We want YOU for Optometry Times!

One of the really neat aspects about this editor’s gig is I get to see the writing of a lot of optometrists. Three and a half years in, and rarely a day goes by I don’t get an email from someone asking if he can write for the magazine.

Why, sure you can. We are one of the few optometric journals that accept unsolicited manuscripts. We’re always on the lookout for new talent. Some of my friends will tell you I even get pushy asking them all the time to write. I’m sounding like a broken record to a lot of them.

“But Ernie, what could I write about?” No doubt, this is the number-one question I hear. My answer is always the same: Write about your passion. If you’re passionate about a topic or subject, that passion will come through in your writing. You are the expert on that topic. You live it every day. You don’t need a whole bunch of letters after your name to be a good writer.

We all have life experiences we’d like to share with our colleagues. If you have a particular problem in your practice, I can guarantee you somewhere, sometime in the past another optometrist has had that exact same problem and would love to hear about your solution instead of agonizing over hers. I think of all the great things about optometry we can learn from each other, and I see this magazine as another way to disseminate information. We are a publication written by ODs for ODs. Your colleagues would like to hear from you.

“But Ernie, I'm not a very good writer.” You know, that’s OK. We’re doctors, not Faulkners nor Hemingways. (Well, except for Dr. Mike Brown. If you haven’t checked out his blog, you should.) That’s what editors are for-to help you clean up your writing. The editors I’ve been fortunate enough to work with over my career all have the singular talent of being able to make me sound a heckuva lot smarter than I actually am.

But almost as important as having a passion for your writing is being able to write on deadline. After all, publishing is a business. If you commit to write an article, the editor is holding a spot for you. It’s important that you’re able to deliver on time.

So, do you have an interesting idea for an article? Feel free to contact me. I look forward to reading about your passion.