Being an engaging reader isn’t difficult — if you prepare for success — I’m not a natural reader. I’m definitely a shameless goof, and a sometime theater kid — and, after my first publication, thought my innate audaciousness and light stage training would translate into being a good, if not great, reader of my own work. Spoiler: it didn’t. I choked and squeaked…

If there’s a million dollar writing question, it’s this (understanding of course, there are some 2 million dollar questions, usually on getting an agent/publication): Should writers write every day? Read ten writing books. No, ask ten writers. Take a poll on Twitter. Doesn’t matter. You’ll get predictably conflicting answers to…

As I’ve worked, on and off, on this series, I’ve tried to consolidate the questions and blind spots I see (and have personally encountered) on creating — and thriving — in a writing career. I get asked, and see others asked, what the single best piece of advice they can…

Last night, I did something difficult: I stood up, in front of ~100*-ish people (author’s edit on 2/22/22: I have been told by organizers there were at least 240! people in the audience) — and a bunch silently watching on a livestream) — in one of my city’s most respectable…

Mid-February, I turn 49. I feel a lot of ways about that. But, also, I feel like I’m a child. A small one. A toddler. In the best of all possible ways. A toddler turning 1. So, I’m about to be 49, but also a 1 year old. At least…

A few days ago, Lauren Hough blew up a certain segment of Twitter. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go ahead and look*. I’ll wait here. Caught up? * or TLDR: Hough’s essay collection came out — by all accounts, an excellent book, except on Goodreads, where a…

Writing programs. MFAs*. Workshops. Classes. Paid mentoring. If you want to write, or already, hopefully do, there are a million ways to spend your time and money on instruction. But should you do it? A binary answer is…imprecise. I say: yes, but. I also say: no, and. You’ll see what…

I cannot write my novel. Not can’t write. I’m physically capable of the act of writing. I mean, I wrote this. Not don’t wanna write. I wanna. I wanna hard. And, even if I didn’t wanna, that would not be the issue. I’ve done this long enough to know inspiration…

A few years ago, I wrote a blog post for the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) on professional envy. I made two embarrassing errors: ~ I called it jealousy, when I should have called it envy. Jealousy is when you fear someone covets what you already have. Envy…