Best of 2024: The Art of People Watching
As 2024 draws to a close, we’re sharing four of our most popular Monday Writing Motivation mailers from the year. This winter piece on the art of people watching showcases the kind of [...]
Moving Beyond Binary Success and Failure in Writing
Many writers find themselves trapped in binary thinking about their writing journey, measuring themselves purely in terms of success or failure, especially as the year draws to a close. In both [...]
The Writer’s Dual Consciousness: Being Both Inside and Outside Your Story
Many writers struggle with the peculiar sensation of being both participant and observer in their own stories, especially when crafting memoir or drawing from personal experience. In both this [...]
How Many Jobs Can Your Story’s Setting Do?
Stories play out in all sorts of locations. You might think of those venues for drama as a stage, where characters collide, declare their love or spit their vitriol. The stage itself seems to [...]
Mining Your Inner World to Create Characters
Creating compelling characters can feel like an impossible task, especially when writing characters whose experiences and personalities seem far removed from our own. In both this blog and my [...]
The power of ‘show, don’t tell’
Many writers struggle with the age-old advice to “show, don’t tell” in their work, often finding it challenging to strike the right balance between description and narrative. In [...]
The Art of Restraint in Writing
Do you find yourself over-explaining emotions or situations in your writing? In both this blog and my next subscriber-only Monday Writing Motivation mailer, I look into the power of restraint in [...]
How to tackle new writing challenges
Stepping out of your comfort zone as a writer can be daunting, especially when faced with a new genre or format that seems beyond your current skills. In both this blog and my next [...]
How to write more elegantly and economically
As writers, we often grapple with the balance between rich, detailed descriptions and concise, impactful prose. This week, both in this blog and my subscriber only Monday Writing Motivation [...]
The Art of Literary Models: Crafting Truth in Fiction
Ever wondered why some stories feel profoundly true, even when they’re pure fiction? Welcome to the art of literary models – where we craft universes not to predict, but to illuminate the [...]
Seven simple pointers to turbocharge your writing routine
I’ve been dabbling in a little mystery writing inspired by life in the marina – and it’s denizens. This exercise has given me renewed faith in many of the writing topics I [...]
Embracing the Void: Three Keys to Unlocking Your Creative Potential
We often fear the blank page or the empty screen. But what if I told you that this void is actually the birthplace of creativity? In our free subscriber-only Monday Writing Motivation, Go back to [...]
