I have a degree in creative writing, but that’s not how I learned to write. I learned to write by writing. Badly at first, then a little better. My passion for words and stories is an ongoing adventure, and I want to share what I learn with other writers. Indie authorship isn’t a competition: it’s a community. We’re all together in shattering the self-publishing stigma, so individual growth benefits all of us. Below is a curated collection of my blog posts devoted to the craft. (They’re not exclusively for writers; readers may also find them useful for analyzing, critiquing, and appreciating literature.) If there’s a particular topic you’d like me to tackle, suggest it via my Contact page.
Shipping & Handling: Writing Relationships to Root For
Plotting & Story Structure
- The Infield Plot Model: How Baseball Can Improve Your Story Structure
- The ESSENCE of Writing a Novella Serial (guest post for Amid the Imaginary)
- Cultivating Plots: How to Grow Your Series
- Polishing the Bones: What Home Remodeling Taught Me About Story Revision
Genre
Science Fiction
- Sexism IN SPACE (and how sci-fi can fight it)
- SWFA’s “The Panel”: Cli-Fi and Solarpunk (live-streaming video, September 2018)
- The Literature Museum: Sci-Fi and Sexism
- The Air-Speed Velocity of Ravens: Game of Thrones and the Importance of Consistency in SFF Writing
- “Climate Fiction: Can books save the planet?” (published in The Atlantic, 14 Aug 2015)
- “Aliens Among Us: The Gender Gap in Science Fiction” (guest post for LibraryJournal SELF-e blog, May 2016)
- “Coming in from the Cold: Hollywood Slowly Embracing the Cli-Fi Genre” (op/ed piece for Cli-Fi.net, 2015)
- The Cosmic Catwalk: Designing Functional Fashion for Sci-Fi
Environmental Hazards: Five Challenges of Writing Climate Fiction
- Environmental Hazards: Introduction
- Challenge #1 – Packaging Prophecy
- Challenge #2 – Scope and Scale
- Challenge #3 – Choose Your Own Apocalypse
- Challenge #4 – The Headline Tango
- Challenge #5 – Step Away From The Soapbox
- Conclusion