I Refuse To Eat Cat Food

I just got back from Los Angeles, LA for those of you in the know.  I was attending AWP, a monster of a conference for writers, teachers, editors, and publishers. It’s sort of a big deal because there are over 12,000 people who attend, and you get to rub elbows...

Where To Go When You’re Blind

After months and months of working on a book, it’s easy to go blind to what you’ve got in hand. Especially if you’ve been going it alone without the guidance of a book coach like me. (Blatant PLUG!) You’ve been looking at the same arrangement of words for so...

A Puritan In Iran

I’m just back from a big writer’s conference in LA, where I spoke on a panel.  Let me tell you, there’s nothing more fun than hanging around 5,000 other people who love to talk about writing and words and books and tricks of the trade. That being...

A Devious, Cruel App For Writers

A writing prompt is a sentence designed to open the creative floodgates. Sometimes an image, or a picture, can serve to get the juices flowing, too. Get something down on the page, anything, and more words are guaranteed to follow. That’s the purpose of the thing. The...

Track The Things That Matter

Have I mentioned how much I love my job? Seriously, there are days where I feel like I should be paying my clients, not the other way around. So, I’m working with an F-16 fighter pilot I just adore. He’s writing a book about goal achievement, about putting...

A Simple Story About My Dad

I’m going to walk you through my story writing process, and model it for you. I’ll explain how I come up with an idea for a story, then how I construct the thing. I’ll be composing a scene for my memoir, but you’ll want to follow along even if you’re writing a case...