Transform your writing life.
PS Dobie 
Writers often have a bunch of tabs open on their internet browsers. Sometimes we go incognito, because we look up some weird, weird stuff. Crime and mystery writers might look up police procedures, stages of putrefaction, how to kill someone, types of poison…but not just that. Car models, flowering shrubs in a particular part of …
My friend X has been trying to write a book for about 8 years now. Not because she WANTS to, but because she knows it will increase the visibility and credibility of her business–she trains people to get comfortable with public speaking in all environments, from business presentations to TED talks. For X, the book …
Here’s a handy quiz to help you figure that out. First, allow me to set the scene (fiction-writing joke). How books get into readers’ hands In a perfect world, our books would spring fully formed from our minds into the bookstores and online emporiums. In the actual world, our books spring in dribbles or fountains …
Thursday Postcard In the days of yore, when my parents told me what I’d do and when I’d do it, the changing of the clocks didn’t faze me too much. I didn’t ponder it. Now I ponder the hell out of the clock change. Especially on the first week. Especially on the Monday.This week’s Monday, for …
What are silent writing groups? These are groups that meet online or in person. They start and end at pre-established times. Participants are expected to write in silence for the allotted time. Group size varies, depending on the time and location. Are they really silent? Yes, for the writing portion of the meeting. There will …
Thursday Postcard The Case of George Saunders You might have heard of American writer George Saunders, author of Lincoln in the Bardo, which won the 2017 Booker Prize. Saunders writes a lot of short stories and has published several collections. He’s won a whole bunch of awards for the short fiction as well. His stories are both moving …
Editing books is the best job in the world for avid readers who also enjoy (or can handle) deadlines. If you’re also a writer, being a book editor gives you an inside track on what makes a book succeed or fail–not just on its own terms, but also in “the marketplace.” Being a book editor …
Thursday Postcard A Trunk Full of Words Fernando Pessoa was born in Lisbon in 1888. From the outside, his life might have seemed unsuccessful, even small. He worked as a translator, lived alone, and died of hepatitis in 1935. But Pessoa wasn’t alone in his solitude. He invented fictional alter egos he called ‘heteronyms,’ and together they wrote, …
Fiction’s big-picture fundamentals are things that apply to the entire story or novel—characters, plot, concept, and structure. They are crucial to a well-told tale. It doesn’t matter how exquisite your sentences are or how interesting a character is. If the basic situation is a cliché, or the plot is confusing, or there’s no tension, readers …
Thursday Postcard The desk contest is over! Sincere thanks to all who entered. As our judges review the entries and tabulate the results (kidding–it’s me!) I bring you one of the entries, with kind permission of its resident writer. This nest is home to the creative labor of JC Keough, creator of the Laramie Harper Chronicles …
When you are mostly successful in your career, or in school if you’re a student, being a novice at something you care about takes guts. In my first serious writing group, which was held at night in a skyscraper above Simon Fraser University’s downtown campus, I was hands-down the worst writer in the room. Not …
Thursday Postcard I’m reading a book by Gretchen Rubin called Outer Order, Inner Calm. I’m finding it hard to read this particular book, mostly because I keep rolling my eyes. It’s like getting advice on quitting alcohol from someone who’s never had a drink. Rubin’s modus operandi is systematic. She’s organized. Every action is considered. A case in point Here’s a …
“The more we learn that each moment has its own intrinsic value, the easier it is for us to let ourselves just be in each moment, however it is manifesting. Then we recognize that where we are is where we are supposed to be.” A.H. Almaas Once when my daughter was worried about being called …
Thursday Postcard Happy New Year!!! If you’re a recent subscriber who found me by way of Amber Petty’s newsletter course, I’m glad you’re here! What a course, what a teacher, what a coach. Over on the blog I’ve been writing a series of posts called “6 Key Principles for Writing a Book.” Writing blog posts is good …
“It is much more valuable to look for the strength in others. You can gain nothing by criticizing their imperfections.” Daisaku Ikeda I’d extend this to include ourselves. And that brings us to … Principle #5: Focus on strengths and resources rather than weaknesses and deficits This principle is a game-changer, because it balances you …
Thursday Postcard Remembering Dad Every year as it drew to a close, my dad would invent a motto for the next year. “We’re gonna thrive in ’95!” The mottos made me laugh, and they captured a truth about life that I’m getting more convinced about, which is that you often get what you deep-down expect. …
“True life is lived when tiny changes occur.” Leo Tolstoy Principle #4: Change is Happening All the Time The first time I experienced the idea that change happens all the time was on day 40 of a 40-day meditative process. The guy whose book led me through the process, Michael Brown, had written that I …
Thursday Postcard What the hell just happened? “Oh, the humanity!” as the reporter said when the Hindenburg crashed into a field right behind him. That’s how I feel about my art these days. Case Study #1: Pottery We might as well call Beginners Wheel pottery “Humble Pie Spinning,” because that’s what it is: humbling. Here’s …
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” Albert Einstein Principle #3: The Solution and the Problem Are Not Necessarily Related This principle suggests that no solution can be ruled out for any writing problem until the problem can be identified. Let’s say the problem is that you …
Thursday Postcard We can’t know the future. We don’t even know when we’re going to die. Everything we do is founded on the pure conjecture that there will be a tomorrow. Yet here is something I’ve learned from years of writing and working with writers: If you’re at the stage of trying to decide what …
“In general, minimally invasive surgery is associated with less pain, a shorter hospital stay and fewer complications.” Mayo Clinic Principle #2: The Simplest and Least Invasive Approach is Frequently the Best Wouldn’t it be great if we could just…write a book. Spray the thoughts or narrative directly from frontal cortex to page or screen and have …
NaNoWriMo bites back! Thursday Postcard Every time I engage with the writing event known as NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), it goes sideways pretty much immediately. For those who’ve never heard of NaNoWriMo, it’s a massive undertaking by thousands of people who get together online in various ways and attempt to write a novel in the …
“There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” W Somerset Maugham I hope the above quote from Somerset Maugham, who wrote tons of books, has broken the ice and revealed that any article about “6 key principles” should be viewed with suspicion. However. From years of writing books …
Thursday Postcard – Hallowe’en Edition Very superstitiousWriting’s on the wallVery superstitiousLadder’s ’bout to fall13 month old babyBroke the lookin’ glassSeven years of bad luck,The good things in your past When you believe in things that you don’t understandThen you sufferSuperstition ain’t the way Stevie Wonder, “Superstition,” 1972 What an elegant description of superstition: believing in …
Self-publishing is exploding! One bazillion books are being self-published every day! Indie publishers are raking it in! Kidding about the last one. To answer the question above, I must ask YOU a few questions. 1. What’s your goal? Early on, your goal might just be to write the book. But at some point the publishing …
Thursday Postcard I’m in a new writing group. Well, new to me. I was in my previous group for 14 or so years, up until 2019, and it was fantastic. We met in person–at first weekly, then biweekly–and became excellent writing friends to each other. Nothing beats access to writers who want to read your …
Pastoralia: Stories and a Novella, by George Saunders. I’ve never read anything like these stories: interior monologue so skewed and entertaining that the action seems secondary. But there is action, and it’s pretty intense: [SPOILER ALERT] A boy dies riding his bike, a poor swimmer plunges into a fast river in a possibly doomed attempt …
Binge writing, that is. Especially for a first draft, or for tricky sections where the ideas are slippery, and the only way to grasp them is to write like a demon until your subconscious is persuaded to loosen its grip on your deepest stuff. “Though proportion is the final secret, to espouse it at the …
Thursday Postcard I was in a cheap hotel room. In Outer Mongolia. Six floors up. A few other travelers were there. We were about to go somewhere together. But first, a friendly drink. We knew each other’s first names, but not much else. I was standing at the window, looking out. My beer bottle was …
Here at A Writer’s Roadmap we believe that writing a book is one of the greatest ‘learn by doing’ pursuits you can engage in. Part of its greatness is that to really learn how to write a book, you must complete the project. You can’t go halfway and call it done. The only way out …
Thursday Postcard You can’t make time…can you? *** I’m back in the office after a month away. It was the first vacation in ten years where I haven’t brought work. The break revealed that, in keeping with the spirit of A Writer’s Roadmap, mistakes have been made over the last ten years. This one was …
People do MFAs in writing for various reasons. Personally, I was tired of writing bad novels all by myself in a candlelit room. I wanted to learn how to write a good one. But by the time I finished my MFA (which was 2 years), I was in a different head space around work. My …
Thursday Postcard Pull out your wallet and prepare to enter Hell. Hell on wheels, that is! The International 3-Day Novel Contest approacheth. Founded by a bunch of writers in a Vancouver bar in 1978 (or something), it is a trial by fire and a total gas. Should fire and gas be in the same sentence, even? Combustible! …
A geek-fest on POV in Flannery O’Connor’s WISE BLOOD. I’ve read a lot of books and I plan to read a lot more, and what I want from each book is to feel interested in the characters. I don’t need to like them, or feel similar to them. I just need to care about what …
Thursday Postcard Writers don’t need much…or do they? A pen, some paper…a computer…power…coffee… Shouldn’t writers be able to work anywhere, at any time? In theory, yes. But Mason Currey’s entertaining book Daily Rituals: How Artists Work shows the sheer variety of things writers have relied on to get going. Pipes, cigarettes, nudity, a special bathrobe, apples, sex, …
Not everyone can (or wants to) hire an editor. But what an editor can do is see your novel with fresh eyes. That’s harder for the writer, who’s gotten deep inside each character and scene, each sentence and paragraph. What do you need to do? Create Distance. Here, from the writer’s side of my desk, …
Thursday Postcard July 21, 2022 Or with a completed book manuscript? Common questions when a book is done: *Where can I find a good beta reader to see if the book works? *Should I get more active on social media so I can sell a few copies to people other than my friends? *Should I …
If you’re anything like me, you like to “learn by doing.” I’m a big reader, but I’m not big on technical manuals or marketing guides. So when I want to do something like create an online writing course, my tendency is to dive right in and assume that I will figure it out as I …
Thursday Postcard July 7, 2023 A: That’s Your Business! Sometimes at parties or on the phone, I talk with people who want to write a book but haven’t started yet. I’m not coaching them or working with them. They’re just people who learn I’m a book editor and a writer, and want to talk about …
Here at A Writer’s Roadmap we are all about inhaling the stench of failure. Normalizing it, making it a valid part of our experience, and bringing it into the light. Forget the shiny carapace of success…let’s look at the crazy machinery underneath it. Because that’s where the learning is. I started writing so long ago …
Thursday Postcard June 23, 2022 Who in this photo is writing? Nobody, because it’s summertime. If you have a family or friends, or just enjoy being outside, summer can be a hard time to write. This postcard is brought to you by my writing body, which sits for long periods and would sometimes rather be …
What a paradox: the freedom created by restrictions! When I teach fiction, I will do a five-minute timed writing early in the class to get everyone sweating and full of joie de vivre. Shit’s getting real! Is it artificial pressure? Yes. Does it work? Yes. There’s a high in the room afterward and people are …
Thursday Postcard June 9, 2022 When you’re writing–a story, an essay, a book–it is easy to get partway in, then start second-guessing. Second-guessing can look like, “This is awful. I should write something else.” Or “My novel’s antagonist CAN’T be the patriarchy…maybe I should make it a mystery instead!” Or “This book should be about …
Are you looking for clarity around something important? Maybe it’s something you’re thinking of doing, or something you already did but now aren’t sure why you did it, or if it was the right thing to do. LOOK NO FURTHER, IT’S MANIFESTO TIME. An example of how to write a manifesto…the story behind the dream, …
Thursday Postcard When I was a kid, a librarian drove a bus loaded with books to our neighborhood, which had no library. Every week, she parked the bus a couple of blocks down from our house. Built-in shelves lined the walls, and the librarian checked out our books with the steering wheel at her elbow. The …
John Cleese, who writes, acts and does comedy, says that creativity is not an ability or a talent. It is unrelated to IQ. It is simply an ability to play. It all starts with spending time in what he calls ‘open’ mode, where you enjoy curiosity for its own sake. It’s humor-inclined and playful, with …
Thursday Postcard May 12, 2022 “The writer’s path lies, always, on the road of feeling.” Stephen Harrod BuhnerEnsouling Language: On the Art of Nonfiction and the Writer’s Life Everyone has a body made up of cells, organs, bones, vascular and neural systems, et cetera (my medical training was cut short in kindergarten, so that’s all …
Sometimes I think about how I should start the book I’m working on. Right now I have about 23,000 words written, so when I say “start,” I’m not talking about the process. The process of writing a book is separate from the book’s starting point, which is its first sentence. The first sentence assumes ridiculous …
Books written during the pandemic are appearing on library shelves. It seems almost inconceivable that it could happen so quickly. It’s only 2022! And these are traditionally published books, ones that have had to make their way through many steps following that first draft. I guess this shows us that it does not take a …
Thursday Postcard April 28, 2022 You might have seen a YouTube ad with a man shouting “Serial procrastination affects 80% of adults!” Ignore this person. He cannot possibly know what percentage of living adults are affected by this fake issue. Procrastination is not a syndrome. Sometimes we dick around a little before we get to …