Before 2020, I’d always scoffed at folks who diligently signed up every November to pound out a new novel. I mean, I was a writer. It wasn’t a hard job, not like piloting a plane or curing cancer. All it required was putting my butt in the chair, turning on my laptop, and letting the words spew out, right? I could do it any old month I wanted. Who needed…

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What's more motivating than being in the company of other writers? Make that happen with these 10 writerly things:

1. Let's Just Write! An Uncommon Writers Conference brought to you by Chicago Writers Association
A two-day, in-person conference in the heart of Chicago's Mag Mile. Twenty-plus presenters, workshops,…

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There are two camps on editing as you go, no middle ground. The "don't" camp is way bigger, and more adamant than the "do" camp. I wonder, do we have control over that impulse?

I've done it both ways. When I wrote my first book I edited as I wrote,…

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Reprinted with permission from The Creative Penn.

I have stumbled through to the end of my story, and now I sit at the end of the first draft of the first novel. So how does it feel?

I'm proud to have over 70,000 words of a coherent story…

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• Dorothy Parker: If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.

• Stephen…

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Reprinted with permission Tim Storm

Almost every writing rule you can think of has exceptions. Why? And if breaking writing rules is possible, why pay any attention to them?

The Case of the Effective Deus Ex Machina

Earlier this year, I read a book called Fifteen Dogs. The…

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When asked in a 1992 interview for The Paris Review, "How many drafts do you go through in writing a story?" Grace Paley said, "I don’t like to count. I never understand what people mean when they say they’ve done twenty drafts or something. Does that mean they’ve typed…

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Excerpted from interview with Margaret Ghielmetti on ThriveGlobal with thanks to Arianna Huffington, Yitzi Weiner, Tallulah Films (Karina Michel Feld.)

What exactly is a perfectionist?

MG: For me, perfectionism means zero tolerance for gray areas — in myself. I don’t mind if…

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Previously published by Helping Writers Become Authors

In Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens' final completed novel, he presents for us one of his most comprehensive and well-rounded tales. Herein is all the darkness of Hard Times, the cynicism of Martin Chuzzlewit, but also the optimism and hopefulness of David…

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posted by Anne R. Allen (@annerallen) May 1, 2011

One of my favorite moments in film happens in Star Trek IV, when the Enterprise crew find themselves back the 20th century. Kirk refers to “the complete works of Jacqueline Susann, the novels of Harold Robbins,” and Spock replies, “Ah……

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