Critical Things You Should Be Writing (But Probably Aren’t)

As the world grows more commercial, there’s an increasing tendency to label only certain types of writing as valuable: People encourage others to write books nearly as a right of passage. Professionals apparently aren’t professional at all unless they publish papers or articles. News headlines still capture our attention. No one wants to be without…

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5 Practical Tips to Take the Suck Out of Writing

Like any job, writing has its logistical and psychological challenges. These don’t have to ruin your experience, though. These are just a handful of tips that can make completing a draft all the easier and more enjoyable. 1. Back your writing up and print it out. These days, tools like Google Docs mean you can avoid…

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5 Tips to Make Writing A Book a Million Times Easier

Some brilliant people on the planet, so I have heard, are capable of writing a book with the same ease as sipping a latte. I am not one of those people. I count myself lucky if I write even one short story or novel a year, largely because…well, life. But I have developed some strategies that make…

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What’s In Your Punctuation? A Lot, Apparently

Part of basic elementary school training is learning the basics of punctuation: A comma does this, a period does that. Over time, we get better at using those basics consistently. That helps ensure writing is more understandable and has a better flow. But how much of punctuation relates to voice, that mysterious thing that agents, publishers…

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How to Deal with Other People Finding Writing Success

You know those success-based social media posts. The exuberant ones. The ones where people announce they’ve just found an agent, met some ridiculous word count goal, or had a publisher snap up their book in a six- or even seven-figure deal. On the one hand, I am genuinely over the moon for the writers who…

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