Setting as character: how to make the place your story is set in come alive.
Craft of Writing
‘Writers Write. Always.’ But Do They Read?
Reading novels—lots and lots of them—can help us strengthen our own manuscripts in the editing stages.
Rock Stars and Writers: How Our Hometowns Shape Us
Your intimate knowledge of your hometown can help you create new settings for your novels.
Contraction Disease Reaches Epidemic Levels in U.S.
Have you caught the contraction disease? Watch out. It’s going around.
3 Editors Walk into a Bar
It can be tricky to edit your own writing, but when you master it, you will have kicked the quality of your blog posts up at least ten notches.
How to Use Mind Maps to Create Richer, More Complex Characters
Use mind mapping to understand your characters better.
Pencils, Pens and Writing from the Heart: The Beauty of Low-tech Blogging
This weekend my brother sent me a big box of stuff. We were cleaning our parents’ house and getting it ready to sell. Each object I pulled out had a rich story attached to it—and evoked a flood of memories. My 7th grade geography report card (do they even teach geography anymore?). My dad’s antique […]
Is Writing with Vulnerability a Sign of Low Self-Concept?
When I was a teacher, one of the worst things a kid could have, the thing that would hold her back throughout life and beyond, was low self-concept. It was whispered about children, as though they would never get any farther than flipping hamburgers at McDonald’s because they had, you know: a low self-concept Of […]