It took me six years to turn the opening scene that blossomed in my imagination to the real-life debut mystery novel that’s now on sale at places like Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble and Kobo. I answered intangible little questions that rolled around in my mind, and I distilled three of them that I […]
Category: editing
The One With the Not-So-Effective Writing Goals
What ‘Friends’ Taught Me About Setting Goals and Sticking to Them There’s an episode of “Friends” where Joey decides to write a play after he gets rejected for an acting gig. Ross challenges him and Joey jumps on the idea. Ross even helps Joey come up with a writing schedule. But OM damages each of […]
Write With a Coach
How working with a writing coach can spark creativity in teenagers. When I was in junior high school, I won a writing contest. It was in the eighth grade, if I recall, and it was a short story contest with a small cash prize. I don’t remember what the story was about, and I don’t […]
Line by Line
For a long time, opening up the draft of my book was just about all I could manage. A draft that was, at times, more than 70,000 words and I was convinced that the second edit I did had just made it worse. And I was lost about how to make it better. I edit […]
The Bottomless Rewrite
I miss the cool glow of the first draft. The steady patter of confident fingers on the keyboard, the faith of production stemming not so much from a certainty of brilliance but the sweet enjoyment that comes from putting off one’s problems to another day. Problems, being, rewrites. I have a dear writing friend who […]