Why set goals when nothing ever changes? (how to be hopeful)

Why set goals when nothing ever changes? (how to be hopeful)

I don’t think it’s unusual for anybody to feel like the last two years haven’t been great. I generally agree with the sentiment, if all you’re doing is surviving, that’s enough. I also don’t think we always need to productivize our creativity. There’s a perversion in the modern compulsion to Always Be...

A tangled web of evasive verbiage: decorate your message with bullshit

A tangled web of evasive verbiage: decorate your message with bullshit

Oh, the allure of decorative, fancy words! Those sparkling, shiny baubles of the English language that we love to flaunt in our sentences. But too often, they’re just fluff – akin to the gaudy necklace that overpowers a classic little black dress. Overwriting, bedecked with excessive poetic words and swathed in layers of purple prose,

7 steps to a great query letter

7 steps to a great query letter

Query letters seem like they should be easy, right? After writing a script of several thousand to a hundred thousand words, writing a one-page email should be cake. So why do so many people have problems with it? It’s because they don’t really understand the purpose of a query letter. A query letter is not

Plottr review and novel plotting template (download)

Plottr review and novel plotting template (download)

I’ve been hearing more chatter about Plottr, the book-timeline software that helps you map out your novel’s key scenes. A while back someone created a pretty cool template based on my chapter plotting outline, and I’ve been talking with Plottr’s founder to add my template within their tool so everyone can access it. That...

My best words come at night (a poem about writing)

My best words come at night (a poem about writing)

Testing out my new theme with this poem I wrote for the preface of Book Craft. Help me test the comments by writing your own poem below! My best words come at night. When soft music is humming and birds or bats are chirping and dusk or dawn is peeking above the horizon. When the

Black Friday deals for writers (huge list: 2021)

Black Friday deals for writers (huge list: 2021)

It’s nearly the end of a long year. If you weren’t as productive as you wanted to be, don’t worry about it! But now might be a good time to start using the clean slate of a new year to set goals and level up your author career. The good news is, publishing success is

Where should my novel take place? Choosing setting and location

Where should my novel take place? Choosing setting and location

A novel’s setting isn’t just a backdrop; it’s a living, breathing entity that influences character dynamics, advances the plot, and evokes emotional responses from the reader. Just think about the fog-laden streets of Victorian London in a Sherlock Holmes mystery or the lush, fantastical realm of Middle Earth in J.R.R...