The Writing Life

Last week I talked about the importance of recognizing the “life scripts” we’re surrounded by as a crucial first step toward ditching the script to chart your own path. If you want to live creatively, you have to step off the ledge into the unknown. About that stepping off part… It’s not just that it’s […]

“If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on somebody else’s path.” – Joseph Campbell Whenever you go through a difficult life event–a loved one passing away, a divorce, getting fired or laid off–you quickly feel the inadequacy of the “script” that people follow in fraught social situations. Someone finds out your loved one […]

As a publishing professional who spends much of his day serving as a customer support line for authors, I see a whole lot of questions about the “small stuff:” micro-etiquette questions, author bios, whether they should be on TikTok, whether they have the perfect comp titles. I don’t blame anyone! I try to answer these […]

In the past, I often approached time away from work with the same spirit of competition and productivity that governs my work life. By the time I approached a vacation I had often worked myself into a state of exhaustion, so I was absolutely going to “vacation well” and maximize every moment I had away […]

The headline of this post may surprise those who know that I have published two books that have a total of ninety “rules” about writing and publishing. But trust me, I called them “rules” with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek. There are no rules in publishing. Come up with any supposedly ironclad “rule” […]

Morten Høi Jensen wrote a great essay today that was touched off in part by a reporter’s now-deleted tweet questioning how anyone could read fiction during Times Like These. I wanted to chime in on this not just to point you to Jensen’s excellent article, but also to riff on one of the undercurrents of […]