For the past two and a half years, I’ve worked as a freelance editor. I’ve had the absolute pleasure of coaching and editing for amazing writers and their stories. But during that time, I’ve also been writing. I’m currently working on a middle-grade fantasy. I finished my first draft in May of this year. It… Read more »
For many writers, beginnings are easy. An image floats in your head for months or an idea marinates for years during the commute to your day job or a line comes fully formed into your mind while cooking dinner. When you finally sit down to honor this image, idea, or line, the story pours out…. Read more »
When I sit down to write a novel, setting comes first. And the setting needs to be familiar. I spent much of my time in the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio, before we moved to the suburbs of Southern California. All my books have been set in one of these two locations. I love that my… Read more »
It was six months into the COVID pandemic that I made one of the biggest career decisions of my life. I had spent over 20 years in the tech industry, mostly as a founder, or early employee, at Silicon Valley tech startups. I had just decided to shut down my latest venture and was feeling… Read more »
There are so many ways to structure a novel, and one key consideration is the timeline. Are you telling the fast-paced, high-tension story of a heist that takes place over a week (or a day)? Are you crafting a family saga that spans generations? Once you have a sense of where your story takes place… Read more »
This has been one of these days where no matter how hard I try, I simply cannot focus on the task at hand. OK, maybe it’s been one of those months. I know for some people, it’s been difficult to find focus since the pandemic started. Every person has their own way of finding focus…. Read more »
I’ve discovered several advantages if I start to plan for the new year at the beginning of December: more time for my reflections and new ideas to marinate, I feel ahead of the game on January 1, and I’m more intentional with my time and focus in December. Rather than working double time to accomplish… Read more »
Writers deal with ambiguity regularly. Every time we submit a piece to a publication, it exists in both states: published and unpublished. Until the acceptance or rejection slides into our inboxes, the piece remains in limbo. Maybe we decide to send it out to several places at a time. The anxiety heightens. What if two… Read more »
I’ve been a classic film fan all my life. I’ve always loved backstage or meta stories, and the ultra-meta-aspect of writers writing about writers. In movies, there are few scenes that show writers writing, for the simple fact that watching someone write for 90 minutes isn’t entertainment. The focus is generally on how life influences… Read more »
Setting the Scene I write horror and dark sci-fi. My friend is a writer and an actor with a YouTube channel of short videos she’s made on her own. Last fall we partnered up to make a short film for a local Halloween film contest. I had a ghost story I’d been working on that… Read more »
