How Coincidental

Coincidence is one of the most powerful tools in the hands of a writer. Be warned: a powerful tool is also a dangerous one.

Quotas and How to Avoid Them

“How’s your writing going?”
“How should I know?”

In Time for a Date

Since I refuse to leave you friends hanging, I will share a short story with you that I wrote a while back.

A Girl and Her Shoes

The most valuable asset of my local fast food establishment is not the fryers, the touchscreen menus, or even the functional soft serve machine (seriously).

Trains and Soup

Never once have I heard anyone complain that a imaginary person had too much character.

Writing Regional Characters

Here is a (very horrifically tiny) short list of the traits of Americans filed by locality:

Wetter Water and Truer Truths

Don’t be afraid of just telling a story, because just telling stories has a greater power than we can imagine. We should never be ashamed of the simplicity of our calling.

Shakespeare and His Five Acts

Just remember: Write like Shakespeare!
. . . only better.

There’s No Place Like a Utopia

Ever since I learned that those funny squiggles above cartoon characters were words, I have been an avid reader. I loved to get my squat and grubby child fingers on anything that had pages, whether it was a comic book, a magazine with pictures, or my sister’s textbooks. I read much less as I grew […]

When a Character Dies

If you must kill a character, by all means kill a character. But do so in a way that hides your manipulations from your reader.