Sometimes, when I write, I get nervous about what my readers will think if I decide to change the course of the story. They won’t know what changes were made unless I tell them. The draft may not convey the same story. Why concern yourself with future opinions? These are reasons you can’t write. Comparison  ...

Sometimes, writing is like pulling teeth. The words don’t come. Every sentence is garbage. Advice always says, “Write a few sentences to get started.” Those sentences are “Who wants to read this, anyway? Why am I doing this? Can I crawl under a blanket until the ideas come?” Jobs won’t let you take breaks if ...

Embrace the Creative Spirit I indulge in creativity during summer. I have are two modes of operation: Read several books or write a portion of a novel. Go back and reread after a few months and restart from a new place.  Break the Habit College helped me break that pattern because we had to read ...

Blank paper. A writer’s worst enemy. Oh, how it mocks me. It sits there blinking blue lines, waiting and watching for the first words yearning to be noted, taken account of, recorded to be marveled for years to come. My mind is overthrown with ideas, each one clear and unclear, distant and near, pushing and ...

The plight of the blinking cursor is something that plagues me often. It usually means that every word I write seems like it was written by someone who is writing their very first sentence. My solution to this problem usually is to read some of my favorite authors. I started this because one of my ...

My creative writing teachers in college always used to say there was no such thing as writer’s block. They said as long as you sat down to write something would end up on the page eventually. I usually don’t have this issue because I have a cast of characters who will comment on anything from ...

One of the worst parts about trying to write a story is getting stuck. It happens to everyone at some point. You see the scene that you want to write, but the words aren’t coming. If they are coming, nothing sounds right. Sometimes, you have a scene that you’re trying to add, but it doesn’t ...