I spent the last five minutes and sixteen seconds trying to pick the right idea to write about this morning. I typically spend 10-20 minutes writing these posts about what I’m learning so that five minutes was wasted time. I had these idea ideas in my head: Angela Duckworth’s expansion on the Warren Buffet goal-setting…
On Writing
A collection of lessons, tools, and techniques on writing.
Set Up the Ending with Hints Throughout the Story
We watched Wonder last night. It was very moving, of course. I teared up at times during the movie that I didn’t expect. As a parent, this happens a lot while watching movies. I won’t give away the ending, but I felt that it didn’t land as poignantly as it could have. The ending scene…
A Book Idea Notebook
Stephen King advises authors not to keep a notebook of story ideas. He has said: “I think keeping a notebook is the best way to immortalize bad ideas.” The reason is that a good idea will stick with you. You won’t need to write it down to remember it. In her Masterclass on writing Judy…
Writing to Learn
A number of authors have said that writing helps them think, learn, and form an opinion about something. This may seem like an obvious truth, but until I started keeping this daily learning log I didn’t realize how true it was. I find that the lessons and ideas I record in this blog are much…
Ready Player One: On Writing Movies and Books
I read Ready Player One last year and loved it. I was very excited about the movie coming out. I saw the movie last night and–as many critics have pointed out–it is very different from the book. I won’t offer any critique or analysis here. What I find interesting, though, is that the author of…
