Fear Setting: How to Overcome Your Fear of Writing

Fear Setting: How to Overcome Your Fear of Writing

If you’re not finishing your writing, it’s because of fear. Fear is far more influential than we like to think. We like to believe that we’re not succumbing to fears because we are good at goal-setting, or perhaps we stick to a writing schedule of some kind.

Yet fear is insidious. It is subtle. It speaks with voices you can’t hear, and unless you weed those voices from your psyche, they will forever impede your writing dreams.

Here’s how to overcome your fears and finish your writing with confidence!

How a Scene List Can Change Your Novel-Writing Life

How a Scene List Can Change Your Novel-Writing Life

By the end of this post you will be using an excel spreadsheet.

Don’t make that face—I know you’re a writer and not a data analyst. Or if you are a data analyst—I understand that you’re on this blog to get away from you day job. I get it. But guess what? At the suggestion of Randy Ingermason—the creator of the Snowflake Method— I listed all of the scenes in my novel in a nice little Google spreadsheet. It changed my novel-writing life, and doing the same will change yours too.

Justin Boote on Becoming a Writer Without a Degree in Writing

Justin Boote on Becoming a Writer Without a Degree in Writing

Do you want to be a writer but are hesitant to try because you haven’t taken any writing classes? Wondering if you need to have a degree in order to write?

Guess what? You don’t have to have a writing education to be a writer.

I don’t have one and have been published dozens of times. And today’s interviewee is the same way.

Cailyn Lloyd on How to Get Great Feedback From Beta Readers and Editors

Cailyn Lloyd on How to Get Great Feedback From Beta Readers and Editors

At some point in your writing process, you’re going to need to put your work into the hands of others. Beta readers and professional editors should be an important part of your writing team. (And yes, writing is a team sport!)

I often get a lot of questions about the revision process, namely how to get beta readers and when to hire a professional editor. Our interviewee this month is here to answer those questions!

T.L. Mahrt on How to Live a Writer’s Life (With Kids!)

T.L. Mahrt on How to Live a Writer’s Life (With Kids!)

How do you live “a writer’s life”? By writing! (And editing, and publishing, and marketing. But we’ll get to that.)

But sometimes (okay a lot of the time) it’s hard to fit writing into our busy, busy lives. Kids, school, work, house maintenance, relationships . . . We’re pulled in a million directions every day.

The key to fitting in anything important is to find the time and protect that time.