On playing it too safe — Failure stinks. It stinks when your submission is rejected. It stinks when your latest blog post bombs. It stinks when readers hate you and every single word you wrote. But you know what? Never failing stinks even more. Because if you never fail, you’re playing it too safe. That’s what…

Reasons to both embrace and reject it — Perfectionism is a superpower. But it’s not a superpower like being able to fly, telekinesis, or shooting laser beams out of your eyes. It’s more like having the ability to pass through some walls. Sure, it’s amazing when you gallop towards a wall at full speed and zip through it…

Six simple steps to follow — If we writers were cooks, this is how we would prepare a meal: Stand in our empty kitchen with its empty fridge and empty pantry. Try to cook. Get frustrated after 20 minutes because we’re unable to conjure a meal out of thin air. Complain about suffering from chef’s block. …

Novelty trumps good writing — Here’s something you’ve never read before: Booble bobble bimpam foo. And here’s another thing that is probably just as new to you, but which should make a bit more sense: Will, will Will will Will Will’s will? Confused? Well, that’s a grammatically correct English sentence. Try to parse it. Okay…

Share that trivial insight! — As a writer, there’s one thing that keeps happening to me all the time. First, I read about an idea that’s new to me, something I’ve never heard before, something truly novel, something that makes me look at the world in an entirely new way as if someone had ripped…

There’s no incentive for it to be high quality — I like bashing self-help. It’s fun. It’s like bashing a piñata stuffed with rich entitled man babies. It’s also easy because so much self-help is horribly bad. And I’m not talking about the advice itself — which may or may not suck. I’m talking about the quality of the writing. …

Never leave the best for last — The firing squad took aim and then — BANG! BANG! BANG! I collapse immediately. This was not how I had expected things to end. When the editor-in-chief of Manly Beavers rejected my manuscript, his words had been so crushing to me that I stumbled forward in shock, losing my balance…

Five myths that need to be debunked — I used to be obsessed with figuring out how to make it as an online writer. I would devour anything and everything from those writers who had made it: blog posts, podcasts, videos, books, tweets, napkins. Heck, if only I had known where they lived, I would have sneaked into…

It’s all about having the raw materials for engaging personal stories — As a writer, you want your readers to relate to you. You want them to empathize with you. …