For what I do, helping writers understand, come to terms with, and make the most of, the marketplace for travel writing today, it’s very important that I not only spend time with a diverse company of writers, to understand the issues in the industry today from many different viewpoints in terms of both background and experience, but also that I spend time with those on the other side of the desk—the editors and companies that hire writers.

I have some weeks that are heavy with both types of company. I connect with editors from outlets at the top of the reputation chain in both print and online publishing, like Food & Wine, Thrillist, Epicurious, Eater, Fine Cooking, and Penguin Random House’s Taste (yes, it was a food-themed conference if you were wondering!), as well as editors from book publishers, but also people who are at the top of the game in overarching lifestyle business fields, from the co-founder of the Edible magazines to Danny Meyer, head of the Union Square Hospitality Group, who has been involved in bringing Shake Shack, OpenTable, SweetGreens and many other major concepts to life.

He introduced the concept of hospitality as surfing, and even since I heard it, it has seriously changed my outlook on both my own business and those of the people that I coach and talk to about their writing every day, and I want to share it with you.

Surfers don’t distinguish themselves by taming waves. They don’t make a name for themselves by mastering calm water either.

Surfers need waves to do their thing. And the best, most well-known, top-awarded surfers are the ones who not only ride the waves—staying on their boards when others fall off—by doing so with style (Danny spread his arms, wiggled his fingers, and donned a mischievous grin when he said this bit).

Every week, I speak with writers about things that have come up in their writing that take up mental space, negatively impact their incomes, get them down generally, or throw their lives into complete disarray.

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Danny also says, “If you don’t like problems, don’t go into business.”

All of these set-backs are not things that get in the way of the flourishing freelance business you are trying to build. They are integral parts of the complete scope of the fabric of it.

You cannot work around them or ignore them, but only incorporate them, learning to ride the waves with your own personal stylistic flair.

Just this week, our whole Dream of Travel Writing server suddenly went down.

No matter how things are going, there will always be a new wave. It usually won’t come from where you expect or look like how you think it will look, but it always comes somehow.

But wherever we are and whatever we’re up to, we can’t wait to hear how you tackle that next wave with determination and verve.

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