1. Victoria Sherrow: "I had set a goal of writing and submitting at least one new story each month, including stories with holiday themes."
2. Miriam Glassman: "Write the story that is yours to tell. Don’t try to redo something already out there.".
3. Maryann Cocca-Lefler: "Stay focused, have thick skin and be willing to revise. Rejection letters are part of the process, learn from them and move forward."
4. Tara Lazar: "My stories always include a hidden chunk of my childhood."
5. Shennen Bersani: "Have a young child read it out loud."
6. Cheryl Lawton Malone: "Write while your kids are at the dentist. Write when your spouse goes to sleep. And when you’re not writing, read and think about picture books."
7. Deborah Sosin: "Go for it! Make the time. But ask for help. It’s too hard to do in isolation."
8. Audrey Vernick: "We were so stuck on one point and I had been reading some craft books and one suggestion was instead of trying to come up with one solution, shoot for five. . . . That proved to be a technique I’d return to."
9. Susan Montanari: "I had a dream [and] when I woke up I wrote it down."
10: Jean Taft: "I make a book dummy out of index cards for all my stories and work on the pagination from that. Sometimes I don’t fully understand how a story is (or isn’t) flowing until I make a book dummy."
2. Miriam Glassman: "Write the story that is yours to tell. Don’t try to redo something already out there.".
3. Maryann Cocca-Lefler: "Stay focused, have thick skin and be willing to revise. Rejection letters are part of the process, learn from them and move forward."
4. Tara Lazar: "My stories always include a hidden chunk of my childhood."
5. Shennen Bersani: "Have a young child read it out loud."
6. Cheryl Lawton Malone: "Write while your kids are at the dentist. Write when your spouse goes to sleep. And when you’re not writing, read and think about picture books."
7. Deborah Sosin: "Go for it! Make the time. But ask for help. It’s too hard to do in isolation."
8. Audrey Vernick: "We were so stuck on one point and I had been reading some craft books and one suggestion was instead of trying to come up with one solution, shoot for five. . . . That proved to be a technique I’d return to."
9. Susan Montanari: "I had a dream [and] when I woke up I wrote it down."
10: Jean Taft: "I make a book dummy out of index cards for all my stories and work on the pagination from that. Sometimes I don’t fully understand how a story is (or isn’t) flowing until I make a book dummy."