How many times have you stared endlessly at a single word on the page, thinking, It’s close, but it’s just not the RIGHT word. Then you mosey on over to Thesaurus.com, (or if you’re old school, break out an actual thesaurus), search for synonyms of the word only to find that NONE of them are the right word either?  … Read more

I’ve been using the Save the Cat! methodology to structure and plot my stories for more than ten years and  17 novels now. I even wrote a book on this very topic and created a Save the Cat! companion course. And yet every day, I feel like I’m still learning and expanding my knowledge about  … Read more

If you have a chapter that’s feeling a bit…well, meh. Try out this Writing Mastery hack! One of the best ways I’ve found to quickly power punch up a scene is to use a tactic I like to call… Hiding the Ball Basically it breaks down to this: Don’t give your reader EVERYTHING they need  … Read more

Stories are made inside our heads. Worlds are built, characters are born and die, universes are constructed. And yet, sometimes our silent brain space fails us. Sometimes, we get stuck and just can’t think our way out of a problem. Here’s a simple yet effective hack to help you deal with writer’s block and get  … Read more

Have you ever found yourself staring down a page or chapter in your revision, knowing you have to cut or rewrite major chunks of text, and thinking, “I DON’T WANNA DO IT!” Or maybe you say to yourself, something along the lines of, “But I love that passage! It’s some of my best work!” But we all  … Read more

When I speak to writers–professionals and beginners alike–there seems to be a LOT of worry out there about being a “good” writer. Imagine that! Apparently a lot of us writers out there want to write WELL. The nerve! Consequently, I also get a lot of questions along the lines of, “how do I stay motivated  … Read more

Desperately in need of a good title for your book, screenplay, paper, article, or short story? Yeah, been there. I find that, for me, titles either come right at the very beginning (along with the idea) or not until the very last minute (i.e. the book is about to be printed and my editor is  … Read more

So, there you are. You’re writing like the wind. Things are going well. Words are flowing. The story is epic. The dialogue is snappy. And then SCREECH! You suddenly slam on the brakes because, wait a second, something is wrong. Everything you thought was going to work suddenly just…doesn’t.  Why??? YOU HAVE NO IDEA! Uh-oh. This is  … Read more

Not all scenes or chapters come to us fully formed, with witty dialogue, striking metaphors, beautiful prose, and perfect structure. Wouldn’t that be nice? For me, more often than not, scenes come to me in chunky, choppy bits and pieces. A dialogue exchange here, a nice description there, a sentence or two about how the  … Read more

You can’t become a concert pianist practicing only once a week. Just like you can’t become a proficient writer writing only once a week.   Those of you who have taken my online Productivity Hacks course know that I’m a big fan of setting up a writing routine. If there’s one piece of writing advice that  … Read more

  Let’s face it, our characters are our babies. We birth them. We raise them. We sometimes even instill them with a few of our ticks and personality traits. That’s why it’s perfectly natural for us to want them to go out in the world and do nothing but succeed, just as we would with  … Read more

Inspiration is a wonderful, magical, coveted thing. Don’t we all wish that we could wake up every morning feeling inspired to write? Don’t we wish that every time we sat down in front of our computers, we had to fight to keep up with the words flowing out of us? But we all know that’s  … Read more

I’m currently reading and absolutely loving BIG MAGIC by Elizabeth Gilbert. I’m always dazzled by her books, but this one especially is resonating with me. I love the way she demystifies the mysteries of the creative process while at the same time paying homage to them and embracing the fact that sometimes the art of  … Read more