I Spent Thirty-Three Years in a Box and Called It a Career
Never went looking for better, never went back to school, never reached past the edge of what I had. Comfortable is the wall people mistake for a career.
Series: Creative Writing Essentials (Page 4)
Creative Writing EssentialsBefore 2014 I Spent a Thousand Hours a Year Watching Other People’s Work
They say they are too busy to exercise, too tired to cook, too overwhelmed to read, and too stressed to see friends. Then they watch Netflix for four hours.
Creative Writing EssentialsThe Work I’d Cringe At Now, and Why I’m Glad I Do
Old work makes you cringe because your judgment kept improving after the work stopped. I deleted almost 200 web pages of LinkedIn branding articles, and an early book I ghostwrote makes me wince, and both taught me what to keep…
Creative Writing EssentialsThe Finished Movies Studios Threw Away for a Tax Write-Off
Warner Bros. Discovery finished Coyote vs. Acme and buried it for a tax write-off, and only a sale to Ketchup Entertainment got it into theaters in 2026. Batgirl and Scoob! Holiday Haunt are still locked away, and every writer should…
Creative Writing EssentialsFluff Words: Cut Them From Your Prose, Keep Them in Your Dialogue
Fluff words make a sentence longer without making it say more. Cut them from narration and business writing, and keep the ones that make dialogue sound like real people talking.
Creative Writing EssentialsWhen to Quit Writing a Book: I’ve Abandoned Dozens, and I’d Do It Again
I've quit dozens of books at the outline, the middle and the finished first draft. When to abandon a writing project, how to tell a slump from a dead book, and why you should keep every manuscript you stop.