Six years ago, I was a writer who hadn’t published anything with an idea that was nagging at me to turn it into a book. I was also a struggling writing coach, trying to fit coaching in between my day job, my long commute, and an infant son. I was tired, distracted, stressed, and overwhelmed.

But I also felt the calling to follow this idea that wouldn’t leave me alone.

I wanted to write a self-help book.

I wanted to write a self-help book for a lot of reasons, not the least important of which was the fact that self-help…

I get emails and messages from aspiring writers all the time asking me for the one thing they should know, or the one thing they should do, in order to be a successful writer. Well, there’s never just “one thing,” but I’ve taken all my very best writing advice and distilled it down into five things that will help any aspiring writer along on their way to success.

Stop Trying to Control Everything

This is a big one. Writers are anxious people and we like control. It makes us feel safe and like we can anticipate the problems lying in wait for us and come…

Most writers in the mainstream writing scene today don’t know what transgressive fiction is, have never heard of it, or immediately think of it as something disgusting, twisted, or perverse. Even the writers who write transgressive fiction oftentimes don’t know what they’re writing, or that other people are writing it too, or that readers exist out there who would be interested in reading it.

Being a writer who writes transgressive fiction, or is even interested in exploring this kind of creative territory, can be a lonely road to travel. Because if you only scratch the surface of transgressive fiction it’s…

Mixing writing with editing is an easy mistake for newbie writers to make, because many mainstream writing methods actually do encourage writers to edit as they write. So, a lot of writers who haven’t yet found their own unique rhythm as an artist follow this advice. And it does work for some. I personally know writers who can’t write any other way. …

Although INFJ and INFP writers are both intuitive, and also emotionally sensitive and highly creative, they tend to approach the creative process of writing differently. Both types experience high sensitivity to any sort of criticism — whether it’s constructive or not — and both also often write slowly. Both INFJ and INFP writers also do the best if they allow themselves to use their intuition to feel their way through the story, instead of their thinking skills to rationally decide on how things should be done.

But it’s there that the similarities end. Because even though INFJ and INFP writers…

Creativity is a concept that seems to be discussed endlessly these days. There are websites and articles and books and all sorts of exercises on “how to be more creative,” “how to reconnect with your creativity,” and “why creativity is so important.” A lot of these resources offer helpful tips, but many also miss the mark entirely.

The thing about being highly creative is that it’s not all about thinking. This is hard for us to grasp, because as a society, we’re all programmed with the belief that pretty much everything comes down to how we can think harder, think…

One of the most distinctive identifying characteristics of transgressive fiction has to do with how it treats descriptions of the human body, specifically the processes and functions that are not often discussed in polite society. Sometimes this treatment is exaggerated and hilarious, as is the case with much of Chuck Palahniuk’s work, and sometimes it’s chillingly precise and realistic, as with Bret Easton Ellis. Either way, it’s almost always just plain gross. The willingness of the author to test the reader’s limits by being what I would call “exquisitely disgusting” is how you can tell that the writer is purposefully…

Every year around NaNoWriMo time, I see writers become more focused on their style of writing. Are they plotters? Or are they pantsers? The distinction between the two seems obvious. Plotters plot. And pantsers fly by the seat of their pants. In other words, they don’t plan anything. They make it up as they go along.

However, once we begin to look more deeply at what it means to be a pantser, the issue becomes a bit more complicated. …