Blog
WRITING
Eight Books, Eight Lessons: Why I’m Not Slowing Down
At my 60th birthday party a couple of years back, something interesting happened. A number of my friends started talking about retirement—counting down the days, making plans to "slow down," fantasizing about endless yoga retreats in Mexico and Netflix binges. They...
Wayne’s lawn: What my father taught me about book marketing
Most evenings after work, my father would be outside running the lawn mower, spraying the grass with a garden hose, or spreading Scott's seed, dandelion killer, or lime by the 50-lb bagful. Come fall, he'd attack the leaves with a rake for hours on end and insist the...
5 Writing Practices That Actually Get Books Done
I thought I'd bring this post back because it's even more relevant than ever, thanks to cultural fatigue.You know what I'm talking about, that sense that doing ANYTHING seems so...utterly pointless. Add in the holidays, and who feels like doing much of anything that...
Gordo lied
"This is the hardest thing you will ever do." That's what Gordo, the instructor of our Intro to Scuba Diving class, told us while he scrawled his name on the blackboard. Gordo was a big guy, nearly 300 pounds of flesh that couldn't have been easy to squeeze into a wet...
READING
Eight Books, Eight Lessons: Why I’m Not Slowing Down
At my 60th birthday party a couple of years back, something interesting happened. A number of my friends started talking about retirement—counting down the days, making plans to "slow down," fantasizing about endless yoga retreats in Mexico and Netflix binges. They...
The Best Books of 2025: Holiday Reading Recommendations from Summit Press Authors
Every year around the holidays, I love pulling together book recommendations—and this year, I thought: who better to ask than published authors? After all, writers tend to be voracious readers who know their stuff. I asked some of our Summit Press authors to share...
Gordo lied
"This is the hardest thing you will ever do." That's what Gordo, the instructor of our Intro to Scuba Diving class, told us while he scrawled his name on the blackboard. Gordo was a big guy, nearly 300 pounds of flesh that couldn't have been easy to squeeze into a wet...
Why I finally created book templates (After years of hating them)
As a chemistry major who really shouldn't have been a chemistry major for a whole host of reasons, I nearly lost my mind with physical chemistry. One exercise that I found particularly punishing was proving "proofs" for quantum theorems. I mean, how was I supposed to...
LIFE
Eight Books, Eight Lessons: Why I’m Not Slowing Down
At my 60th birthday party a couple of years back, something interesting happened. A number of my friends started talking about retirement—counting down the days, making plans to "slow down," fantasizing about endless yoga retreats in Mexico and Netflix binges. They...
Your Achilles heel is boring
My friend and I were seated together at a conference. I could practically feel the sparks coming off her, so consumed was she by the desire to be plucked from the crowd and brought onstage for an exercise. Leaning forward, she gripped the chair-back in front of her,...
This is why people cry at art exhibits (and read your book)
In 2010, Marina Abramović did something insane.For seventy-five days straight, she sat in the atrium of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Six days a week. Nearly eight hours a day. No breaks. No food. No water. She didn't speak. Didn't move. She just sat at a...
The blind date that made me realize I was a fraud (and why that was the best thing ever)
I was on a blind date, sitting across from some guy I'd met on Match.com, when he asked what I did for a living. You would have thought I was a street walker, the way I started hemming and hawing. I was so mortified to tell him I was a chemical salesperson—selling...
Check out my book
Straight-talking, funny and brutally honest, How To Eat The Elephant will give you–yes, you–the push you need to haul your ass off the sofa and position it in front of your computer long enough to produce a real, live book.
Subscribe to my newsletter
Want to know my deal? Well, these are some of my stories. This is my take on life, writing, and reading.