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Those who venture into fiction writing often fall prey to certain avoidable, yet highly normal faux pau’s with their first book.

Many of these novels are grand experiments. Often chapters unfold without advance direction or character notebook, sometimes there is a multitude of point of view shifts and there is often a desire to try to pack as much into the story as possible.

One of the key difficulties for new novelists is to track down inconsistencies in their work. For instance if you mention that your character grew up in Ohio it is bad form to mention Chicago as their hometown later in the novel. This can be a somewhat innocuous detail in the book and most people will probably missed it, but the inconsistency is there nonetheless and may detract from the flow of the story is the reader questions the veracity of the claim.

Most authors believe that because the work is fictional the details are less important, but as an author you are creating an entire world for your readers and that world has to become as real as the world in which they live. Since novels have a unique escapist quality to them the last thing you want is to shut down your reader’s link to the book because they are stumbling over inconsistencies.

Another point where first time novelists get into trouble is the addition of gratuitous violence or other points of gratuity. The author often wrongly believes that if they can shock the reader it will cause the book to be more memorable for the reader.

Many readers simply see this as a means to mask a weak storyline. This is not to say that there is no place for violence in a novel, but it must be in context of a superior storyline - not as a means of increasing the chances that your reader will recommend the book to their friends.

Most readers see gratuitous elements in a novel for what they really are and this knowledge provides an instant ‘turn-off’ factor. If you have someone who is willing to read through your manuscript ask him or her to check for anything they consider gratuitous and any inconsistencies they may encounter.

Avoiding a couple of significant potholes on the road to publishing your first novel will provide an advantage with both publisher and reader alike.

Those who venture into fiction writing often fall prey to certain avoidable, yet highly normal faux pau’s with their first book.

Many of these novels are grand experiments. Often chapters unfold without advance direction or character notebook, sometimes there is a multitude of point of view shifts and there is often a desire to try to pack as much into the story as possible.

One of the key difficulties for new novelists is to track down inconsistencies in their work. For instance if you mention that your character grew up in Ohio it is bad form to mention Chicago as their hometown later in the novel. This can be a somewhat innocuous detail in the book and most people will probably missed it, but the inconsistency is there nonetheless and may detract from the flow of the story is the reader questions the veracity of the claim.

Most authors believe that because the work is fictional the details are less important, but as an author you are creating an entire world for your readers and that world has to become as real as the world in which they live. Since novels have a unique escapist quality to them the last thing you want is to shut down your reader’s link to the book because they are stumbling over inconsistencies.

Another point where first time novelists get into trouble is the addition of gratuitous violence or other points of gratuity. The author often wrongly believes that if they can shock the reader it will cause the book to be more memorable for the reader.

Many readers simply see this as a means to mask a weak storyline. This is not to say that there is no place for violence in a novel, but it must be in context of a superior storyline - not as a means of increasing the chances that your reader will recommend the book to their friends.

Most readers see gratuitous elements in a novel for what they really are and this knowledge provides an instant ‘turn-off’ factor. If you have someone who is willing to read through your manuscript ask him or her to check for anything they consider gratuitous and any inconsistencies they may encounter.

Avoiding a couple of significant potholes on the road to publishing your first novel will provide an advantage with both publisher and reader alike.

I had an engaging conversation recently with a friend who writes for a living as I do. One question that came up from my friend to me was, “How do you write so often and so well?” Naturally, I appreciated his question and considered it to be a compliment. Goodness knows there have been times after I wrapped up a project that I wasn’t too confident about what I had written. But, that wasn’t his question. He also wanted to know how I write so prolifically. Read on and I will share some secrets with you.

When I write articles, I try to keep in mind that some person some where will likely snag my article and repost it elsewhere. I submit my articles to select submission sites knowing that I stand the best chance of seeing my articles peppered on web sites across the World Wide Web. With that in mind, I write with all of my heart by pouring passion into every single word that I write. I also know that what I write will be critiqued by future paying customers, so no junk is acceptable by me.

Clearly, writing prolifically means sticking with the topics I am most familiar with. Fortunately, as I glide through middle age [yeah, right] I have gained a much broader selection of topics to write about. I have worked in the nonprofit sector, retail, restaurant, and aviation environments. I have worked with men and women from what seems to be every tongue, tribe, and nation on earth. I have lived side by side and attended church with people from varying financial backgrounds. What I have really gained is a rich melting pot experience which has influenced my subject reach.

Once I find something I want to write about, I simply start writing. I don’t even write out an outline as much anymore as I usually have the topic sentence, body, and the conclusion already in my head. It is simply a matter of taking each part of the article and fleshing it out. Quickly and deliberately I usually come away with something that is concise, informative, and persuasive. Typically, I only need to partially rewrite any article once, making slight grammatical corrections and changing words or sentence structure as needed. No dilly dallying…I get right to the point.

Because I am regularly in the mood to write, this means I do my writing on a consistent basis. Because I write on a consistent basis, I gain consistently good results. Like a pianist, if I do not practice, practice, practice I will lose my edge and, thus, my delivery. Better to keep at something all the time then to rest too long and lose my spark. Consistent writing is profitable to me as it is to my clients who benefit the most from all of my hard work.

Is it better to participate in content writing or write for magazine publication?

The above question is actually multifaceted and can help you determine the overall thrust of your freelance writing career.

It has been estimated that a writer will need to pen a million words before a publisher is likely to accept their first work. That means a lot of rejection slips.

So, does that imply that content writing is preferred to the crafting of a book or magazine article?

Well not exactly. Content writing is a means of addressing a short-term need. If the immediate need is cash, then content writing might provide the answer. However, if you are looking for a means of affecting long-term royalty payments or a greater flexibility in the ownership of your material you may look at other publishing options.

When you agree to write content for a client you are essentially providing a service for hire. Once you release the article or story to the client and they reciprocate with a payment you have no further interest in the article. You can’t use it again and you will gain no further payment for its ongoing use.

When you write a story for potential use in a book anthology, or a full manuscript for publication, you may have a variety of rights to consider.

If you are the author of a story, you can negotiate with a publisher for the rights you are willing to provide. You could provide First North American Rights, which would allow you to resell the story in the future as a second right, but you would also have the capability of selling first rights to someone else on an international basis. Nonexclusive rights allow you to continue selling the material with the same rights to as many publishers as are interested.

As we venture back to the original question it is important to understand that freelanced writing can and should be a balanced approach to writing. If it takes you a million words before you find publishing success why not make some of those words available to a paying content market to provide some skills-based writing while you work on other projects that are more personal and may have the potential to provide long-term residual payments.

A writer should always find time to write about the things they are passionate about, however the service of content writing provides a means of gaining some writing income while learning new skills and writing techniques while you are waiting for a publisher’s acceptance letter.

Is it better to participate in content writing or write for magazine publication?

The above question is actually multifaceted and can help you determine the overall thrust of your freelance writing career.

It has been estimated that a writer will need to pen a million words before a publisher is likely to accept their first work. That means a lot of rejection slips.

So, does that imply that content writing is preferred to the crafting of a book or magazine article?

Well not exactly. Content writing is a means of addressing a short-term need. If the immediate need is cash, then content writing might provide the answer. However, if you are looking for a means of affecting long-term royalty payments or a greater flexibility in the ownership of your material you may look at other publishing options.

When you agree to write content for a client you are essentially providing a service for hire. Once you release the article or story to the client and they reciprocate with a payment you have no further interest in the article. You can’t use it again and you will gain no further payment for its ongoing use.

When you write a story for potential use in a book anthology, or a full manuscript for publication, you may have a variety of rights to consider.

If you are the author of a story, you can negotiate with a publisher for the rights you are willing to provide. You could provide First North American Rights, which would allow you to resell the story in the future as a second right, but you would also have the capability of selling first rights to someone else on an international basis. Nonexclusive rights allow you to continue selling the material with the same rights to as many publishers as are interested.

As we venture back to the original question it is important to understand that freelanced writing can and should be a balanced approach to writing. If it takes you a million words before you find publishing success why not make some of those words available to a paying content market to provide some skills-based writing while you work on other projects that are more personal and may have the potential to provide long-term residual payments.

A writer should always find time to write about the things they are passionate about, however the service of content writing provides a means of gaining some writing income while learning new skills and writing techniques while you are waiting for a publisher’s acceptance letter.

I had no idea that my work on a motion picture would cause a high-profile death penalty case to end up with the California Supreme Court. Jesse James Hollywood had been gone for nearly three years by the time I became involved. He had totally disappeared. Vanished into thin air. And he seemed so completely removed from the writing project I was about to begin.

The FBI and other federal and local law enforcement authorities trails had all but dried up. That’s why the prosecutor assigned to the case, Santa Barbara County Senior Deputy District Attorney Ron Zonen, who had also prosecuted Hollywood’s four co-defendants &ndash and a guy named Michael Jackson &ndash agreed to work with us. Mr. Zonen had wanted to create a sort of global wanted poster to see if someone somewhere in the world might be able to ID Hollywood, pick up the phone, and help global law enforcement authorities nab him. Zonen had already worked with the producers from the television show America’s Most Wanted, who featured the fugitive on nine of its shows between 2000 and 2003, and he wanted his man, badly.

Hollywood’s name had become daily fodder for national headlines after word of the murder originally hit in early August of 2000. All the news pundits had named him as the ringleader of a band of middleclass, pot-selling social misfits, and the one responsible for orchestrating the fifteen-year-old’s kidnapping and murder. But no one apparently had a clue as to where he had disappeared to when I took the call from an old buddy who wanted to make a motion picture about the youngest man ever on the FBI’s Most Wanted List.

In April of 2003, writer/director Nick Cassavetes and I trekked up north to meet with Mr. Zonen at the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s office. Ronald J. Zonen had been Chief Trial Deputy for the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s office since 1991. He was an affable man with a smooth demeanor and when we were finished, he gave us several volumes of trial transcripts from Hollywood’s co-defendants, and we left. At the time, Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey McGuire were set to produce Alpha Dog, and I had no idea that I’d end up writing a highly controversial novel based on the tragic story, or that I’d end up being a crusader in the battle to save Mr. Hollywood’s life. I was also not prescient enough to envision DiCaprio or McGuire falling off the project, nor Justin Timberlake, Bruce Willis, Sharon Stone, Anton Yelchin, Emile Hirsch, or Ben Foster climbing on.

After reading through the transcripts that Mr. Zonen had provided, plus others from Hollywood’s co-defendants’ trials and appeals, I realized we did not have enough information to write a truthful story about what had actually taken place. I talked this over with Cassavetes, and we agreed that I should go back to Santa Barbara to get more information from Mr. Zonen. We needed more detail and deeper insight into character and motivation for story purposes. We needed police reports, photographs, witness interviews and much more. And amazingly, we got them. I got Mr. Zonen’s entire file from prosecuting Hollywood’s four co-defendants, including copies of all the videos and audiotapes, the defendants’ confessions, the prosecutor’s trial notebook, the defendants’ psychological records and probation reports, and more. I also arranged to have Mr. Zonen &ndash along with the lead detective working the case &ndash take us up to Lizard’s Mouth, a trailhead located atop the mountains separating Santa Barbara and the Santa Ynez Valley, to discuss the murder with us at the very spot where the victim’s body had been discovered in a shallow grave some three years earlier.

This combined with all the information accrued from the interviews Cassavetes and I had conducted enabled me to prepare a 239-page story chronology that I used to help Nick write his screenplay. He went on to direct Alpha Dog and I set out to write my book. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, in March of 2005, after one of the greatest international manhunts in history, Jesse James Hollywood was captured in a Brazilian jungle, and I was about to be thrust into the legal hot seat.

James Blatt is one of America’s most astute criminal defense attorneys. He dresses like a zillion bucks and wears the disarming smile of a ruthless professional. After Jesse Hollywood’s capture, his father, Jack, who was a consultant on Alpha Dog, told Mr. Blatt about all the information I had gathered for the film and book projects; how I had become the world’s leading authority on the case. He thought I might be able to aid Mr. Blatt in trying to save his son’s life. When we met, Blatt questioned me about all the information I had gathered. By the time the meeting ended, the defense attorney appeared quite impressed with what he had heard. Later that summer, he asked me to testify in his client’s death penalty case. He wanted to build a record of all informational exchanges between Mr. Zonen and myself. He wanted to recuse the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s office for prosecutorial misconduct for having turned over their file to me.

The only problem with this strategy was that my testimony was needed to do it. Since I was the only one to repeatedly meet with Mr. Zonen, I was the only one who could testify as to what he had given me. I found myself caught in a “Sophie’s Choice” type situation. If I testified, I could help save Jesse James Hollywood from death row. But at the same time, my testimony could be used as the cornerstone for criminal prosecution against Mr. Zonen and his office for what Mr. Blatt termed “illegal misconduct.” Since I’m totally against bringing death to any living being, I wanted to help Mr. Blatt save his client’s life. But on the other hand, Mr. Zonen had been very good to me. He had been totally cooperative in providing us with material for the movie and book. As conflicted as I felt, as much as I wanted to help save Jack Hollywood’s son’s life, I could not be responsible for bringing criminal charges against a man I considered a good friend. So I refused to testify. Ultimately, the California Attorney General agreed not to pursue criminal charges against Mr. Zonen or the DA’s office, and I reversed my position and agreed to testify.

In September 2005, Hollywood’s attorney filed a motion to recuse the entire District Attorney’s office. In support of the motion, Mr. Blatt declared that he had attended “the first and only public screening to date” of Alpha Dog, and that the film portrayed his client “in an extremely inflammatory manner, as extremely manipulative, vicious, selfish, and without any redeeming character traits whatsoever.” He further stated that several of the public movie viewers had described his client as being nothing short of a “monster,” and that at the conclusion of the film, special thanks were given to the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department and to Ron Zonen.

The trial court denied Hollywood’s motion, but ended up ordering me to turn over the notes and tapes from all the interviews I conducted. The defense then appealed the case. In its wisdom, the California Court of Appeal agreed with the defense and, after an evidentiary hearing by the trial court, recused Zonen (but not his entire office) from the case. In his concurring opinion, Justice Gilbert succinctly noted: “However appalling the crime for which defendant was charged, he, like anyone charged with a criminal offense, is entitled to a fair trial with all its attendant constitutional and statutory safeguards.” In this case, the prosecution had fallen short of this requirement.

Every high-profile case carries with it the risk of the prosecutor falling into the trap of cozying up too much with the media. Prosecutors, as well as other law enforcement agencies, often find themselves playing up to the media as if there are two trials to win &ndash the one in the courtroom as well as the one with the court of public opinion. When handling high-profile cases, prosecutors must take to heart the conflict of interest they create when buddying up to the media. They can easily become lost in the quest for personal glory or profit. This appeared to be what happened with the case involving the Duke lacrosse team, where the DA’s pretrial contacts with the media raised questions about his ability to handle the matter fairly, resulting in his recusal. There were similar complaints regarding the prosecution of the Jenna 6 case out of Louisiana.

Prosecutors do not represent clients. Rather, all decisions made in their cases are supposed to center around the best interests of the public. And part of these considerations must be to act responsibly when interacting with the media. There are certain guidelines they must follow to make sure their statements (and actions) do not materially prejudice a legal proceeding. According to the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, prosecutors must make sure their comments do not have a “substantial likelihood of heightened public condemnation of the accused.” They must also be sure to prevent “investigators, law enforcement personnel” and other employees or persons assisting from making such statements to the media.

Prosecutors do, in the alternative, have certain First Amendment rights. However, again, those rights do not go unlimited when dealing with the media in a high-profile case. The prosecutor must still be responsible for pursuing a just result. He or she must act in a manner that puts the public’s interest above that of the individual prosecutor. Thus, their goal must be to make sure that justice is done in all instances, not that they win the case.

In the Hollywood matter, I was afraid that the Santa Barbara District Attorney’s office had lost sight of their responsibilities. They had continuously misrepresented the true facts and the motivations involved in the case to the media, and they seemed totally bent upon demonizing Hollywood and his co-defendants. For all intents and purposes, Hollywood, during his nearly five years of being at large, had been convicted in absentia. I believed there to be no way for him to receive a fair trial. Public sentiment wanted him dead for what they believed he had done. And this was due to the way the prosecutor and associated law enforcement agencies had dealt with the media. They acted as though their only goals were to assure that Jesse James Hollywood was not only captured, but that the public was set up to convict him and sentence him to death. True justice did not seem to be a part of their plan. I felt it my moral responsibility as a fellow human being to do what I could to make sure this did not happen.

I had an engaging conversation recently with a friend who writes for a living as I do. One question that came up from my friend to me was, “How do you write so often and so well?” Naturally, I appreciated his question and considered it to be a compliment. Goodness knows there have been times after I wrapped up a project that I wasn’t too confident about what I had written. But, that wasn’t his question. He also wanted to know how I write so prolifically. Read on and I will share some secrets with you.

When I write articles, I try to keep in mind that some person some where will likely snag my article and repost it elsewhere. I submit my articles to select submission sites knowing that I stand the best chance of seeing my articles peppered on web sites across the World Wide Web. With that in mind, I write with all of my heart by pouring passion into every single word that I write. I also know that what I write will be critiqued by future paying customers, so no junk is acceptable by me.

Clearly, writing prolifically means sticking with the topics I am most familiar with. Fortunately, as I glide through middle age [yeah, right] I have gained a much broader selection of topics to write about. I have worked in the nonprofit sector, retail, restaurant, and aviation environments. I have worked with men and women from what seems to be every tongue, tribe, and nation on earth. I have lived side by side and attended church with people from varying financial backgrounds. What I have really gained is a rich melting pot experience which has influenced my subject reach.

Once I find something I want to write about, I simply start writing. I don’t even write out an outline as much anymore as I usually have the topic sentence, body, and the conclusion already in my head. It is simply a matter of taking each part of the article and fleshing it out. Quickly and deliberately I usually come away with something that is concise, informative, and persuasive. Typically, I only need to partially rewrite any article once, making slight grammatical corrections and changing words or sentence structure as needed. No dilly dallying…I get right to the point.

Because I am regularly in the mood to write, this means I do my writing on a consistent basis. Because I write on a consistent basis, I gain consistently good results. Like a pianist, if I do not practice, practice, practice I will lose my edge and, thus, my delivery. Better to keep at something all the time then to rest too long and lose my spark. Consistent writing is profitable to me as it is to my clients who benefit the most from all of my hard work.

I had no idea that my work on a motion picture would cause a high-profile death penalty case to end up with the California Supreme Court. Jesse James Hollywood had been gone for nearly three years by the time I became involved. He had totally disappeared. Vanished into thin air. And he seemed so completely removed from the writing project I was about to begin.

The FBI and other federal and local law enforcement authorities trails had all but dried up. That’s why the prosecutor assigned to the case, Santa Barbara County Senior Deputy District Attorney Ron Zonen, who had also prosecuted Hollywood’s four co-defendants &ndash and a guy named Michael Jackson &ndash agreed to work with us. Mr. Zonen had wanted to create a sort of global wanted poster to see if someone somewhere in the world might be able to ID Hollywood, pick up the phone, and help global law enforcement authorities nab him. Zonen had already worked with the producers from the television show America’s Most Wanted, who featured the fugitive on nine of its shows between 2000 and 2003, and he wanted his man, badly.

Hollywood’s name had become daily fodder for national headlines after word of the murder originally hit in early August of 2000. All the news pundits had named him as the ringleader of a band of middleclass, pot-selling social misfits, and the one responsible for orchestrating the fifteen-year-old’s kidnapping and murder. But no one apparently had a clue as to where he had disappeared to when I took the call from an old buddy who wanted to make a motion picture about the youngest man ever on the FBI’s Most Wanted List.

In April of 2003, writer/director Nick Cassavetes and I trekked up north to meet with Mr. Zonen at the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s office. Ronald J. Zonen had been Chief Trial Deputy for the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s office since 1991. He was an affable man with a smooth demeanor and when we were finished, he gave us several volumes of trial transcripts from Hollywood’s co-defendants, and we left. At the time, Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey McGuire were set to produce Alpha Dog, and I had no idea that I’d end up writing a highly controversial novel based on the tragic story, or that I’d end up being a crusader in the battle to save Mr. Hollywood’s life. I was also not prescient enough to envision DiCaprio or McGuire falling off the project, nor Justin Timberlake, Bruce Willis, Sharon Stone, Anton Yelchin, Emile Hirsch, or Ben Foster climbing on.

After reading through the transcripts that Mr. Zonen had provided, plus others from Hollywood’s co-defendants’ trials and appeals, I realized we did not have enough information to write a truthful story about what had actually taken place. I talked this over with Cassavetes, and we agreed that I should go back to Santa Barbara to get more information from Mr. Zonen. We needed more detail and deeper insight into character and motivation for story purposes. We needed police reports, photographs, witness interviews and much more. And amazingly, we got them. I got Mr. Zonen’s entire file from prosecuting Hollywood’s four co-defendants, including copies of all the videos and audiotapes, the defendants’ confessions, the prosecutor’s trial notebook, the defendants’ psychological records and probation reports, and more. I also arranged to have Mr. Zonen &ndash along with the lead detective working the case &ndash take us up to Lizard’s Mouth, a trailhead located atop the mountains separating Santa Barbara and the Santa Ynez Valley, to discuss the murder with us at the very spot where the victim’s body had been discovered in a shallow grave some three years earlier.

This combined with all the information accrued from the interviews Cassavetes and I had conducted enabled me to prepare a 239-page story chronology that I used to help Nick write his screenplay. He went on to direct Alpha Dog and I set out to write my book. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, in March of 2005, after one of the greatest international manhunts in history, Jesse James Hollywood was captured in a Brazilian jungle, and I was about to be thrust into the legal hot seat.

James Blatt is one of America’s most astute criminal defense attorneys. He dresses like a zillion bucks and wears the disarming smile of a ruthless professional. After Jesse Hollywood’s capture, his father, Jack, who was a consultant on Alpha Dog, told Mr. Blatt about all the information I had gathered for the film and book projects; how I had become the world’s leading authority on the case. He thought I might be able to aid Mr. Blatt in trying to save his son’s life. When we met, Blatt questioned me about all the information I had gathered. By the time the meeting ended, the defense attorney appeared quite impressed with what he had heard. Later that summer, he asked me to testify in his client’s death penalty case. He wanted to build a record of all informational exchanges between Mr. Zonen and myself. He wanted to recuse the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s office for prosecutorial misconduct for having turned over their file to me.

The only problem with this strategy was that my testimony was needed to do it. Since I was the only one to repeatedly meet with Mr. Zonen, I was the only one who could testify as to what he had given me. I found myself caught in a “Sophie’s Choice” type situation. If I testified, I could help save Jesse James Hollywood from death row. But at the same time, my testimony could be used as the cornerstone for criminal prosecution against Mr. Zonen and his office for what Mr. Blatt termed “illegal misconduct.” Since I’m totally against bringing death to any living being, I wanted to help Mr. Blatt save his client’s life. But on the other hand, Mr. Zonen had been very good to me. He had been totally cooperative in providing us with material for the movie and book. As conflicted as I felt, as much as I wanted to help save Jack Hollywood’s son’s life, I could not be responsible for bringing criminal charges against a man I considered a good friend. So I refused to testify. Ultimately, the California Attorney General agreed not to pursue criminal charges against Mr. Zonen or the DA’s office, and I reversed my position and agreed to testify.

In September 2005, Hollywood’s attorney filed a motion to recuse the entire District Attorney’s office. In support of the motion, Mr. Blatt declared that he had attended “the first and only public screening to date” of Alpha Dog, and that the film portrayed his client “in an extremely inflammatory manner, as extremely manipulative, vicious, selfish, and without any redeeming character traits whatsoever.” He further stated that several of the public movie viewers had described his client as being nothing short of a “monster,” and that at the conclusion of the film, special thanks were given to the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department and to Ron Zonen.

The trial court denied Hollywood’s motion, but ended up ordering me to turn over the notes and tapes from all the interviews I conducted. The defense then appealed the case. In its wisdom, the California Court of Appeal agreed with the defense and, after an evidentiary hearing by the trial court, recused Zonen (but not his entire office) from the case. In his concurring opinion, Justice Gilbert succinctly noted: “However appalling the crime for which defendant was charged, he, like anyone charged with a criminal offense, is entitled to a fair trial with all its attendant constitutional and statutory safeguards.” In this case, the prosecution had fallen short of this requirement.

Every high-profile case carries with it the risk of the prosecutor falling into the trap of cozying up too much with the media. Prosecutors, as well as other law enforcement agencies, often find themselves playing up to the media as if there are two trials to win &ndash the one in the courtroom as well as the one with the court of public opinion. When handling high-profile cases, prosecutors must take to heart the conflict of interest they create when buddying up to the media. They can easily become lost in the quest for personal glory or profit. This appeared to be what happened with the case involving the Duke lacrosse team, where the DA’s pretrial contacts with the media raised questions about his ability to handle the matter fairly, resulting in his recusal. There were similar complaints regarding the prosecution of the Jenna 6 case out of Louisiana.

Prosecutors do not represent clients. Rather, all decisions made in their cases are supposed to center around the best interests of the public. And part of these considerations must be to act responsibly when interacting with the media. There are certain guidelines they must follow to make sure their statements (and actions) do not materially prejudice a legal proceeding. According to the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, prosecutors must make sure their comments do not have a “substantial likelihood of heightened public condemnation of the accused.” They must also be sure to prevent “investigators, law enforcement personnel” and other employees or persons assisting from making such statements to the media.

Prosecutors do, in the alternative, have certain First Amendment rights. However, again, those rights do not go unlimited when dealing with the media in a high-profile case. The prosecutor must still be responsible for pursuing a just result. He or she must act in a manner that puts the public’s interest above that of the individual prosecutor. Thus, their goal must be to make sure that justice is done in all instances, not that they win the case.

In the Hollywood matter, I was afraid that the Santa Barbara District Attorney’s office had lost sight of their responsibilities. They had continuously misrepresented the true facts and the motivations involved in the case to the media, and they seemed totally bent upon demonizing Hollywood and his co-defendants. For all intents and purposes, Hollywood, during his nearly five years of being at large, had been convicted in absentia. I believed there to be no way for him to receive a fair trial. Public sentiment wanted him dead for what they believed he had done. And this was due to the way the prosecutor and associated law enforcement agencies had dealt with the media. They acted as though their only goals were to assure that Jesse James Hollywood was not only captured, but that the public was set up to convict him and sentence him to death. True justice did not seem to be a part of their plan. I felt it my moral responsibility as a fellow human being to do what I could to make sure this did not happen.

Few people understand the importance of a ROUTINE when making a pittance…er, I meant a living…as a writer. Where do you work? How do you work? When do you work? These are all questions a selling writer fields with every interview.

Here is the usual answer: I work wherever I am, as diligently as possible, as often as possible. This is my job and I must treat it as such or I will end up eating Oreos while watching Gilmore Girls.

Here is the real answer: Whenever I can’t think of something else to do…including watching Gilmore Girls.

Therefore, in order to write, I must create a routine&ndashaka, RUT&ndashso deep, so intractable, so unforgiving that I have no choice but to write. Sucks, but it’s true. No one (except maybe people whom I despise) actually LOVE writing. I love thinking about writing. I love having written. But the act of putting words to paper is a royal pain in the butt.

Therefore, I must create an environment where a royal pain in the butt is BETTER than the alternatives. In this way, writing is much like exercise. I mean I like the results, but do I really want to lift weights or run on a treadmill? Do I really want to find a new ways to write perky, kick-butt or find the right dialogue for scary villain guy? Heck, no. But I don’t get paid unless I write.

It takes three weeks to establish a habit. Therefore, the initial creation of aforementioned RUT begins with SET A DAILY TIME to create the groove. Write at the same time every day for three weeks. Could be for twenty minutes, could be for ten hours&ndashwhatever works for you.

Though I should say RUTS are really hard to create for ten hours. That’d be like waking up one day and saying, it’s time to run a 10k or put a wall around China. Possible, but do you really want to do that? Every day for three weeks?

Step two is to CREATE A DAILY GOAL. I choose a page count goal. I don’t get to nap or get a pedicure until I’ve written seven pages. One book it took me four months to have enough time for that spa visit. By the way, I recommend starting with a small daily goal then adding up. That’s much better than the way I did it of counting how many pages I need to write daily to make my contract. Panic also works wonders as an incentive, but I digress.

Many people set a timer for their daily goal&ndash30 minutes, two hours, whatever. Unfortunately, I’ve found that a timer only times the moments when I sit in my chair. It doesn’t actually encourage written pages because there’s lovely distractions like e-mail and internet blogs. And that leads to the next step.

Step 3 &ndash REMOVE DISTRACTIONS. I write in certain cafes specifically because they don’t have internet. I know people who have taken all games off their computer. Gasp! The alternative to this is to CREATE INCENTIVES. Bribery is alive and well in my rut-creation world. Finish two pages and then get CHOCOLATE! Whatever it takes. You may not be able to fit your hips into the author photo, but heck you’ll have published books that contain a lovely head shot!

Then finally&ndashCREATE A TRIGGER. You know that fabulous moment when the words flow and everything is right with your creative world? Well, me neither, but I swear we can prepare for those moments by creating a unique trigger to reinforce a writing zone. Scent is a powerful tool. During your three weeks, burn a beeswax candle.

Pretty soon, smelling beeswax will leap you into the creative zone. Not a candle fan or afraid you’ll accidentally set a contract on fire? Coffee works fabulous for me. Smell coffee, engage brain. Taste a soy latte&ndashyes, I really do drink those&ndashit’s time for serious writing! This works in the reverse, too. Taste Oreo? Get ready for Gilmore Girls. Feel sexy lingerie…well, you get the idea.

The ugly fact is that a writer’s life must be filled with self-discipline. If you’re short on that, then either give up on having a paying career as a writer or find a way to mire yourself deep in the writing rut. And who knows, sniff some caffeine and you might just end up on the best seller’s list.

Few people understand the importance of a ROUTINE when making a pittance…er, I meant a living…as a writer. Where do you work? How do you work? When do you work? These are all questions a selling writer fields with every interview.

Here is the usual answer: I work wherever I am, as diligently as possible, as often as possible. This is my job and I must treat it as such or I will end up eating Oreos while watching Gilmore Girls.

Here is the real answer: Whenever I can’t think of something else to do…including watching Gilmore Girls.

Therefore, in order to write, I must create a routine&ndashaka, RUT&ndashso deep, so intractable, so unforgiving that I have no choice but to write. Sucks, but it’s true. No one (except maybe people whom I despise) actually LOVE writing. I love thinking about writing. I love having written. But the act of putting words to paper is a royal pain in the butt.

Therefore, I must create an environment where a royal pain in the butt is BETTER than the alternatives. In this way, writing is much like exercise. I mean I like the results, but do I really want to lift weights or run on a treadmill? Do I really want to find a new ways to write perky, kick-butt or find the right dialogue for scary villain guy? Heck, no. But I don’t get paid unless I write.

It takes three weeks to establish a habit. Therefore, the initial creation of aforementioned RUT begins with SET A DAILY TIME to create the groove. Write at the same time every day for three weeks. Could be for twenty minutes, could be for ten hours&ndashwhatever works for you.

Though I should say RUTS are really hard to create for ten hours. That’d be like waking up one day and saying, it’s time to run a 10k or put a wall around China. Possible, but do you really want to do that? Every day for three weeks?

Step two is to CREATE A DAILY GOAL. I choose a page count goal. I don’t get to nap or get a pedicure until I’ve written seven pages. One book it took me four months to have enough time for that spa visit. By the way, I recommend starting with a small daily goal then adding up. That’s much better than the way I did it of counting how many pages I need to write daily to make my contract. Panic also works wonders as an incentive, but I digress.

Many people set a timer for their daily goal&ndash30 minutes, two hours, whatever. Unfortunately, I’ve found that a timer only times the moments when I sit in my chair. It doesn’t actually encourage written pages because there’s lovely distractions like e-mail and internet blogs. And that leads to the next step.

Step 3 &ndash REMOVE DISTRACTIONS. I write in certain cafes specifically because they don’t have internet. I know people who have taken all games off their computer. Gasp! The alternative to this is to CREATE INCENTIVES. Bribery is alive and well in my rut-creation world. Finish two pages and then get CHOCOLATE! Whatever it takes. You may not be able to fit your hips into the author photo, but heck you’ll have published books that contain a lovely head shot!

Then finally&ndashCREATE A TRIGGER. You know that fabulous moment when the words flow and everything is right with your creative world? Well, me neither, but I swear we can prepare for those moments by creating a unique trigger to reinforce a writing zone. Scent is a powerful tool. During your three weeks, burn a beeswax candle.

Pretty soon, smelling beeswax will leap you into the creative zone. Not a candle fan or afraid you’ll accidentally set a contract on fire? Coffee works fabulous for me. Smell coffee, engage brain. Taste a soy latte&ndashyes, I really do drink those&ndashit’s time for serious writing! This works in the reverse, too. Taste Oreo? Get ready for Gilmore Girls. Feel sexy lingerie…well, you get the idea.

The ugly fact is that a writer’s life must be filled with self-discipline. If you’re short on that, then either give up on having a paying career as a writer or find a way to mire yourself deep in the writing rut. And who knows, sniff some caffeine and you might just end up on the best seller’s list.