English: Flowchart of the steps in the Scientific Method (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I don’t mind blogging for websites, but the money in magazine articles is so much better.  The competition is also stiffer.  My first publication in a magazine was just this year, and it was a 6-month long process from the time I submitted the query to when I received the paycheck. My second query to a local magazine turned up no response, even when I followed up a few weeks after submission.  Boo.  Oh well, I’m on the next. On my list of magazines to query is National Geographic, Discovery, The Scientist, American Scientist, E Magazine (again), and more local papers and magazines.

My writing strategy for queries to magazines and local papers, as well as for this blog of mine, will be to apply the scientific method and creative thought process to each question I want to answer.  The scientific method – for those who forget from junior high days – starts with asking a question, followed by background research, form a hypothesis, test the hypothesis (aka experiments, data collection, and analysis), and evaluation of the results to prove or disprove a hypothesis.  And generally, the result leads to another question, so the process repeats!

I’m calling it the creative and scientific method, aka the method.

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