generated creative work that builds toward your vision for the future. The problem is, the life you’re living is already full. You’ve made a lot of promises, to yourself, your family, your friends, and your community, that you’ll be there for them. You probably have a job; you may have kids. You may well have many competing ideas for your creative work. Where, exactly, can you find that mythical Creative Focus Unicorn? In Growing Gills, you’ll discover that the power is already within you to make your work. The biggest obstacles to your getting your important creative work done lie in the unknowns you’re facing. Growing Gills takes you step by step through the process of pinning down exactly what’s stopping you from finishing your beautiful, inventive, and potentially game-changing projects. Using the power of conscious decision, you’ll build your own unique system for fitting creative work into your existing life, taking into consideration how you work best.

    In this book, best-selling author Shakti Gawain describes the four levels of human existence -- spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical -- and explains the importance of developing all four. She also provides the meditations and exercises readers need to begin their own healing journeys.

    Prepare to be InspiredInspiration is nice, but that doesn’t mean you should sit around all day waiting for ideas to come to you. Instead, cultivate smart creative habits that help you find ideas faster.˃˃˃ 2. Trace Your Creative RootsTo know what you’re going to create (and to overcome problems like procrastination, fear and self-doubt), you must understand what drives you. You must understand what you’re passionate about and for that, a personal mission statement is key.˃˃˃ 3. Learn What Your Craft (And Your Audience) DemandsTo master your craft, whether that by writing, painting, music, film or art, requires learning what both it and your audience expect from you.˃˃˃ 4. Find a Creative Master to Mentor YouA mentor will help you face your fears, master the self and find better ideas faster. But, what if you can’t find one?˃˃˃ 5. Strengthen Your Mind and BodyCreative masters understand the value of meditation, physical exercise and protecting their best self. They know becoming more creative isn’t just a mental practice.˃˃˃ 6. Invest In Your Side-ProjectsWhen you need when you need a break from your main gig, turn towards a side-project. That’s what smart creative people do, and they often find real success in this approach.˃˃˃ 7. Go to War Against Your FearsYour fear of failure, your fear of rejection, your fear of criticism, let’s change that.If you want to discover how to build creative habits, face your fears and change your life, download a sample or buy now.