Sarah Granger's Blog

My daughter’s a teenager and she was working on an essay last night. She facetimed a friend because she said she had writer’s block. I was like “I’m a professional writer, right here, to help you!” But of course as a teen, she totally ignored me. Thing is — I haven’t had writer’s block in years. So long, in fact, I’ve taken it for granted. But instead of just sitting here on my high horse, I’ll share some of the reasons why I think this is the case and my tricks / tips for avoiding the beast.

I’ve been blogging since before they called it blogging, and posting online since even before that. Everyone I knew who was creating original content before the ‘content marketing’ term became widely used understood the value of that content creation. It was obvious when a collection of content had been published that people would find it — maybe not always immediately, but eventually. That’s the value of long-term content properties.

A funny thing happens when you’ve been publishing content onl...

Do you love to write? Can you form coherent sentences? Congratulations, you’re a writer.

Fine, I’m kidding. There is more than that. But that’s the beginning of how to become a writer. Then there are more questions to ask yourself: do you want to be a writer as a hobby or professionally? If you want to be a pro, there’s more you need to do. But I’ll start with writing in general.

I’ll skip the cliches that you need to write to be a writer, but I will say that it needs to be a consistent...

As a writer and a film lover, I’ve fallen into the trap of watching many movies about writers. It’s not necessarily a bad thing; I find most of them enjoyable and interesting. That said, writers are almost always presented in the most romanticized version of the job possible. Sure, they might be struggling or impoverished, but they have that beautiful typewriter that sounds so pretty when it clickity-clacks along! And gosh does the time fly by… that novel they wrote, it only lasted for a twen...

A few hours ago, I finished writing my first novel. Just being able to write that phrase feels novel in itself, particularly after thinking about writing one for so long. And now that it’s done, I have to laugh because it was really so much easier than I ever expected.

One might think this would be because I’ve been a professional writer for so long… something about having already written a nonfiction book, short stories, plays, screenplays, speeches, and thousands of articles and blog posts....

I’ve been working on content strategy for so many years I don’t even want to acknowledge them all at this point, but along the way, I’ve developed a lot of content myself about how to work with digital media and how to assess content sharing efforts. I’ll be releasing more of that in the future.

Below I’ve listed some tips for what to do when you’re releasing new content — whether it’s a blog post, an image, a video, an audio file, or some combination. Here are the things to think about befor...

Hacking has been in the news a lot more recently; it’s been a problem for years for companies and government, but now it’s an everyday subject that impacts all of our lives — from our thermostats to the voting booths. Since I began my career working in cybersecurity (back then, it was just called computer security or network security) and have been studying this topic for many years, I can’t say I’m really surprised by anything that is happening now, but it is certainly disturbing. And as I d...

As a writer, one of the challenges that inevitably comes up at some point is whether and/or how to collaborate with others. I’ve recently had the opportunity to contribute to a few more books written and/or edited by others and it got me to thinking about the process involved. For the most part, it’s not too complicated. It’s about learning as much as you can about the other writer(s) and trusting them to produce good work.

Often opportunities will come up to co-write articles or books, and i...

Usually around this time of year, I post something about spring cleaning with your social media accounts… and it’s a topic I covered in my book, but with the news coming out about what’s been happening with Facebook user data and third parties, I thought it might be time to share a few updated thoughts on the topic.

First, a reminder — never share anything on social media that you wouldn’t be comfortable seeing in the newspaper. That’s a good gauge on whether it should be shared or not. Every...

I used to hate revising my writing. I really hated it.  Kind-of like cleaning up my room as a kid. It worked fine for me, so why did I need to fix it up more for other people?

But then something clicked. I wrote something good, and during forced revisions by a teacher, I made it even better. I started developing the habit of revising. Over and over again. It may actually have been college that did it for me. (Who knew?!) So I developed some pragmatic systems for my writing. Notes, outlines, f...