Recent Articles
On Why You Should Release Your Imperfect Product Today
One of the most challenging things a writer has to do is publish or, if you’re looking for an agent, send that email. I say challenging because we can work and work and work on our manuscript and never feel like it’s completely done. There is always something more we...
How Community Will Make You a Better Writer
Earlier in the week, I was assaulted by debilitating doubts. This is something that cycles through every writer, and I know this. I’ve spoken about this. But still, when I was faced with my latest manuscript, trying to get it ready to send to my agent, all I could...
How Knowing Yourself Can Make You a Better Writer
Last week I talked about the power of purposeful practice, and one of the most important perquisites to purposeful practice is knowing our strengths and weaknesses. While we want to practice our writing strengths, of course, to hone them into even greater strengths,...
What Happens When You Purposefully Practice Writing
Purposeful practice is a term I picked up from Anders Ericsson, who is a Swedish psychologist who has, for many years, studied expertise and human performance. He recently came out with a book called Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise, which detailed how...
Why Reading Voraciously Will Make You a Better Writer
Believe it or not, I meet a lot of people who want to write well but say they don’t read. How do you know what good writing is, then? I don’t think we can, outside of reading widely and voraciously, and here’s why: If you read often, you are picking up things that you...
How Studying Writing Craft Will Make You a Better Writer
On the surface, this seems like a really obvious improvement tactic: Study the writing craft, and you’ll become a better writer. But you would be surprised how many writers I hear from who say they don’t really like to read writing craft books. They don’t really learn...
The Most Important Thing You Can Do to Write a Book
Last week I talked about the six reasons you shouldn’t write a book, but if you’re still with me this week and you still really want to write that book, there is one thing you can do that will ensure you actually accomplish your goal, and it’s this: Make writing a...
Write a GREAT Book Even When Your Time is Limited
