My best writing happens when I don’t give a damn about the outcome. Most readers don’t give a damn either, so why should I? And when I get to that precious, devil-may-care, creative state of mind, the work I produce gets noticeably better—still not great, but...
People read stories because they want to feel. That’s good because writers write stories because they want to make people feel. Sometimes, however, they want it too badly, and so they start telling their readers what they should be feeling. See, this character’s...
For people participating in NaNoWriMo, today is the last day of freedom and the luxury of having time to think about writing. Starting November 1st, a 30-day race to 50,000 words begins. Anyone hoping to reach the finish line by the end of the month must write 1,667...
So, my life has been a bit much lately. Between changing careers, moving to Berlin right before the pandemic, not knowing anyone here, and my wife’s cancer returning just in time for the second wave, there haven’t been many opportunities to live a good life. But the...
When people think of writing a novel, they picture long, solitary evenings spent at their desks in near-total darkness, their faces lit up from below by the screen of their laptops, cupping a steaming mug of tea as they consider the elegance of the last passage...
Marcus Aurelius opens his Meditations by reflecting on the qualities he admires in others. It’s a Stoic technique for understanding your core values and cultivating behavior that will help you become the kind of person you aspire to be. I wanted to share this with you...
I recently developed a habit of taking cold showers in the morning. It didn’t seem that strange until I realized that cold showers make no sense as far as the science of habit formation goes. Typically, a habit forms when there’s a repeat cycle of cue, want, behavior,...
