A Bit of Good News

Here's a pinpoint of light and good news on this day of days.

One of my more popular posts recently was The 18 Things I Wish I Had Known before I Went to College that was written to my little sister Cassie as she started her new life as a college student. Many of you had great thoughts to add to that list and it seemed to elicit lots of good memories of college life and how we would all be a bit wiser now if we went back to that experience.

Anyway, I submitted the piece a couple of weeks ago to BYU's campus newspaper, The Daily Universe (thanks for the nudges in that direction!) and what do you know, they accepted it.

I had to cut my word count by over half on the piece so the list is down to 11 things now and they are each short and sweet. I spend part of my work life cutting other people's word counts down so it always fun to be on the other side of that equation. When the editor first approached me about slashing the word count she was very gentle for you never know how an author will react to such a suggestion--we can be a defensive bunch! I cut it down by 600 words and then asked for her suggestions and she cut off another 400 words. I was really thrilled because she was a great editor and certainly had a talent and I benefitted from her skills.

The piece is published in today's edition of the paper. You can take a look at the links here:

For the full pdf version of the paper go here and scroll to page 3. This is what it looks like in newsprint.

For the online version, you can check it out here.

Thanks to my first and most loyal readership here. You feed my creativity and make this whole writing thing fun. And today just added to that fun.