My Simple Story Editing Process

Are you struggling with editing your writing? This article provides a process to help you trim down what doesn’t matter to the reader. Learn how to effectively edit your writing and reduce the overwhelm. Read more

Making Art and Shaping Reality with Magic and Creativity

Creativity and Magic

Magic is created every time we make a piece of art or choose to live our lives creatively. Art and creativity are a communication between our thoughts/experiences and the less conscious, more powerful part of the mind that controls our perceptions and behavior. How can we use that magic with intent to shift our experience and to create better, more creative art? Read more

Harnessing Our Relentless Drive to Create

The Creative Drive

Why are people driven to create—to leave behind something that did not exist before—an extension of the self, willed and manifested outward into the world where it can leave an imprint on the minds of others? How do people produce such complex and beautiful artistic creations? Why are some considered creative geniuses while others believe themselves uncreative? Read more

Simple Markdown Guide for Writers

Writer writing Markdown

You can learn the basics of Markdown in 5 minutes, so I’ll teach you those basics now. Learn a tiny bit of code to make your life easier. Trust me, this is easy. You’ll likely never want to return to a rich text editor again. Read more

Novelists: Weave together a complex storyline using this strategy in Scrivener (free Scrivener template included)

Writing a Novel

This strategy can be easily adapted to other software. If you do use Scrivener, I’ve created a downloadable Scrivener template for convenience. The problem of complexity If you ever have a difficult time managing the threads of your plots and subplots, this strategy may help you. It can also help to bring lackluster characters to … Read more

Speculative & historical fiction writing: the difficulty of getting into the minds of our characters

Speculative Fiction Difficulty

For those of us exploring past, future, or speculative worlds, we often go to great lengths to avoid physical anachronisms like cell phones in the wild west, but we don’t often consider philosophical or ideological anachronisms. I find doing so gives me great insight into the human condition I may not have discovered otherwise. More importantly, it strengthens and deepens my characters. Read more