Author Archive

8 Reader Questions–8 Parts of Speech

“The new writer found she wrote best thinking of her readers’ questions–and how!”   This sentence contains all you need to know about writing a story. You may want to commit it to memory. I recently discovered something I think may help new writers remember everything they need to write amazing stories quickly. Usually, beginning writers simply write what speaks to
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Hold That Ideal Loosely

“All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste.” – Ira Glass What makes it so difficult to know what we’ve said is knowing so well what we meant to say. Missing the mark. It’s a definition of sin. There’s a lot of talk these days about the “gifts of imperfection” and embracing
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If You’ll Accept the Struggle

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” – Rumi Writing is hard–for so many reasons. Is it worth the effort? I get so many manuscripts from new writers asking me if it’s worth the effort to invest in. I used to try to
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The Head vs. Heart Debate

The head learns new things, but the heart forever practices new experiences. – Henry Ward Beecher   An author friend of mine told me last week that when her kids were in their early teens, they were in horrible competition with each other and they argued all the time. She said she had to figure out how to make them
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Letter to an Anonymous Author

“I am a writer. Therefore, I am not sane.” ― Edgar Allan Poe Dear X, I appreciated your note, my friend. And I’m grateful for it. I’ve seen your struggle and I know how hard you’re working to progress and capture everything well, and also accept help. I knew your journey would be a special challenge, and while your issues
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