Dr. Carol Dweck’s book Mindset: The Psychology of Success defines how success is achieved with more than brains and talent. What determines if someone achieves or fails comes down to choosing either a fixed mindset or…
Have no mercy for keeping words that clutter and dampen your sentences. If you want your prose to stand out, you must know the words not to use in your writing. Here’s why these six…
Is something in your writing not working? Are you not getting honest feedback from your peers? Do you read your sentences over and over again, but can’t put your finger on what’s not working? It’s…
Your writing is packed with great ideas and useful advice. So why aren’t readers flocking to bookstores and your blog to read your writing? What are readers not getting from your writing? Answer: emotion. Your…
Writers aim to write quotable sentences–how else will we be remembered for years to come? But you need more than perfect grammar to write that good sentence. In fact, many bad sentences have perfect grammar. What…
Think back to your favorite book, TV show, movie, short story–any form of writing. What made it so memorable? Could you predict the plot turns, the characters, and the ending? Or, did the writing surprise…
Coffee can boost your writing adrenaline, but wouldn’t it be nice to increase productivity in your writing through your own determination? Take control of how productive you are during your writing sessions by creating new…
Where I struggle with my writing is in scenery descriptions, but many writers struggle with writing dialogue. Conversations are where our characters become vulnerable, exposed, and perhaps too real. But knowing how to write a…
It’s no secret: writers are skilled at “stealing” someone else’s story. Some of the greatest “stolen” stories have been because the writer knew how to listen like a writer. But here’s the twist to this…
Hoping to determine the best time of day to write, I held a poll recently asking readers their best time of day to write. Surprisingly, over half of my readers write the best in the…
