The Pomodoro Technique®: Productivity for Writers, One Tomato at a Time

Like most writers, I’m constantly busy. If you’re serious about writing, there’s a never-ending to-do list: blog, read, review, draft, edit, absorb, learn, redraft. But there are times when ‘busy’ turns into ‘overwhelming.’ When I’m trying to complete a big freelance project and write a first draft at the same time, for example. The level [...]

Author Mari McCarthy on No Time to Write

No time to write? Put it in your journal! A writer is for life. That’s why many who love writing find themselves now and then unable to devote time to it. There may be portions of your life when it’s no more possible to give serious attention to writing than it is to walk on [...]

Story Engineering by Larry Brooks

Like many aspiring novelists, I tend to collect “how to write” books. I think I have about a dozen on my bookshelf and have read another twenty from the library. All have been useful, inspiring, and informative in their own right, but only a chosen few have made it to my “must have” status. Story [...]

The Teacher Becomes The Student

It’s much easier to assign writing than to teach writing. That epiphany in my profession as a high school English teacher was a blessing and a curse. . .for me and for my students. It meant I stopped bombarding them with the alphabet soup of essays (analysis, biography, comparison, definition, exemplification, etc.), and started devoting [...]

Top Ten Ways to Find Ten Minutes to Write

 No one should have to remind us that life is short. The Bible says it “fades quickly like grass.” In fact, the book of Proverbs is full of encouragement to make use of our time, to be wise with our gifts. If this is true, that we should, in fact, use every day wisely, then [...]

Finding Writing Inspiration on Vacation

I admit it. I bring the over-scheduled busyness of life with me on vacation. I kid myself that after nonstop seeing and doing for three or five days, I’ll be rested and ready to return to daily life with vigor. Still, I can’t pass on the opportunity to feed my mind with the experiences of [...]

Scrivener for Windows Review

When I found out Scrivener for Windows was in beta testing, I dropped everything to find out more about it. This writing software by Literature and Latte includes tons of cool features for writers, but until recently was only available to Mac-users. Because I’m using a trial version and the developer is still actively collecting [...]

When NOT to Take Writing Advice

There’s no shortage of advice out there for aspiring and beginning authors. There’s no shortage of advice out there for aspiring and beginning authors.But knowing when NOT to take advice may be as important as knowing when to heed it. I learned this my first year of pursuing publication. At the time, I was preparing [...]

Larger-Than-Real-Life Characters

This weekend while writing in a coffee shop, I was distracted by real life characters. The people around me, like this guy who greeted this girl with three kisses. His wife? Girl friend? I watched how they talked and interacted. How they were overly considerate and accommodating to each others needs. They were obviously dating, [...]

Breathing Life into Your Setting

Setting in a fictional novel, if done well, can take on a life of its own. In order to create a setting that is almost like a character, there are two basic points to know: 1)      Know Your Setting, And 2) Know How Your Setting Influences Your Characters. To Know Your Setting, you must first [...]

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