I wouldn’t be a writer if I didn’t think stories were important. Stories have, in the past, saved my life. When I was a suicidal teenager, one of the reasons I held on was because I wanted to find out what happened next in Chris Claremont’s X-Men comics. That sounds like a joke, and maybe it is, a little bit, but not entirely. The right story at the right […]
The Stories We Tell Ourselves Read More »
I’ve been doing a deep dive into worldbuilding lately because that’s where I identified I most needed to level up. And I have so many ideas for worlds, characters, and stories that the hard part is realizing that I can’t do everything at once, and I know from experience that I can’t draft more than one book at a time. So, I used my favorite coping strategy, making a
The State of Things Read More »
I’ve refined my writing process over the years to something that works pretty well for me. I have a list of plot points and scenes because it’s important that I have some idea of where a story is going. In years past, when I did not have this, I would write myself off a cliff and never finish the project. At least four books died that way and
The Map is not the Mountain Read More »
Whenever I see a list of questions people have for working writers, ‘How do you get over writer’s block?’ is near the top. I understand why this is such a common question. A lot of people seem to deal with this issue, and until I figured out my process, it happened to me a lot. Writer’s block can be a lot of things. For me, it was happening because I
What We Talk About When We Talk About Writer’s Block Read More »
It’s been a rough couple of months. Sometimes, I have a real ‘my eyes are bigger than my stomach’ thing going on when it comes to things I want to do and accomplish. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, but it does lead me into situations where I am stressed and overwhelmed and wondering why. I read something lately, I think it was in Ali Abdal’s ‘Stress-Free Productivity,’
The Art of Winnowing Read More »
I’ve read a lot of writing craft books over the course of my life, and I thought it would be interesting to talk about my favorites. In general, I don’t like books that are very proscriptive. The ones who give you one correct path you must follow to accomplish your goal. The best ones help you think about things in new ways, and help you put your work
My Favorite Craft Books Read More »
doing another meet the cast post, this time for my paranormal Romance Novella, ‘The Soul Cages’, which happens to be on sale for 99 cents through Saturday, August 17th. So, here they are so, those are the main characters. and here’s the blurb: When Adam, a middle school teacher, meets Jeremy, a musician, sparks fly, and the feeling is definitely mutual. What Adam soon learns, however, is that Jeremy is
Meet the Cast of ‘The Soul Cages.’ Read More »
Look, I get it. The world is a shitshow right now. Or at least it feels that way to those of us who are paying attention. And there are some legit things to worry about. I don’t know what to do about any of it. I don’t know what the right choices are. I don’t know how to solve our various problems. I don’t think anyone does. All we have
Living in Interesting Times Read More »
Calm down, that’s not what I’m talking about. I don’t even watch the news (usually) Over the course of the past couple of years, I seemed to have cracked the code of productivity for myself. I was, at one point, writing 3000 words a day, four days a week. In 2022, I wrote 377,000 words of new fiction (and blog posts). Last year, I wrote 277,000, which is still respectable.
Everything is Broken Read More »
I know, I know. You hate rules. I hate rules too. Rules are stupid, can often be reductive, and are not to be trusted. But I have stumbled upon a set of rules that really helps focus me on how I want to show up in the world, how I behave and interact with people. So, maybe we shouldn’t think of these as rules, so much as principles we can