Every writer needs to step away from their novel at some point. Sometimes it's because life demands it: a chronic illness flares up, a new baby arrives, or work takes over. Other times, you're simply burnt out and could use some rest. Either way, before you know it, weeks (or even months) ha...

  If you're writing cozy fiction (or you think you might be), you've probably tried to work out what actually makes a book feel cozy. Is it the small-town setting? The slower pace? The fact that any murder happens politely off the page? The cat that works in the bookstore? It's rarely just on...

  Earlier this week, Jessica Brody and I sat down to compare notes on the most common mistakes we see writers make in their first drafts—some related to mindset and process, others related to what’s happening on the page. Both Jessica and I have spent a lot of time helping writers finish thei...

  The Save the Cat! beat sheet is one of the most popular story-structure frameworks for a reason. Originally created by Blake Snyder, it gives writers fifteen clear landmarks to aim for and makes the enormous task of plotting a novel feel much more manageable. But here’s the tricky part: you...

  You can create an outline, plan every chapter, and still get stuck once you start writing. I know that's not what you want to hear, but it's true—and it's exactly what happened to one of my students, Lindsay Sfara. Before drafting her superhero fantasy novel, Lindsay created a full chapter-...

  You’ve told yourself you’ll write the book when things settle down. When the baby sleeps through the night. When the kids are a little older. When they’re finally all in school. When you get a free weekend, a quiet week, or the kind of long, uninterrupted stretch of time that “real writers”...

  If you've been working on the same novel for months—maybe even years—you've probably spent a lot of time wondering why you still haven't finished it. Maybe you've blamed your schedule because life always seems to get in the way. Maybe you've blamed your motivation because you can't maintain...

  Almost every writer who stalls while trying to draft a novel assumes the same thing: that the stall is a verdict on them. That getting stuck means you're not cut out to write a book, you don't have the discipline to finish one, or you're missing some writer gene everyone else got. It's a re...

  You've got a story you want to write. Maybe you've been carrying it around for years—waiting until you had the time, the nerve, or even the faintest idea where to begin. So when you finally decide to go for it, you do what any serious aspiring author would do: you start looking for advice. ...

  There's a belief most writers carry without ever saying it out loud: that writing fast means writing badly. You hear the words "fast drafting" and picture a sloppy, throwaway mess you'll just have to gut and rewrite anyway. So going faster starts to feel like a trade-off—speed or quality, ne...

  You know your main character. You know their backstory, a handful of details about their childhood, and the exact way they take their coffee. You could probably talk about them for an hour. So why do they still feel flat? If you’re writing your first novel, this might be the quiet worry hum...

  If you've been feeling stuck writing your novel—second-guessing every decision, rewriting the same chapters, or quietly wondering whether you're even capable of finishing—I want you to meet five writers who've been exactly where you are. A longtime pantser who kept getting lost in her own m...