Is the tough love Twyla Tharp provides in The Creative Habit the push you need to get past writer’s block?

What is a novel? Jane Smiley grapples with this question – and how to write one – in 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel.

How to play with words: lessons from Constance Hale’s Sin and Syntax.

Chuck Wendig’s theory of storytelling

Lessons for novelists from Renni Browne and Dave King’s Self-Editing for Fiction Writers.

Learn how Jessica Brody’s beat sheet can help you construct or revise your novel.

Susan Bell’s The Artful Edit shows us that revision is also a creative act, just like writing.

Learn why Dreyer’s English is an indispensable reference for fiction editors and how it can help you improve your writing.

Natalie Goldberg’s wise, generous book, Writing Down the Bones, can help you escape from the fog of writer’s block.

Shawn Coyne’s Story Grid offers two tools writers can use to plan and revise their novel.

What Elizabeth Gilbert teaches us about creativity and the writing life in Big Magic.

What can this classic study of the novel teach twenty-first century writers?

Lisa Cron’s Wired for Story might be the book I recommend most to clients – find out why.

Stephen King’s On Writing is revered among authors. But does it really teach you much about how to write?

A review of Anne Lamott’s generous and encouraging guide to writing, Bird by Bird.

You’ve agreed to be a beta reader for someone’s book – what do you do now? This post will give you concrete guidance on how to provide constructive criticism that will help the author improve their book.

Working with beta readers can be a low-cost way of improving your book and making sure it connects with readers in your genre. This post will give you tips on how to find beta readers, what questions to ask them, and how to use their feedback.

Writing a book is a big undertaking. Brilliant ideas can take seconds to formulate and months of labor to bring to fruition. But once you find your path, the work of hauling yourself over the mountain of the first draft simply requires putting one foot in front of the other.

I frequently counsel writers who are stuck in the early stages of book planning because they are paralyzed by anxiety that their plot or premise has already been written before – and better – by another author. I’m here to tell you what I tell them: stop worrying because the devil is in the details.

Is it “alright” or “all right”? The short answer: it depends. I’ll give you the details, so you can decide what is right for your context.