6 Tips to Help You Create Through Chaos ICYMI, these past few years have been a *****. Many of us have been working through personal loss while living through collective trauma. Yet our projects and dreams persist. We must learn to create with compassion amidst chaos. But how? How to write well about illness, grief, […]

Why it’s essential we make space for creativity in daily life—and how to do it. You might think adding time to write into your weekly flow would prove easy—after all, you carry out a variety of practical tasks. But if you’ve tried and failed to establish a regular routine, and assumed this meant you weren’t a “real” […]

Can your influences help you around writer’s block? In Do You Have Writer’s Block Because You Are Writing in America?, I explored systemic baggage which impacts any American who sits down to write.  When it comes to writer’s block, writers are afraid, but not only afraid. They are also: Disconnected from a larger purpose for creating.  Disconnected from one another.  Disconnected from […]

Q: As far back as I can remember, I felt called to be a creative writer. But what do I do if the calling doesn’t pay the bills? Can I even call myself a real writer?  A: When it comes to writing of any type . . . it’s a dirty secret: nobody wants to talk […]

Q: Do you ever wish that you never started writing?  “I am a new author, with two books self-published to date. I have a good life, a supportive husband and children, but for some reason I’m not happy because all I think about is book sales and trying to make it big. I have never in my life […]

BOOK DEVELOPMENT: THE MINDSET PIECE  When we build your book together in #WRITTEN, The Writing Cycle’s 4-Month One-on-One Coaching Program, I first emphasize the importance of mindset work.  This is the piece many writers skip when they set out to go from concept to development. Of course, you need to be passionate about an idea. […]

As a young writer, I assumed everyone had a process similar to my own. It was only in an MFA that it dawned on me most writers do not work the way I do. This distinction increased starkly once outside an academic environment. Bestselling guides advocated following concrete rules, and, above all, chasing market trends. Community critique groups […]

All artists experience times when they yearn to create yet find themselves unable. Writers, in particular, seem to struggle with this. They even have a term for it in the OED – and it isn’t called “Dancer’s Block”. From a scientific standpoint, why might accessing creativity be harder for writers? Recent studies in neuroscience posit […]