“Short Time, Many Times”
I’ve begun following the teachings of Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, a monk in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. He has a wonderfully clear and approachable teaching style, with a gentle sense of humor.
His teaching on meditation practice is simply, “short time, many times.” We might think true meditation is about sitting for hours, but in reality a) few of us have those long periods to practice; b) we’re probably not prepared to focus for that long anyway; and c) we have to learn to meditate “anytime, anywhere” - to bring meditation into daily life, not just keep our practice on the cushion.
How Many Point of View Should You Have in a Novel?
This post was inspired by a question from my 100 Day Writing Challenge group. It’s not the first time I’ve heard it, though. It’s a tricky question. Some will say there are “rules” around it (like, no more than three POV characters per novel) but as with most “rules” of writing, you’ll find those rule-breakers everywhere. I’m sure you can think of a few!
My answer is: It depends.
Mid-Year Check-In + Best Books of 2025 I’ve Read So Far
Time for a mid-year check-in! Are you on track with your writing goals? Now is the time to think about your goals, and recalibrate them if necessary. No shame – you are where you are. Doing the 100 Day Writing Challenge with my fabulous group of writers has been a blessing in this regard. It’s kept me going on those days when I otherwise would have been tempted to avoid writing because I was tired, or faced a difficult scene, or would have preferred to watch tv.
Omniscient vs. Deep 3rd Person Point of View: How to Write for Maximum Impact
Recently I saw a post in an online forum by a writer who had completed an entire novel, and sent it out to agents with the usual high hopes of representation. The thing is, she wrote it entirely in omniscient point of view.
How to Handle Fear of Rejection
I’ve been working on a story recently that I’m diving back into after months away. It can be good to take a break from a piece of work, of course; you need that distance to be able to see its good points and weak points more clearly.
But it hit me that I really meant to finish this thing last year.
Spring Writing Refresh
My affirmation of the day is “I am fueled by the energy of spring to renew my efforts toward my goals.”* It’s May first, officially the day when the golden Snowball Award is called here in New York (Syracuse won, with 115 inches this winter). Nope, we don’t think spring around here until the last possibility of snow is over.
More Risk=More Meaning=More Fun
Well, I seem to have gone an entire month without a blog post! Not on purpose. I’ve been involved in a fun project, writing the true story of three orphaned mountain lion cubs who were miraculously saved by the joint efforts of residents of a local community and wildlife biologists and rangers.
From Spark to Story: Generating, Capturing, and Using Ideas
You know the feeling – you're in the shower, or on a walk, or just waking from dreamland, and suddenly -THE IDEA.
I mean, THE idea. The ONE. You scramble for a piece of paper, or your phone, some way to get it down. Or maybe you think you’ll remember, and will get it down later (almost always a mistake, but we try to convince ourselves otherwise).
Compassionate Resolutions for the New Year
It’s that time again, when we set our goals, plans, resolutions, intentions – whatever you want to call them – for the new year.
It’s not a bad thing to take advantage of the new year energy to get started – and remember that energy in motion tends to stay in motion. Getting started is often the hardest part.
The Final Push: How to Stick with Your Writing Goals During the Busiest Month of the Year
December already! If you’re like me, you’re wondering where the heck the past 11 months went.
If you haven’t quite accomplished everything you wanted to, writing-wise – well, you still have the month of December to go.
If you did bomb through all your writing goals, congratulations! You can take it a little easier this month. You may even want to start planning for next year.
Going Deep: Writing Scenes with Emotional Impact
“If you want to write a fantasy story with Norse gods, sentient robots, and telepathic dinosaurs, you can do just that. Want to throw in a vampire and a lesbian unicorn while you're at it? Go ahead. Nothing's off limits. But the endless possibility of the genre is a trap. It's easy to get distracted by the glittering props available to you and forget what you're supposed to be doing: telling a good story. Don't get me wrong, magic is cool. But a nervous mother singing to her child at night while something moves quietly through the dark outside her house? That's a story. Handled properly, it's more dramatic than any apocalypse or goblin army could ever be.”
― Patrick Rothfuss
A 3-Step Process to Help if You’re Blocked
Before I discuss the topic of this week’s post, I want to circle back to the “4 Burners” post from a couple weeks ago: Burned Out? The 4 Burners Theory of Energy. I’ve been thinking a lot about how to rebalance my life, and make the time I do spend more meaningful. Which means that, at least for now, I’ll be greatly curtailing my blog posts and newsletters – from once a week to once a month. I may post more frequently over on my Substack – or I may give that up, because honestly, as much as I want to cultivate a community there, it is yet another burner that I don’t have the time to fully devote my attention to.
How to Use Interviews to Spice Up Your Novel Research
Last week I had the opportunity to interview someone who has the same profession as a character in a novel I’m working on. I hadn’t planned on it, but I realized it would be a great way to learn about something I’d been sort of winging in the first draft.
Your Writing Group May Not Be the Best Thing for Your Writing
Support. Camaraderie. Feedback. Connections. When we think of our ideal writing group, these spring to mind. We’d love to have some forum for sharing our work and commiserating the challenges and celebrating the wins. A good writing group can give us all of these things.
Your 6-Step Fall Writing Plan
I had my first pumpkin spice oat milk latte today (homemade) so it must be... Fall! Actually we’re in that sweet spot where the mornings are cool (even a bit chilly) and the days are warm and sunny and not humid. But still, it feels like we’ve turned a corner. Kids are back to school, most vacations are over, time to get back to work.
Are You Truly Choosing Your Hard?
The idea of “choosing your hard” has gone around self-help circles as a sort of tough-love motivational quote. To be fair, most of us need this reminder every once in a while in some area of our lives.
There are times when we don’t feel like writing. We don’t want to expend the energy. We find a million other things to do that seem way easier in that moment. What it comes down to is, the things that are worth doing are hard, but the cost of not doing them is harder.
7 Reasons You Should Hire a Book Coach - and 3 Reasons You Shouldn’t
Since I have new email subscribers and others who are being introduced to me on Substack, I decided to revisit an old post that answers the questions: Why would I hire a book coach? What does a book coach do, anyway? How is it different from hiring an editor?
All You Need to Know About Backstory
Writers hear a lot about backstory, but if often remains vague, undefined, and maybe something thrown in without any real regard for why it’s necessary other than “to explain the character’s motivations.”
That’s a good reason, but that’s not the only reason to include backstory. And sometimes writers include backstory that isn’t necessary, which just leads to confusion for the reader.
Aspirations, Intentions, and Goals – What Do They Mean for You?
I’ve been rereading Oren Jay Sofer’s Your Heart Was Made for This, taking my time and reading one chapter weekly, implementing its lessons in my meditations and daily life. This week’s is about Aspiration, which brought to mind the subtle differences between aspiration, intention, and goal-setting.
Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
It’s one of the questions writers dread. People who don’t see themselves as creative ask this with genuine curiosity, though, like it’s some holy mystery they don’t have access to. And to be sure, a brilliant novel (or any piece of art) can seem confounding: how did they do that? I feel it myself as I read, and even more so when I contemplate a piece of art or music or dance (although with those, I know that I don’t have the skill to pull it off; with writing, I can’t help but compare how I might have executed the idea with the one on the page).