Every one of us faces it at some point. We need to get unstuck in writing. I'm going to tell you exactly what works for me. I want you to try a little exercise. Open up Notepad, Word, or some other typing application to a new document and look at it for 10 seconds....

Please note: This article was originally written in 2014. The software has been updated multiple times since then, but I still use Scrivener in this particular way. The screenshots are not up-to-date for how the software looks now, but it's still close. I think you...

I used to be a pantser. In fact, I was a pantser before I even knew what the word meant. I thought to myself, "I really don't need to outline. I pretty much know that I want my protagonist to start here, and I want him to end up over here, and somewhere in the middle...

I love writing with background sounds. In fact, a common element with all of my books — aside from the obvious characters and settings — is that I have done the vast majority of my writing with ambient audio playing either via YouTube or some other sound effects site....

This little gem of an idea is pretty self-explanatory. I'd never thought to try it before, always opting to scribble a few notes in a composition book, then start writing in Microsoft Word. (Those days are over. I'm in love with Scrivener now, but that gets covered in...

This post begins a new series called "Favorite Writing Tips." I'm going to take things out of order, though. I'm not going to start with tips about how to plan a novel — even though that might seem like the logical order — because this tip is just my favorite. It's...