If you’ve been staring at a blank screen unable to think up fresh ideas and innovative angles to pitch, a cure may be as simple as taking a hike. Exercise is scientifically proven to help you focus. And, you know, there’s that whole helps-you-live-longer thing, too.

“There’s something about getting out of my well-worn paths that helps me see things differently, so I like to hike a different spot each time so I don’t get stuck in a rut there, either,” said Denene Millner, author of 19 books, including three New York Times bestsellers. “I find exercise of some kind, even if just walking around the block, does wonders when I get too wrapped up in my head.”

Check out more tactics in How to Conquer Writer’s Burnout and Get More Creative and share your own suggestions in the comments.

This article is one of several mediabistro.com features exclusively available to AvantGuild subscribers. If you’re not a member yet, you can register for as little as $55 a year and get access to these articles, discounts on seminars and workshops, and more.

If you’ve been tasked with making a podcast for your news organization, you know how daunting the experience can be. From picking the right equipment to interviewing guests, every little piece can be the difference between thousands of subscribers or none at all.

But one of the easiest ways to get people tuning in is to let your personality shine and express an opinion.

“The Internet is a medium that rewards people who provoke a little bit,” said Matt Binder, producer of “The Majority Report with Sam Seder.” ”There’s several ways to get at the truth. One is to just give information in a slightly dry and informative, just-the-facts way. Another is to have people debating a topic, and I think that is always much more dynamic.”

For eight more ways to grab listeners’ ears, read How to Make a Podcast People Want to Subscribe To.

The worst thing a freelancer can do is mass-mail the same pitch to a bunch of magazines — and editors always know.

“I can tell the difference between a genuinely thoughtful pitch and just the mass pitch that a writer is sending everywhere,” says Jet‘s editor-in-chief Mitzi Miller. ”I’m a huge proponent of helping writers and giving people opportunities. But if you just send me whatever and it’s not very well thought-out and it makes no sense for my magazine, you’re wasting my time. And I remember that.”

So with this one opportunity to make an impression, get to the point of the story succinctly and swiftly. “Make it impossible for me to say no,” Miller stressed.

Get more details on which stories this news-based pub wants to hear in How To Pitch: Jet.

Writing a book is hard enough, but why does writing about the book you’ve written feel impossible? In mediabistro.com’s 7 Steps to a Winning Book Proposal, published authors, editors and agents spell out the necessary steps to crafting a viable and compelling query letter.

Step one, assemble the basics. Your query letter must include an overview, marketing plan, competitive book analysis, and author bio and platform, along with a table of contents, chapter summaries and a writing sample.

Bring these pieces together in an intuitive order, but don’t dwell too much on what’s the perfect arrangement. “If you’ve got the ingredients — a really fresh idea or a fresh spin on an old idea, good writing, and a platform and a promotion plan — it doesn’t make any difference what order they are in,” said Michael Larsen with Larsen-Pomada Literary Agents. “Editors can skip around, and will and do.”

Read the full article here. [subscription required]

When your writing spans more than 1,000 words, the number of publications you can pitch seems to dwindle, but Poets & Writer is seeking reflective essays and publishing industry trend pieces that reach up to 3,000 words.

With 80 percent of its editorial content generated by freelancers, the literary magazine deems itself ”writer-friendly” — with plenty of room for outside pitches. The “News & Trends” section brings up-to-date happenings of the publishing and literary community, “Literary Life” offers a home for long-form reflections on the writing process, and P&W is also  open to profiles of writers and poets whose books are about to be published.

Looking to break in? Get more guidelines in  How To Pitch: Poets & Writers.