Over Thanksgiving week I decided to take a creative retreat.  The plan was to make a soundtrack for my novel-in-revision, which could use...

Camilla is a writer in New York who has attended many of my classes.  She's celebrating the completion of her manuscript, a memoir a...

A writing colleague once said:  "If I'm away from my book more than three days, it's like starting over again."  Have y...

What if a trip to Paris, say for three months, would bring back your writing enthusiasm?    What if you kept a daily writing journa...

Realtors know that location is everything in buying or selling property.  Try to sell a house that's near a busy highway or high te...

A small book came my way this month.  It's called The Art of Time in Fiction :  As Long as It Takes, by Joan Silbers.  Very short, ...

So many writers come to writing with a deep love for books.  They feel that love for books will make them able to write--almost magica...

Several years ago, I was browsing through a recent issue of The Writer's Chronicle, a wonderful publication from AWP.  AWP has been ...

Many years ago, when my books were first being published, I took a class on reading my writing aloud.  It was taught by a television a...

Plot is the most basic outer-story structure your book can have.  Fiction and memoir plots are all about action--what happens, where it...