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Get Yourself Ready for Nano 2022

Get Yourself Ready for Nano 2022

Nano’s annual energy surge is available to writers of many stripes. You don’t have to be starting a novel (and you don’t even need to be a novelist).

Support Your Creativity with Lists

Support Your Creativity with Lists

There is satisfaction in finishing a list item, and it’s too easy to hurry past that moment without enjoying it and taking it in. It’s worthwhile to pause.

New Habits for Old People

New Habits for Old People

Changing habits is hard because of our default neurology. Change can happen, though, and more easily if we’re changing in the direction of a better life.

The Critique Group: A Cure for Writerly Isolation

The Critique Group: A Cure for Writerly Isolation

A proven antidote to that creative isolation is a well-functioning writer group. Its sustaining, regular rhythms – drafting and sharing your pages, then reading and critiquing your group members’ pages, then gathering together and scheduling the next month’s due date and meeting – become essential and welcome elements of everyday life.

Guest Post: Writing for Children • Rules of the Road

Guest Post: Writing for Children • Rules of the Road

It is absolutely necessary to write for your ideal reader. Emotionally, how would they feel in your main character’s situation? What’s the worldview of a three-year-old? If your main character is a mouse, how would the physical world look to them? And so on.

Treat Resistance Like It’s a Narcissist

Treat Resistance Like It’s a Narcissist

Instead of engaging in hand-to-hand combat, we can assert our healthy boundaries, limit contact with the aggressor, and save our passion for places where positive forward motion is doable and satisfying.

What Is Normal Creativity?

What Is Normal Creativity?

The client’s question came from a familiar place. I suspect most of us share these doubts. Compared to other creative people, are we normal? Are we doing enough? Do we measure up? Are we hopelessly less than those other people – older, younger, wealthier, more famous, more privileged, more productive, better looking?