Make decisions and make a plan, then start writing! — I’ve already discussed first steps in how to start your novel by identifying genre expectations . Next, I discussed key scenes: all the different ways you might meet your readers’ genre expectations. …

A story is nothing without conflict, so plot accordingly — You’ve already done a deep dive into your genre, and you’ve thought about the kind of scenes your genre needs to fulfill reader expectations. Now you can start developing your characters. In elementary and high school, if we did any creative writing, we were often encouraged to start with a…

Creating a story skeleton — To start your popular fiction novel, you’ve already sat down and closely studied your genre’s expectations (or its reader indulgences) and you’ve identified a bunch of scenes that are inherent to your genre. They are scenes that readers expect and that writers in that genre want to provide. In other…

Identify your genre’s expectations — The first thing every aspiring novelist of popular (or commercial/genre) fiction needs to do is to identify their genre and then make sure they fully understand that genre’s expectations. What are genre expectations? Popular fiction is often dismissed as formulaic by its critics. And they’re not wrong! Part of the pleasure of reading within…

There’s no need to reinvent the wheel; use reverse outlining instead! — Published authors often gripe about the number of people who approach us with a “great idea,” and “all” we have to do is write it for them for a portion of the profits! Why we gripe is because, as anyone who has actually written a book knows, ideas are like…

To keep work in its place, envision your priorities holistically — Our lives are inundated with people selling us ways to be as productive as possible. Planners, podcasts, and life coaches often have the same message: you, too, can be a veritable machine of productivity, and we’ll teach you how for this low price. They’re not lying. There are, indeed, better…

And how I learned its connection to perfectionism — This year has been rough, between the pandemic, my gallbladder going rogue, and just generally feeling like I don’t know what the fuck I should be doing with my life. I’m a professor and after earning tenure, I was definitely Burned Out. The biggest problem, for me as a writer…

They’re hard for a reason…until they’re easy? — Today I want to talk about what I’ve learned from paying off my credit card debt. I wrote about how I got into debt and how I tackled it, here. This was written when I was still in the middle of that process, and as of Friday (pay day!) …

I’ve been fat and I’ve been thin, but I think I like myself best when I stop caring so much — As I write this, my city is on lockdown in response to the spread of Covid-19 — which means it’s just me and my body, alone together, in my little row house in Pittsburgh. I can’t go to the gym, obviously. I’m cooking for myself, and eating alone. I’m not…