Writing tips

Editing is energizing, where you take your solid creation and nudge it into brilliance. It's taking a pile of words and shaping it into something that resembles the story you envisioned. Sometimes, a book looks mighty ugly in its early draft form, but even rough, flawed words are so much better than a blank page. You've already conquered the blank page. No problem, right?  Read more

You've been there. You're having dinner with friends, talking up a storm. After a laugh or a sigh, the conversation falls to silence. You've exhausted a topic. The silence feels awkward, and no one puts forward a new topic. How do you tolerate that moment of nothing?

The following are just my personal pieces of advice. They won't be the same as someone else's, and they may not fit your life or practice, but maybe you'll pick up something useful.

I'm still very much in the apprentice stage of writing. I read somewhere that you need to write a million words before you know what you're doing - so I'm headed that way, but I'm nowhere near there. But, for what they're worth, here are some of the things I've learned along the way.

My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying. -Anton Chekhov