Book Coaching & Editing Services for Writers of Fiction & Creative Nonfiction
I haven’t been to Monterey for more than three years now, but I’m dreaming of it lately, and I hope to get back to visit soon. Monterey is the place in the world that feels most like home to me. It’s the place where I feel most like myself and where I feel most inspired … Read More
California Typewriter is a 2016 documentary about typewriters, named for a typewriter repair and servicing shop in Berkeley, California, that went out of business just before the pandemic. In the documentary, you’ll see people shopping for typewriters, servicing typewriters, and fixing typewriters. You’ll see Tom Hanks’ collection of typewriters. You’ll see John Mayer writing songs … Read More
So, I’m aware of the fact that I often seem to be advising writers not to write. But it only seems that way–all the things I encourage you to do as a writer will ultimately feed your writing, even if that means taking a break from writing so your subconscious brain can do its share of … Read More
Today’s message is a simple one: start writing your story. Worrying too long and too hard about how to start a story can make a writer freeze up. Stop worrying. Stop overthinking. Start writing. There’s a difference between a work’s beginning and starting to work. –Twyla Tharp I mean, it matters immensely how you start. … Read More
I’ve been reading about writing, editing, and creativity lately, and a theme that keeps popping up is the amount of time and hard work it takes to acquire natural born writing talent. We’ve all read stories of “overnight success”–talented actors, writers, musicians, who seemingly burst onto the scene out of nowhere. What we don’t hear … Read More
Last week, I discussed character descriptions that are almost entirely physical–they are focused on the character’s appearance. While they are good descriptions, they can be a missed opportunity. I’m a big fan of using character descriptions strategically, not only to describe the way a character looks, but to give us some insight into the character. … Read More
I recently binged all the Twilight movies–I’d never watched them before, but I was intrigued/tricked into watching them by my friend Ashley Corinne–she recently wrote a Twilight re-read series for GXRL magazine. Ashley compared her experience reading the books now, as an adult, to reading them then, as a teenager. It felt like a crash I … Read More
In my teens, I thought writing was agony. I read The Bell Jar and emptied my broken heart into reams of bad, hand-scrawled poetry about the boys who didn’t love me back. In my twenties, I thought writing was detached, hard-rock glamour. It meant jeans and a band T-shirt, dark shades to block out my … Read More
My dad would be the first to admit he wasn’t great at spelling. You’d never know it to read anything he ever wrote. At home, we had a Webster’s dictionary and a full set of the Encyclopædia Britannica. But that wasn’t good enough—my dad carried a pocket dictionary with him wherever he went. If he … Read More
A half dozen Christmases ago, my daughter Melissa gave me a book called 642 Things to Write About. At the time, I had never used writing prompts, except once during a dark November when I was seriously stuck and in danger of falling far short of my NaNoWriMo word count. The prompt I used then … Read More