Falling Leaves is a memoir that chronicles the life of Chinese-American author and physician Adeline Yen Mah and her coming of age in war-torn, Communist China, a “society that kept girls in...
I recently read a memoir about a prominent American family. I loved the storyline. But I got stuck in one chapter where the author went down a rabbit hole.
He went into "commentary" mode.
He went on...
How Long Should this Article, Chapter, or Book Be?
Good question. If you've never "published" before, most likely you have no real idea of length for your writing project.
By "published," I don't...
When you’re writing a book, two questions first-time writers most often ask are: How do I land a book deal? and How do I market it so it is read?
We sat down with Robin Zachary, author of ...
Beloved and often profane writer Anne Lamott gave us three words that helped us all start writing and overcome our insecurities:
Shitty First Draft (SFD)
The idea is this: Just start...
If you tried to take every bit of writing advice, applying all of it as you write, you'd never complete any writing project.
So don't.
As you write, write.
Don't try to craft. Crafting comes later.
...
We all remember our high school research papers. Twelve or so pages of regurgitated facts, figures, and quotes. And completely devoid of voice. To describe them as boring would be an...
This past week in our Roadtrippers community, one of our writers asked about my thoughts on Grammerly, an A.I. (artificial intelligence) driven app that helps writers with grammar and basic...
“I have a manuscript, but is it ready for submission?”
Maybe. Maybe not.
There’s no magical formula for what will catch an editor’s attention. Sometimes editors just follow...
Just this morning, Melissa and I interviewed a free-lance journalist who writes for the New York Times. Our conversation with Melinda Wenner Moyer will be one of our next podcast episodes.
Melinda...
Last week, I discussed the importance of curiosity - and how it helps us become observers of human behavior.
Observation is one of our great tools for writing.
We observe human behavior (the...
“I have an idea for a memoir. But I don’t know how to structure it. What do I do?”
A memoir, like any book, needs to be structured. It needs to provide a compelling story and...
