There is a special type of despair reserved for writing the middle of a book. The beginning had energy. The ending, at least in theory, has momentum. But the middle? […]
Writing
How to Handle Emotionally Complex Character Arcs
You want your characters to feel real. You want depth, nuance, transformation. You want readers to recognize themselves or people they know and feel something. But when you start writing […]
How Mindfulness Can Make Writing Feel Easier
I want to dispel a common misconception: mindfulness for writers isn’t about clearing your mind or becoming some perfectly serene person before you begin. It’s about noticing what’s happening in […]
Social Media for Writers Who Hate Social Media
If the phrase “build your author platform” makes you want to crawl under your desk and never come out, you’re in good company. I’ve watched more than one deeply talented […]
Trusting Your Beta Readers (and Yourself)
One of the scariest and most necessary moments in the writing process is handing your work to another human and saying, “Here, read this.” I still feel a little flutter […]
Is My Story Working?
Every writer I know (published or unpublished, fiction or memoir) has asked at some point: Is my story working? The question usually arrives somewhere in the murky middle of […]
Playing with Gender on the Page
What happens when you’re writing nonbinary characters who don’t fall neatly into he/him or she/her? How do you write someone whose gender identity doesn’t conform to expectations, especially when you’re […]