by Pauline Wiles Around five years ago, Marie Kondo became a household name with her now famous clutter purging guide, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. With 4 million copies sold worldwide, many of us embraced her philosophy and methods for our homes. As a writer, there’s a good chanceContinue Reading
After having three books in print through a traditional publisher, I decided I wanted more control over my work, so I decided to self-publish the fourth one. Going forward with this plan, I consulted with a publishing expert, Jane Friedman. She suggested that in advance of the book’s release, IContinue Reading
Are you battling the self-doubt monster right now? Is it trying to bring you down and destroy your writing dreams? It’s a common theme in a writer’s life. You go along doing well for a while, and then something happens to cause you to doubt yourself. You get a rejectionContinue Reading
Self-doubt is the biggest emotional challenge for me. Writing is manageable to work through tough times and rejection, since it’s a way to escape the then-unpleasant world around me. As for writer’s block, I’ve been fortunate to experience it on a limited basis. Although I was once blocked about 14Continue Reading
Have you ever gone on a date with your writing? After you’ve been writing for a while, you can begin to look at it differently. You may start to see it as an obligation, and show up for sessions with an attitude of, “Hopefully things will go well today.” YouContinue Reading
The poet Robert Frost once said, “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.” This sums up the emotional challenge of writing for me, which is to place myself so entirely in the world of my characters that readers experience their joy and sadness. A recent example fromContinue Reading
Would you like to boost writing productivity, but you’re not sure how? Sometimes the smallest changes can create the largest impacts, so below I have 11 small changes you can make to increase your writing productivity. I’ve made all of these changes at one time or another and they allContinue Reading
As a young musician, I used to joke that every solo performance was an excellent way to lose weight. I’d get nervous, you see, and my nerves would rile my stomach. It didn’t cost me any extra money or require special foods and it worked like a charm. Over theContinue Reading
by Charlie Fletcher Many highly-revered writers throughout literary history suffered from depression. Classics like Mark Twain and more recent celebrated authors like J.K. Rowling have been known for their struggles with mental illness, and they are far from the only ones. The reason for this correlation isn’t clear, but thereContinue Reading
As the years pass by, there’s one thing that writers often say they’re worried about: running out of time. We’re given only so many years on this Earth to share our stories, and usually, we have more ideas than we have time to implement them. “The trouble is you thinkContinue Reading
If I whittle away all my excuses, I’d have to say the two biggest issues are self-doubt and perfectionism in my work. Since my early teens, I’ve struggled with depression. Writing became a way to combat the darkness. It helped to sort out the confusion and the emotions that wantedContinue Reading
Surveys show that most Americans want to get in shape. You may have this as one of your New Year’s resolutions. We also understand that daily exercise is important for good health. Yet those same surveys show that despite these two facts, the majority of Americans don’t commit to dailyContinue Reading