and one that inspired me to try a new genre — Today, I thought I’d share a few books that have appeared at just the right moment in my life and have had a significant impact on my writing over the years. Most of these books came into my life decades ago, during a brief period in my early and mid-twenties…

From the practical to the inspiring — I’ll begin with a caveat: the best book for any writer is the novel, story collection, or essay collection that inspires you to write. Every writer is a reader first. So by the time you begin reading books about writing, you should have been reading voraciously for years. …

Save on Classes to Help You Write, Revise, and Publish In the previous post, Great Cyber Monday Deals for Writers, I shared two excellent tools I use to outline and draft my novels, as well as an indispensible publishing tool, all on sale today. In this post, I’m sharing something…

Treat yourself to software that saves time and improves your writing — Do you need special novel-writing software to compose your novels? Probably not. You could write everything longhand in a notebook, and type out in Word. That said, novel-writing software can help you streamline the process and make the best of your novel’s many moving parts. …

Inspiring classes to help you write and publish, up to 50% off this weekend — This is just a quick note to let you know about the Black Friday savings on my classes in writing and publishing. You have access to any class you choose for 18 months, so you can start when you’re ready and take your time. …

Make 2024 the Year of Your Book, Save 25% on Every Class Maybe you’ve been dreaming of writing a novel or memoir for years. Maybe you have a few chapters stuffed away in a drawer. …

Write. Revise. Publish. My once-a-year Master Class Cohort is now open for enrollment. — Maybe you’ve been wanting to write a novel or memoir for years. Maybe you have stopped and started, stashed chapters in a drawer, gotten stuck, or lost motivation halfway through the manuscript. I’m excited to announce the 2024 Novel Writing Master Class Bundle, which includes my transformative flagship course, Novel…

Naming Your Novel’s Protagonist and Other Characters — On the subject of character names, playwright Sarah Ruhl writes, “The art of naming a character is sacred and mysterious,” Ruhl writes (100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write). I love this book of very short essays and highly encourage you to read it for Ruhl’s thoughts on dramatization…

8 Weeks to Get Your First Novel off the Ground — Are you a first-time novelist? Learn how to craft a compelling premise, create interesting characters, choose the best point of view for your story, plot and structure your novel, build great scenes, and write convincing dialogue in my eight-week course designed for beginning novelists. As 2024 draws near, maybe you realize you never started that novel you put on your 2023 “to-do” list. It’s not too late! …