Writing

Writing

Feeling is Believing

One of the questions I struggled to answer as a writer is what happens if I become really successful? How do I handle being well-known, and do I really want that?

Writing

Writing as Directing

I like plays. I enjoy them because they are the closest thing I know to live storytelling. A play creates an intimacy between playwright, actor, and audience that is unmatched by any other medium.

Writing

Writing is My Business

When I look out to sea, where the horizon meets the sky, I’ve wondered what would happen if I sailed in that direction. What would I find out there? Where would I be? Who would I become? Writing is su...

Writing

Awakening

Few can say what is on their mind. If they could, they would say it, only the number of times we don’t is far more than the number of times we do. The trick about being a writer is to be able to artic...

Writing

Six Books

Here are six books that changed my view of the world. These are not in any particular order of influence. Each one worked its magic in my life in different ways. They are the reasons I love books.

Writing

Reading in the Modern World

I read for two reasons. I love stories, and second, I am curious about most everything. Many people have asked me how I manage to read as much as I do, so I thought I would give my readers some tips.

Writing

Endings are Hard

Endings are hard because an ending, even that of a book, a work, or a year, doesn’t mean that everything stops. An ending is usually the beginning of something else. This is inherently both good and b...

Writing

Thoughts on Writing

One of the more difficult books to understand, and yet one of the most enlightening on the theater is David Mamet’s small volume, Three Uses of the Knife: On the Nature and Purpose of Drama.

Writing

More, or Less

Sometimes when we write, we have to cut out the bits that don’t forward the story. This is editing.

Writing

Dialogue as Action

Most of our lives are not spent in life-and-death struggles, epic moments of triumph or defeat, but in talking to or with others. Because it’s so routine and normal, we overlook the power such moments...

Writing

The Middle

Part of the novel-writing process, at least for me, is sporadic periods of angst, irritability, and rampant self-doubt that starts when I reach the middle. Often, these come late at night, like bad dr...

Writing

What Makes a Good Story

When all is said and done, a good story engages. It will seep effortlessly into the mind and speak to us directly.

Writing

Three Books

At the end of H.G. Wells’ novel The Time Machine, the protagonist returns to the current world, recounts his story, and leaves, taking three books with him into the future or the past. The question “w...

Writing

The Muses

The muses were the goddesses of inspiration or knowledge—not only in the literary and poetic arts but in the sciences as well.

Writing

ChatGPT and Writing

ChatGPT has begun to influence how books and articles are written and will likely do so in greater volume in the future. Many have opinions about it, but few know what it is and how it works.