writing a novel 500 words at a time — A novel is made up of small moving parts. When the novel is published, the parts may appear to be in just the right place, to have always been where they are. This is rarely the case. …

I asked BardAI for an answer. — Before the Writers Guild of American went on strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on May 2, it made a list of proposals. Among them was a statement about artificial intelligence. Regulate use of artificial intelligence on MBA-covered projects. AI can’t write or rewrite literary material…

Cultivating stillness in your writing life — I’ve been writing for my entire adult life. I started with short stories back in college and grad school and began writing novels after my first book, a collection of linked stories, was published in 2001. Sometimes I go a couple of years between books. Once, I went six years…

Quick Tip: Start with Your Bookshelf — If you want to publish traditionally, you’ll need a literary agent. Although you can still find those gigantic hard-to-navigate Marketplace books in the reference section of Barnes and Noble, you really don’t need them. The best place to find a literary agent is on your bookshelf. If you’re serious about…

If you want to write, one hour makes all the difference. — The Quiet Hour: Inspiration from The Vinyl Room One thing I love about teaching is the inspiration I get when my students start writing, creating, and making something beautiful. Such is the case with The Vinyl Room by Andres Celati. I first had the pleasure of reading Andres’s work when he was a student in my Writing for…

a simple story structure that works every time — I’d like to tell you about a simple, five part story structure that works for short stories in any genre. I learned this more than twenty years ago while teaching for Gotham Writers’ Workshop in New York City — back when you saw those yellow Gotham boxes on every street…

How I tried to train the language model Remember those days when you might secretly Google yourself to find out what the internet had to say about you? That is so 2017. These days, it feels somehow more genteel to have a conversation about yourself with the internet. I wondered…

Why “Productivity” Is Your Enemy — I recently posted about my experiment writing fiction with ChatGPT. The result was hilarious, disturbing, and odd. From a productivity standpoint, it was a success, I guess. In about 20 seconds, ChatGPT generated a complete (and completely uninspired) outline for a novel. (In a separate post, I’ll write about how…

Transform your idea into a book in NOVEL in NINE. Starts Feb. 5th Do you want to write a novel or memoir? Do you need structure and accountability to help you see a book through to completion? Do you want to finish a manuscript you started or bring a dreamed-of…