How I Built a Writing Habit That Finally Stuck
For years I treated writing like a special occasion. I waited for the right mood, the empty afternoon, the surge of inspiration that would carry me through a thousand effortless…
Writing Dialogue That Sounds Like People Actually Talk
Bad dialogue is easy to spot and hard to fix. It is the moment a reader's eyes glaze over, the line that makes a scene feel like a school play.…
How to Read Fiction Like a Writer, Not a Reader
Most people read fiction to find out what happens next. That is a wonderful thing and the reason stories exist. But if you want to write, you eventually need a…
Submitting to Literary Magazines Without Losing Your Mind
Sending your work out to literary magazines is one of the strangest parts of a writing life. You spend months making something private and true, and then you mail it…
Finding the Right Feedback Group and Actually Using It
Writing is solitary, but revision rarely should be. At some point almost every writer needs other eyes, people who will tell them what is landing and what is not, before…
What a Writing Portfolio Should Actually Show an Editor
When I assembled my first portfolio, I made the mistake nearly every writer makes. I gathered everything I had ever published and dumped it onto a single page in reverse…
The Quiet Craft of Revising Your Own Work
The first draft is where you discover what you want to say. Revision is where you finally say it. For a long time I confused the two, treating revision as…
Finding a Voice That Sounds Like You on the Page
Of all the questions writers ask, the one about voice may be the most anxious. New writers want to know how to find their voice, as though it were an…
Turning a Private Experience Into a Personal Essay Worth Reading
The personal essay is a deceptively difficult form. On the surface it looks like the easiest kind of writing, because the subject is your own life and you are the…
What I Wish I Had Known Before Working With Editors
The relationship between a freelance writer and an editor is one of the most important professional relationships a writer will have, and almost no one teaches you how to navigate…