FIND YOUR WRITING NICHE: PERENNIALS
Decades of tear sheets of my printed stories and rejected manuscripts filled my filing cabinet to capacity, and I had to make decisions: what to keep, what to trash. At the first run-through I only trashed the stories without my byline. The second down-size eliminated uninteresting features.
The third was the “keep” file. These are perennials, the feature stories that are as fresh today as they were in the 1980s.
- Domestic violence
- Homelessness
- Health care
- Parenting and child care
- Diversity
- Retirement
- People accomplishing feats and making lasting contributions
Where do you find perennials? Read newspapers and magazines.
I reduced my files to one expanding folder, a few unpublished short stories, one nonfiction manuscript and two full-length novel manuscripts. The filing cabinet was trashed as well, so these files found space in a closet. No more tear sheets. Everything is online now.