My good friend recently wrote an amazing blog post about the Writing Blahs – when you don’t want to talk to your imaginary friends. This differs from Writer’s Block – the times when your imaginary friends don’t want to talk to you. Blahs and Blocks look different for different people. For example, Block tends to feature me, sitting at my computer, completely stuck and unable to navigate a scene (usually my characters are defying me because I unintentionally shoved them into a

Two things don’t mix well: writing and perfectionism. Why? Because writing is one of those art forms where you’re guaranteed not to have the perfect outcome on your first try. Yet, somehow, even knowing this…I tend to beat myself up when my stories have unnecessary scenes, rabbit trails, out-of-character moments, and plot holes in the drafting process. I find that I’m demanding a level of perfection from my first draft and myself that I would never expect from anyone else. Wh

How often do we consider that triumph and failure are more a matter of perspective than absolutes? There are some who believe that the only way to succeed is to accomplish exactly what you set out to do. I’ve never seen it that way…maybe because my long history of anxiety requires me to look at success/failure on a different metric. Instead of the ultimate goal-achievement being the victory, and everything else existing as either a step on the road or a setback, I’ve been tr

It’s tough to find a writer who doesn’t love at least some angle of their story. Why would we put ourselves through the brainstorming, drafting, editing, querying, and publishing purgatory otherwise, right? In every draft, there has to be some impetus to keep moving forward. Sometimes it’s a line, an arc, a certain scene, or a particular character that keeps us going. So, what do you do when one of those much-loved elements becomes obsolete in redrafting? What happens when th

In a previous post, I talked a little bit about how saying “yes” to writing means saying “no” to doing something else. Because of the great importance of that choice, I wanted to focus this week’s pep talk on encouraging all of you: it is okay to say no to things. You have every right to guard your writing time. In fact, you may have to, in order to succeed in your writing goals. Personally, weekends are my writing time. I work full-time throughout the week, and while I do ma

I tend to meet a lot of perfectionists in the writing craft. I’m one of them! And it’s an absolute beast to face up to one of the hardest truths about our calling. So I’m just going to say it: Writers, I have good news and bad news for you. What you are writing will never be perfect. You will never achieve perfection. This is the best and worst thing about writing. No one is perfect, ourselves included. But here’s the beautiful contrast…if we aren’t perfect, and if we will ne