You Don’t and You Do

You don’t: Need anyone to give you permission to write. Need listen when someone says, “Genre X” is dead. Need to do things “Just so” to be able to call yourself a writer. Need to Outline.* Need to discovery write. Need to listen when someone tells you, “You can’t do that.” Need to continue to …

There is no Wrong Way to Write

Sometimes, when I’m writing, I feel like all I’m doing is just banging my head against my desk, trying to jar something loose. I don’t feel like I’m doing anything at all. That, of course, makes me feel like I’m wasting my writing time. Which, of course, results in more, frenzied head-bashing. Sometimes, it’s difficult …

Days When Nothing Comes

I started this blog back in 2015.* I did it for a couple of reasons, not the least of which was that I thought having a blog would be kinda cool.** I’d also heard that if you were doing any kind of creative thing you would eventually want people to pick up and consume like …

Take Chances

Happy Sunday Y’All! This is going to be a quick one today because my “To-Do” list is pretty damned long and I am bound and determined to not spend the *entire* day working. So here goes… Take chances. In your writing. Write what you’ve never written before. Take that one thing (or pick one, if …

Putting together an “Elevator Pitch”

Elevator Pitch. If you’re any kind of serious about getting traditionally published, or if you listen to writing podcasts, or if you hang out with writers or writing communities, you’ve heard about the “Elevator pitch”. It’s almost unavoidable. But, if you’ve somehow managed to avoid hearing about the elevator pitch* let me wrap a definition …

Blogging this week

This week I’m blogging at The Million Words website. Come check it out, You’ll be glad you did! You can find it Here

Showing Up

Maybe you’ve heard this before: 80 percent of success is showing up. I tried to track down who it was that originally said that and the closest I could get was a quote from Woody Allen, but he was talking about life. I agree with the quote, but what, exactly does “Showing up” mean? On the …

How do you keep going?

I’ve seen the question posed by the title of this blog post a number of times over the past few weeks. It’s a good question because, if you’re anything like me, current events and the latest outrages tend to hit you pretty hard, leaving you drained and tired and that’s not the best footing to …

Recharging

Who’s job was it to keep an eye on the author this month? Oh, yeah…it was mine. So I’ve kinda fallen off the wagon when it comes to getting a blog post up each week. Some of it – ok, most of it – was simply a mental energy deficit. We’ve all got our own …