Ten years ago today, on the 40th anniversary of Sandra Day O'Connor taking her seat as the 1st female Justice of the Supreme Court, I published my first opinion …
Writing Tips
Tips for Writers
Writers Links The Single Best Piece of Advice I've Gotten as a Writer Great Sources for Writers: Poets & Writers Magazine The Nebraska Center for …
Paddling your Bathtub into London: How Great Stories End
I am working through plotting issues myself and returned to these notes from a master class I taught on narrative endings a couple years ago. They are just my …
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On the 75th Anniversary of D-Day
It’s a rainy evening in Paris, just minutes before the hour, 75 years ago, that D-Day began. At midnight, RAF aircraft dropped hundreds of dummy paratroopers …
Steinbeck on Struggling with a Scene
Another bit of great writing advice from John Steinbeck: …
Writing Advice from Ernest Hemingway on the Anniversary of For Whom the Bell Tolls
Today marks the anniversary of the publication in 1940 of my personal favorite Hemingway novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls. Coincidentally, tomorrow marks the …
23 Tips from Aaron Sorkin’s Screenwriting Master Class
I recently participated in Aaron Sorkin's online screenwriting master class, which I highly recommend for any story writer -- it is more about story than about …
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Yet More Writing Wisdom from Plath
More writing wisdom from Sylvia Plath today: “Some things are hard to write about. After something happens to you, you go to write it down, and either you over …
Gertrude Stein on Who to Write For
As it's Gertrude Stein's birthday today -- her 143rd -- my quote comes from her The Making of Americans: I am writing for myself and strangers. This is the only …
365 Great Quotes from Women
Day #5 of writing in earnest, and a little humor is in order: You know, it's hard work to write a book. I can't tell you how many times I really get going on an …