Imagine finishing a film you deeply care about. The performances are strong, the message is clear, the images are beautiful, the sound is impeccable, and the score elevates the film emotionally. The final edit holds everything together. You know you’ve made something...

When I reach the end of an essay’s introduction, I want a clear sense of what the writer is inviting me to think about. A question is enough. So is a situation that makes me want to understand more. What makes writing an introduction difficult is that we often need to...

There is great responsibility in a final line of prose. There is also great danger. Everything written before that single ending line has moved the reader forward (we hope, if the story is well written). It’s at this final line, when there is nowhere else to go except...

As writers, we spend a tremendous amount of time chasing milestones: finishing manuscripts, finding an agent, submitting to magazines, signing a contract, publishing books, reaching readers. All of these are necessary and rewarding goals. Eventually, though,...

I’m a parent. Like many parents, I've listened to hundreds of stories beside my beginning readers, many of those stories dozens of times, as they read them to me. I’m also a writer, which means I’m not only experiencing the world of an adventurous squirrel with my...

Every project, every manuscript, reaches a point when improving it is much easier than finishing it. That may sound a little backward, but it isn’t. As long as your manuscript stays isolated on your computer, your business or marketing plan remains only a plan, or the...

The words “perfection,” “perfectionism,” and “perfectionist” sound like stellar attributes. They suggest discipline, responsibility, reliability, and professionalism. They may be, but sometimes what looks like perfectionism is really our attempt to protect ourselves...

Walk into the mountains of an Appalachian forest, explore the rustic sections of the Emerald Coast in Florida, or climb the hilly woodlands of North Georgia, and one of the first things you notice is how quickly the outside world disappears. Roads slip away, along...

Before you create or build your perfect life, you have to honestly answer a surprisingly personal and difficult question: what does “perfect” actually and intrinsically mean to you? Too often, we inherit our idea of “perfect” from our parents, community, peers,...

One of the biggest mistakes an adult can make when writing a chapter book for kids is to assume that children care about lesser things than adults do. They don’t. Kids simply care about different things. To a child, losing a best friend can feel as devastating as a...