How to Right a Book in Nine (Not So) Easy Steps

How to Right a Book in Nine (Not So) Easy Steps

165,000 people search “how to right a book” every month.

(NOTE: Step one to write a book, get a good critique group who will catch those spelling errors.)

Seriously though, wouldn’t it be great to write a book? To see your name on that glossy cover, flip the pages filled with words you’ve written, to be able to tell your friends, “I’m an author.”

How do you write a book?

How to Bust Excuses and Focus on Your Writing Like Ray Bradbury

How to Bust Excuses and Focus on Your Writing Like Ray Bradbury

Fill in the blank: I can’t finish my draft because _______. Are you sure that is what is holding you back?

This is one of the busiest months of the year for me. I’m usually disciplined, but there are some especially busy seasons when writing is hard to prioritize. As one of my classes began reading Fahrenheit 451 this month, I remembered a letter Ray Bradbury sent to a librarian about how he wrote the novel. It was just what I needed to get back to finishing my book.

Kill Perfectionism With This One Practice

Kill Perfectionism With This One Practice

It can feel impossible to know where to start writing. We can become paralyzed by fear, worrying our words will offend or bore readers, or worse, that we’ll never have any readers at all. In order to move past these feelings, we have to overcome perfectionism.

That’s easier said than done, but these three strategies make all the difference.

Story Ideas: How to Beat Shiny-New-Idea Syndrome and Actually Finish Your Projects

Story Ideas: How to Beat Shiny-New-Idea Syndrome and Actually Finish Your Projects

Authors often get asked where they get their story ideas. It’s one of the most common questions my student writers wish they could ask their writing heroes. They think, “If I could just find a way to come up with the next best-selling story idea like [insert famous author], then I’ll make it as a writer!”

But they misunderstand one critical truth: the magic isn’t in the ideas. It’s in the execution. We need the ideas to get started, but many writers don’t have a system for capturing the ideas around them daily, and they don’t develop ideas consistently in practice.

We all have files full of unfinished projects and story ideas spread across notebooks and online platforms. Why do ideas lose their luster the moment we start writing them?