Some people outline entire novels at a desk. Some conjure brilliant scenes in a coffee shop. For me, creativity likes to show up with wet hair. There is something about water that flips the switch in my brain from everyday life to pure imagination. Maybe it is the rhythm. Maybe it is the absence of distraction. Maybe my muse just likes a good shampoo. Whatever the reason I have lost count of the ideas that…
Posts tagged as “creativity”
Every writer loves a good twist. The moment where a reader sits up a little straighter. The moment a quiet assumption shatters. The goal is always the same. Surprise them. Do not betray them. A twist is not chaos. It is clarity arriving with perfect timing. When done well it feels like light flooding into a dark room. Suddenly everything that came before makes sense. The reader might gasp. They might toss the book across…
I entered a writing contest recently. I was not chasing prestige. I was not trying to prove anything. I already won an award years ago with my debut novel, which is still wild to me considering it had enough formatting issues to make an editor burst into tears. This time I was mostly in it for the prize money. I am an indie author with bills, after all. If my work could give me a…
Some people talk to plants. I talk to characters… usually when they show up uninvited while I’m doing something else entirely. People sometimes ask if I’m working on my fourth book right now. If “working” means sitting at the keyboard, brow furrowed, typing furiously into the night, the answer is… not exactly. But if “working” means mentally rehearsing scenes while cooking, negotiating with characters while folding laundry, and collecting story fuel from everyday life like…
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how much realism belongs in fiction. As writers, we pull from life constantly, whether we mean to or not. But sometimes life hands us experiences that make us pause and ask, how much of this actually belongs on the page? Over the last few months, I’ve dealt with some unexpected health challenges. Without turning this into a full medical rundown, let’s just say my body reminded me that…
It started, as most epic tales do, with good intentions and a slightly overstuffed tote. I told myself I’d just do a quick organizing pass—nothing major. Just sort a few things, maybe prep a tote or two for moving. What I didn’t anticipate was stumbling into a time capsule. A spindle of discs. Then another. Then another. Nearly two hundred of them, stacked like ancient scrolls from the early digital age. And oh, the things…
Every story begins as a whisper—an idea tugging at the edge of your thoughts until it’s no longer content to be quiet. That was certainly the case with Hey, Roomie!—though “whisper” might be too soft a word for the way this book barged into my brain. The idea came early. The timing? Complicated. Hey, Roomie! was actually intended to be my second published novel, following Duality. I was already deep into the writing process when…
The first draft of a novel is a glorious, chaotic mess. There’s no other way to describe it. You get the idea, you chase it, you lasso it onto the page while it’s still half-feral and snarling, and for a while, it feels like triumph. Like art. Like the great masterpiece has arrived in the form of a blinking cursor and 90,000 words that you just know are at least 87% brilliant. Then you reread…
When I first dipped my toes into the audiobook world, I thought it would be a fairly straightforward process. After all, the book was done. The story was edited, polished, published, and live. What else was there to do? Answer: A lot. I expected to simply sit back and listen to my novel come to life in audio form. What I didn’t expect was that I’d be immediately confronted with every sentence that sounded better…
There’s a certain narrative that floats around the writing community like gospel: Be patient. Wait for the right deal. Don’t rush into publishing. Good things take time. And sure, good things do take time—but how much time is too much? How long are we supposed to sit in limbo, manuscripts in hand, waiting for the elusive green light that signals we’re “worthy” of being read? Because here’s the truth: Some writers wait forever. Some never…