When you write primarily from home, it can be difficult to prioritize your writing amid the hustle and bustle of everything else that happens there — laundry, dishes, noisy roommates, noisy spouses, high-maintenance pets, high-maintenance kiddos, and maybe even your day job. If these distractions — or any others — make it difficult for you to write from home effectively, try these five strategies to ramp up your productivity.
Read moreHow to Keep a Writer’s Notebook When You Don’t Know What to Write
This approach to keeping a writer’s notebook is WIP agnostic. You can use it if you’re working on a novel but prefer to keep it online or in some other system. And you can use it even — especially — if you don’t have a current work-in-progress, whether you’re taking a breather between projects or you’ve been in a creative rut for months.
Read moreSeeking Beta Readers for Guided Character Development Workbook
I’m searching for beta readers for my upcoming character development workbook!
Read more3 Writing Prompts for Character Development
I challenge you to approach your usual prompts and exercises as targeted efforts to make progress on your story. Starting with these three writing prompts designed to drive character development.
Read moreWriting In Layers: Why It’s Okay for Your First Draft to Be Full of Holes
Next time you hit a wall in your work in progress, just hop over it. Leave yourself a little placeholder for your next pass, and keep moving forward to get that story down on the page.
Read moreWhat to Do With Manuscript Feedback
You’ve sent your work off to critique partners, beta readers, or a developmental editor, and now you’re staring at a pile of feedback, wondering how, exactly, to approach it.
Read moreWriting Prompt for World Building: Hammurabi’s Code
No matter how fantastical or how realistic, every fictional world has its own set of rules characters must follow.
Read moreA Little Too Convenient? Managing Coincidence in Fiction
Sometimes we just need a little help from fate to see our stories all the way through. And that’s ok. But there are more effective ways to set up those coincidences than dropping them in right at the critical moment.
Read moreWhat Is a Book Editor’s Job?
I break down what it is, exactly, that book editors do and do not do for our clients.
Read moreWhy Books on Writing Can Be Your Best Tools or Your Biggest Obstacles
“If one would employ a book such as this most usefully, let him determine to begin writing immediately.” - Samuel Selden, An Introduction to Playwriting
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