Have you ever sat in a craft talk and felt it lacked something? The content was good, but fifteen minutes into the presentation, you find yourself scrolling through email on your phone. You’re bored, but you don’t know why. Perhaps you’re having trouble focusing, or maybe it’s as simple as the speaker failed to connect…
This is the week where Americans sit down around the dining room table, look at the people around them, and think “who are these guys?” Seriously, in two more days, we’ll all take a breather from everyday life and stop our incessant worrying about our next novel, our faltering ad campaign, the agent who hasn’t…
According to recent reports, the English language contains over 470,000 words. Compared to other languages, that’s a whole lot of words (many of which we borrowed from other languages, that’s true). According to my limited research, the average 10-year-old has a vocabulary of about 10,000 words. And as reported by The Economist magazine, their online…
Did you listen to the recent podcast with Shannon Baker, who recently received a plaque from her publisher for reaching 100,000 books sold? On the podcast, Shannon told a great story about sticking with it. “I think I would say ‘be the tortoise’ … just keep at it. I mean, when I started writing, (with)…
Your main character—let’s call him Archie—has a problem. He’s trying to find something lost in the woods (a criminal’s hideout, perhaps, or a missing child, or a jungle-covered Mayan ruin). Suddenly, Archie knows what he needs: a drone! Now you, the author, have a problem. You’ve never flown a drone. What does it feel like…