I was thrilled to have a visit on my blog from a writing mentor, Ken Atchity, who authored A Writer's Time, one of the textbooks used in...

In her book, Thunder and Lightning, free-writing expert Natalie Goldberg describes a writing exercise she created after reading Borrowed Ti...

Imagine trying to describe the image to the left. Lights swirling all over a black background? Winter wheat in a field, caught by the last s...

Outside my office window, the snow is coming down fast. I cancelled a dentist appointment today, shoveled the steps, walked to the mailbox, ...

Goal-setting doesn't work for many book writers. Maybe we're too random. Maybe we need more flexibility than traditional goal-settin...

What's your dream for your book this year? Try a simple new-year's exercise to find out. It's called a presume --a word coined ...

Your book has a major and minor cast, whether you're writing fiction, memoir, or nonfiction. People move stories, illustrate theories an...

What's behind the veil? If everyone in literature wears a disguise or mask that veils their true self, what are your book's major pl...

Alison McGhee, writing instructor and author of many wonderful novels including Shadow Baby, once taught a very effective exercise in a wri...

In her excellent book on writing craft, Listen to Me, memoirist Lynn Lauber writes: "If you find yourself telling the same story over a...