Jennifer Brown

A few years ago, I met a writer named Marlene Chism at a Missouri Writer's Guild conference. We were both "Shameless Pitch"-ing, which basically means those who either didn't or couldn't get one-on-one pitch time with an agent had about 90 seconds to work up some nerve and pitch their book idea to a whole panel of agents (plus the other Shameless Pitchers, not to mention every other conference-goer interested in checking out the competition). No pressure there, right?

Anyway, so as I sat and listened to Marlene's pitch, I remember thinking, This will not be the last I see of this woman. In fact, the next day we sat next to one another in the Master Class and I leaned over and whispered, "Your idea is going to sell. I just know it."

So this morning I got a message that Marlene Chism has declared March "Stop Your Drama" Month. I checked out the website, but found myself thinking, Well, this doesn't really have anything to do with me. I'm not a business-owner. I'm a writer.

Hm. Weeeell... sort of.

Really, writers are business-owners, too. Even though we work solitarily and it doesn't really seem like we're running a business, we are.

So all day long I've been pondering Marlene's Stop Your Drama concept. And here's how I think it applies to writers.

If you've read Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way, you've heard of the term "crazymakers." These are the people in our lives who introduce all kinds of crazy nonsense and keep us from fulfilling our creative potential because we're so busy dealing with them.

In other words... DRAAAAAAAMA!

Lately, it seems like more and more writers are willing to denounce mean, "snarky", rude and generally icky Internet behavior, both in shock-blogs and on message boards, etc. Remember Tina Fey's "suck it" speech? (Tina rocks!)

So it probably should come as no big surprise that I'm not a big fan of negative Internet DRAMA, either. And maybe, just maybe, this is how I can participate in Stop Your Drama month... by making the small section of net that I occupy a happy, friendly place to thrive in. If I see mean, snarky DRAMA... I'll walk away. Keep the crazymakers at bay. Be more productive.

It can be nothing but good for me, and my business.