Recent Articles
How to Organize Your Ideas: Try Some Photo Boxes
Last month I talked about the importance of capturing your ideas in some way or another. I use index cards to jot down every idea that visits me, and that has worked well for me. It’s up to you how to capture them; it’s only necessary that you do. But what happens to...
The Best Practice that will Speed Up Your Writing
The most frequent concern I hear from most writers is that they don’t have adequate time to write a book. It’s hard to find the time, when you work full-time or you’re a full-time parent. There are so many demands on us every single day that it often feels like there...
A Simple Practice that Will Guarantee Better Story Ideas
One of the most common problems for writers, whether they write fiction or nonfiction, is coming up with story ideas. I meet a lot of writers who have the beginnings of a story premise, but they abandon it halfway through because they don’t really like it anymore....
On Why You Should Release Your Imperfect Product Today
One of the most challenging things a writer has to do is publish or, if you’re looking for an agent, send that email. I say challenging because we can work and work and work on our manuscript and never feel like it’s completely done. There is always something more we...
How Community Will Make You a Better Writer
Earlier in the week, I was assaulted by debilitating doubts. This is something that cycles through every writer, and I know this. I’ve spoken about this. But still, when I was faced with my latest manuscript, trying to get it ready to send to my agent, all I could...
How Knowing Yourself Can Make You a Better Writer
Last week I talked about the power of purposeful practice, and one of the most important perquisites to purposeful practice is knowing our strengths and weaknesses. While we want to practice our writing strengths, of course, to hone them into even greater strengths,...
What Happens When You Purposefully Practice Writing
Purposeful practice is a term I picked up from Anders Ericsson, who is a Swedish psychologist who has, for many years, studied expertise and human performance. He recently came out with a book called Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise, which detailed how...
Write a GREAT Book Even When Your Time is Limited
