-
The Ugly Notebook Theory
If people know you write, you are going to get notebooks, pens, and other writing supplies for every holiday. You’ve probably amassed quite a collection by now. I know I have—I’m up to…
-
What Happens When You Book a Story Coaching Session
What’s story coaching? I’ve written a blog post about that! To put it succinctly, a story coach works with writers to clarify their story ideas, including plot, subplots, character arcs, and themes. But…
-
12 Ways to Commit to Writing a Book
How do you actually commit to writing a novel? How do you follow through? If you’ve never written The End on a story, this is a question that haunts you. Surely, other writers…
-
How to Craft a Compelling Character Arc: Epiphanies, Lightbulb Moments, and the Right Ideas
Your character was Wounded. From that Wound, they got the Wrong Idea, and their life has never been the same. During the events of your book, your character has answered their call to…
-
How to Craft a Compelling Character Arc: The Misbelief, or the Wrong Idea
Your main character has a tragic backstory to make even the toughest among us shed a tear. During their story, they overcome adversity despite the seemingly insurmountable obstacles placed in front of them…
-
A Letter to My Burned Out Creative Self
Inspired by a Ko-Fi challenge, May being Mental Health Awareness Month, my recent chat with Gala Russ on Writing Conversations, and my own patterns of getting burned out (which have once again resurfaced),…
-
How to Craft a Compelling Character Arc: From Wounded to Warrior
Learning how to craft a compelling character arc is the thing to take your stories from readable to unputdownable. It’s not going to be your prose. It won’t be your setting or your…
-
18 Must-Read Posts on Writing Craft, Story Structure, & Character Development
There’s no shortage of writing craft tips on the web. I should know—during my tenure as Writer’s Atelier’s administrative assistant, I wrote a lot of them! Something you’ll realize quickly if you get…
-
Lessons Learned from Writing with 4thewords
If you told me in early 2022—just a few months before I learned these 4thewords writing lessons—that I’d one day have an 883-day writing streak, I would have said that was a weirdly…
-
What is a Story Coach?
Here’s something a little embarrassing: for the longest time, I thought being a story coach wasn’t a real thing. This was back in the days when I was helping local writers I knew…
