Time management is one of the most misunderstood concepts because most people think it’s all about watching the clock and saving time. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. You see, watching the clock is not time management, it’s punctuality. Similarly, saving time is efficiency, which is different from time management. After all, you could… Read more »
“Read with purpose” is one of the three pillars of DIY MFA, but it’s often the most overlooked. It’s easy to see how writing and community can contribute to our literary development, but sometimes reading can fall by the wayside. Today I wanted to talk about the importance of reading with purpose, what exactly it… Read more »
This time I thought I’d do an analysis of Murder, She Wrote, one of my all-time favorite TV shows. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s about Jessica Fletcher, a retired schoolteacher-turned-mystery-author who goes around solving murders. Some of those murders take place in her beloved hometown of Cabot Cove, while others occur when she… Read more »
I’ll admit, at first I was skeptical about dictation. To be honest, the idea kind of intimidated me. But after taking a Dictation Boot Camp led by my friend Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer, I decided to give it a try. In fact, I’m actually doing it right now as I write this Writer Fuel. I think… Read more »
Today, I’m doing an analysis of Beauty and the Beast, one of my absolute favorite movies. This film never fails to tug at my heartstrings and the ending makes me cry every single time! I first saw this movie at a very pivotal moment in my life. I was in ninth grade and a total… Read more »
A lot of people are nervous—and with good reason—that Artificial Intelligence (AI) might take away opportunities from human writers. After all, why should publishers pay humans to produce material when they can get a GPT to spit out something similar for free? What is it that can differentiate human writers from the bots? Two things:… Read more »
In fall of 2003, I got a copy of The Artist’s Way and decided I was going to work through it step-by-step. I completed the twelve weeks, and the effect on my creative life was nothing short of transformative. Yet, one thing tripped me up along the way and kept me from continuing the program… Read more »
It recently occurred to me that it would be interesting to see if the three-act structure worked with one of Shakespeare’s plays. After all, the structure has held up when looking at novels and movies of various different genres, but I have yet to use it to analyze anything by Shakespeare. To find out if… Read more »
If you’ve ever listened to my podcast, DIY MFA Radio, you know that at the end of each interview, I would ask the same question: “What’s your #1 tip for writers?” As I was thinking of what to write for today’s newsletter, I asked myself that same question, and I came up with not one,… Read more »
“Subplots are like the adjectives of your main story/sentence. You can still understand the sentence without them, but it’s not as fascinating.” ~Charlie Holmberg I love this quote because I think it captures the nature of subplots to a T. The main plot is like a noun or verb in a sentence, it’s the part… Read more »
