Every writer’s job is to give the reader what she wants in a way she doesn’t expect. [Like this quote? Click here to Tweet and share it!] (And it’s wise to remember that every agent and editor is foremost a reader, too.) One of the fi...
Eugenia Lovett West, who’s still actively writing and publishing at age 96, takes perseverance to the next level. What is it like to be writing and publishing at age 96? This is my story, and I hope it will give encouragement to writers o...
These days writers hoping to write, pitch, publish and platform-build have little choice but to surrender themselves to their laptops and smartphones—a complicated predicament for the dreamers of the world. Here are several pros and cons ...
We’re smack in the middle of NaNoWriMo, and some of us are probably a little bit behind on our word count—definitely, definitely not me, but you know, some of us. Cough. Right. Anyway, it’s time to pick up the pace: This piece from t...
Okay, so this is sort of why I’m here, the thing I want to do.True, since coming here/joining this online community, that my own writing juices have flown. I wrote sketches in somebody’s short humour thread FFS as my first two p...
It’s been said that readers will believe anything; it’s the author’s job to convince them. Keeping readers absorbed in the fictional dream is challenging, but it seemed to be second nature for Michael Crichton, a science fiction and t...
Given the buzz surrounding the explosive book Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward, we were reminded of a surprisingly timeless article from the August 1996 issue of Writer’s Digest about Mr. Woodward’s investigative journal...
In 2017, I started a “Why I Write Poetry” series of guest posts. I’ve already received so many, and I hope they keep coming in (details on how to contribute below). Today’s “Why I Write Poetry” post comes from Jacqueline Hallenb...
Fiction Novel excerpts, short stories, etc. ...
Nothing explicit but a minor warning for racism, violence, and suggestive language. **** It was another one of those nights, the kind where you wonder why the hell did they ever allow democracy in the first place. Damned system stops workin...