Listen now! So you want to write that mystery? Awesome! I love when people own their creative dreams. But it’s not as simple as just sitting down and waiting for the muse to strike with her fairy wand full of creativity. Instead, we’ve gotta do some things to set ourselves up for success. I’ve...
Listen now! How do you actually set yourself up for writing success? I don’t mean the nuts and bolts of learning how to write or practicing your craft. Yes, that’s important—but that’s not everything. I’m talking about the mental prep work you have to do to get your mindset, your confidence and...
When I first heard the words “project manage" and "your writing” in the same sentence, my head almost exploded. I'm the kind of person who literally cries when faced with a complicated spreadsheet. The first time someone asked me about a pivot table, I almost had a heart attack. And no, I'm not...
Happy Valentine’s Day! Let’s talk love affairs. Not the human kind, because those can so often be disappointing, right? No, let’s talk real love—our love affairs with our creativity. With our writing. I was doing a meditation this morning and the meditation teacher read a poem. It was about...
How do you decide what to write? I get this question a lot. I think people who are deciding if they want to write a book spend a lot of time thinking about the external landscape—trends, state of the publishing industry, what agents want, what’s hot on one bestseller list or another. And look....
Writing “success” doesn’t happen overnight. We all tend to get caught up in such a narrow view of success, and specifically this idea of it happening "overnight." Writers definitely experience this. We see the people on the NY Times bestseller list, hear about the new writer who got a...
One of my favorite business podcasters, Jenna Kutcher, who hosts the Goal Diggers Podcast, has this saying: Where the woo meets the work. In her words, it’s about honoring the woo, then following it up with the work. Meaning, putting the creativity crystal on your desk isn’t going to mean that...
I’m one of those writers who has to continually psych myself out to get work done. It’s not that I don’t love writing—like, the actual act of writing. I do. I’ve always loved it. When I’m not doing it I have withdrawal. Hence the whole pursuing the writing career thing. But when I feel like the...
