on Fiction University:

Do you struggle with procrastination?

Maybe you’ve always dreamed of writing a book. You’ve thought about the cover and imagined the content, but you can’t seem to write anything.

You know that you need to revise your book before you can sell it, but you’ve started a new book instead.

You need to approach bloggers about marketing your book, and you write the task on your to-do list every week, but you never do it.

Perhaps you think, I’ll do it when I:

• have a big block of time
• know more about the topic
• feel inspired
• received more education
• am closer to the deadline

This is procrastination.

We delay the task we want to or need to do in favor of doing less important work.

People have many beliefs about why people procrastinate. Here are some of the common ones. Perhaps you’ve heard some of them from…

on Jane Friedman site:

Editors disagree about many of the finer points of their work such as whether to capitalize the word president (no, generally, but yes with President Lincoln), whether to spell out numbers (some styles say yes to every number lower than 10 or lower than 100), or whether to use the serial comma that preceded this clause (Chicago Manual of Style says yes). Some purists would argue that this post’s headline should read among instead of between. But I digress.

Editors also disagree about whether to start a sentence with And. And of course editors disagree about what constitutes the levels of editing that are often labeled copy editing, line editing, and proofreading—or just simply editing.

For guidance, I turned to the authority, the Chicago manual. Yet even that widely accepted all-knowing guide doesn’t make a distinction among editing levels: “Manuscript editing, also…

on The Write Life:

Now that we’re a few weeks into 2021, let’s all breathe a deep sigh of relief together for overcoming what has to be one of the hardest years we’ve experienced in modern times.

And you made it through! That’s a victory worth celebrating, especially with the people who helped you navigate the chaos with websites filled with guides, tips and tricks, blog posts, podcasts and newsletters to help get better at the one thing you love the most: writing.

If you wrote a novel while under lockdown, good for you! And if you didn’t? Good. For. You.

When it comes to writing, output isn’t the only critical part of the process — it’s just as important to reset, refresh and reinvigorate your writing brain with new techniques that help you write better.

Wherever you’ve landed in your writing journey, we have just the websites that’ll help…

Do you have trouble maintaining your focus while writing? Are you easily distracted by things around you? Do you get up and down to get drinks or snacks? Do you wander over to email or social media? Do you stare out the window every few minutes? I do.

All of these can quickly become built-in habits that are hard to break.

There are many ways writers can improve their focus on writing and break bad habits. You can use timers, turn off notifications, or write on a cleared screen. All of these are great methods. But sometimes those are not enough. You just have to break the habit. And a magic bowl might be the perfect way to do that.

What is a Magic Bowl?

James Clear in Atomic Habits suggests that one of the keys for changing a bad habit is to make the new habit replacing it more…

on Digital Pubbing:

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, then you know my husband and I produce a weekly dinosaur podcast. After 6 years of making the podcast, we’re now working on a comprehensive course to teach other people how to make podcasts. If you want to launch your own show, please sign up for our email list and get a free ebook to help you jumpstart your first five episodes.

For now, here are some additional resources to help you, especially if you’ve already got an idea and have started working on your show.