Inspiration

What's the Worst Than Can Happen?

What’s the Worst That Can Happen? Taking Bigger Creative Risks

Fear of failure keeps a lot of writers inside the story they first imagined. Asking “what’s the worst that can…
Freedom and Focus: How Authors Can Balance Imagination and Structure

Freedom and Focus: How Authors Can Balance Imagination and Structure

Too much structure stifles ideas, and too little leaves them adrift. This article shows authors how to balance freedom and…
On grapes and raisins and wine

On Grapes and Raisins and Wine

It’s so easy to get hung up on the sorrows and struggles and frustrations and failures of a creative career:…
what may become of your art?

What May Become of Your Art?

The power of story is that it’s so much more evocative than mere dry facts—and why character is the root…
Speak and Scary. Do the Scary.

Speak the Scary. Do the Scary.

Anytime we take a risk of extending ourselves, pushing our limitations, exposing our efforts in front of others, it can…
Hope for the Holidays

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…
The Glass Is Always Full

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…
Luck and the Ladder of Life

Luck and the Ladder of Life

It’s humbling, and sometimes discouraging, to imagine that regardless of what we may put into our careers (or anything else),…
Should you write to the market?

Should You Write “to the Market”?

Knowing what you want in this business is one of the most important factors in creating a writing career that…
Tiffany Yates Martin

“Seeing Myself *Like* Myself Is Pretty Damn Good”

It’s always a little surprising when we hear that people we admire, or who have achieved success by standard metrics,…