Writers: Dissect Your DNFs
It’s tempting, with a DNF, to simply close the book and move along to the next one in your TBR…
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The Art of Seeing Others Deeply
Not long ago I read David Brooks’s book How to Know a Person, and much of it is based on…
What’s the Point?
One of the things that has been striking me lately is that regardless of your ideological or political beliefs, it…
Deepen Character Goal and Motivation: The Longing and the Lack
Figuring out why your characters do what they do can be some of the hardest work of writing, and a…
Deadlines, Expectations, and Reaching Beyond Your Grasp
As creatives pursuing a career in publishing, we are all essentially freelance entrepreneurs—meaning it’s up to us to create frameworks…
Plan to Build Your Writing Career
If you hope to write professionally and create a career from your creative efforts—whether it serves as your sole income…
Hope for the Holidays
Writers and other artists seem to me to be the purveyors of hope. That’s what art so often is. The…
Fixing Flat Characters and Flat Stories
It’s tempting to think in terms of good or bad, clear-cut categorizations and blanket judgments; it’s tidy and orderly and…
When Should You Hire an Editor?
If you’d like to receive my blog in your in-box each week, click here. Editors have a few inside jokes that…
Cohesion: The Key to Powerful Story
A key issue I often see in stories that aren’t quite working as well as they could is that no…
The Glass Is Always Full
This holiday that inspires reflection on what we are grateful for always makes me think of an exchange my husband…
How to Cook Up Original Stories
I’ve never really developed cooking and baking as significant hobbies, despite my enjoyment of these crafts, because I’m mediocre at…