If you’ve never written a novel before, it can feel incredibly daunting. If you have written a novel before, it can feel incredibly daunting. It’s a big undertaking, requiring months or maybe years of commitment. It’s time-consuming. It’s energy consuming. It can become one of the most rewarding things you’ve ever done, but that doesn’t…
Tag: writing advice
Motivation for Writers: Protecting Your Joy as a Creative
This one is for all the writers, artists, musicians, dancers – creatives of all sorts. If you create something that you share with the world or perform something that you share with the world, you automatically open yourself up to potential criticism. That might mean helpful criticism designed to encourage your growth or it might…
Celebrate Every Win
There’s something about checking items off a to-do list that gives me a little dopamine hit. Even if it’s the simplest task on the list, I still feel a sense of accomplishment, and it gives me a sometimes desperately needed boost of confidence that helps me keep plugging away at the rest of the list….
Actively Prevent Burnout
I ran a marathon on Saturday. The training took twenty weeks. The race took less than four hours. And now I’m giving myself seven days to rest. That means no running, no workouts, no structured training of any kind. And as much as I love running — I miss it already — and hate being…
How to Ask for Help
There came a time in my life when I became embarrassed to ask for help. I felt like I should be able to do everything for myself, since I was all grown up and supposedly self-sufficient. Well, today I watched my younger brother come into the backyard with a jug of juice to ask one…
Some Words of Encouragement
I have a lot to do today. My brain is tired. My body is tired. My bed is calling my name. It’s hard to feel excited, motivated, or inspired at the end (or even beginning) of a busy day with a lot of scary tasks on the docket. With that in mind, I thought I’d…
Three Things I’ve Learned from Writing This Book
I am in the final stretch of the first draft of my zombie apocalypse novel. I started writing this one because I wanted something lighthearted and humorous – think of it as a zombie rom-com, in the vein of Warm Bodies – and because I wanted to have a change of scene before I started…
To Outline or Wing It
When I was a young whippersnapper, all of sixteen years of age, trying my hand at National Novel Writing Month for the first time, there was lots of discussion going on about “pantsing” versus plotting. Was I a fly by the seat of my pants type of writer? Or would I be organized and lay…
Advice for Writers: Rest with Purpose
How do you program rest into your schedule, and how do you like to make the most of it?
Motivation for Writers: Pride in Process
I’ve trained for and completed nine official races. Road running is my joy. But unlike when I was competing in eventing, my competitive field is massive. That means that if I ever want to stand on a podium as a top-three medalist, I either need to only run in lowkey races where the competition pool…