Develop a ritual: Define a time and place of your day to write. It could be in the morning before going to work, it could be in your lunch break, or it could be after work. You can write in your favorite coffee shop, in your room, or in a public library. The point is to deve...
When I was working my first job as a freelance writer for a local newspaper, I printed out ten of the best articles I could find from theNew York Timesand theLos Angeles Times,and then carefully read through each one, taking notes and asking, “Why did the writer say this here? What ...
How did that happen? Hilary Mantel: I only became a novelist because I thought I had missed my chance to become a historian. So it began as second best. I had to tell myself a story about the French Revolution—the story of the revolution by some of the people who made it, ...
On the fiction side, Pantsers write by process of discovery—or as Stephen King puts it, they “putinterestingcharacters in difficult situations and write to find out what happens.” If you’re an Outliner and a novelist, you’ll benefit from Randy Ingermanson’sSnowflake Method. But if you...
Watch this video to see how one of the biggest musical acts on the planet did just that, and how you can use the same strategy: Or is it more than that? Whatever the reason is that you’re trying to learn how to become a writer, know the reason, and focus on it during your ques...
And you might be thinking, do I need to take a writing program to become a writer? The answer? No. I never took a writing program but I did take a creative writing class in college and always enjoyed writing in high school so that was my way of breaking into online writing. ...
Even if you’re writing afiction bookand consider yourself a Pantser* as opposed to anOutliner, you need at leasta basic structure. [*Those of us who write by the seat of our pants and, as Stephen King advises, put interesting characters indifficult situationsand write to find out what ...
When an author as bankable as King changes publishers the ripples can be sizeable - but when he starts to publish himself a lot of publishers are going to start looking edgily at the lifeboats.What King did yesterday, appropriately enough at the witching hour (midnight New York time), was ...
Jessica Lahey: You write that you taught grammar “successfully.” How did you define “success” when you were teaching? Stephen King: Success is keeping the students’ attention to start with, and then getting them to see that most of the rules are fairly simple. I always started by tell...
"Glee" and astronomy. We'd spend hours staring into our telescopes, wondering what we would say when we became the first astronauts to land on Mars. Sadly, that dream never came to fruition, but [Bride's Name], as we all know, did become a lawyer—an incredibly successful one at that...