Writers are fed a bevy of mantras—“show don’t tell,” “kill your darlings”—which provide the security that there are rules, but little else. A new book by Lucy Ives offers a more expansive view of ...

Did you know that George RR Martin, the mastermind behind the epic “A Song of Ice and Fire” series, often writes multiple chapters for each character consecutively? This non-linear approach helps him ...

Every time I turn around, Jami Attenberg has published another novel or memoir. But I do not begrudge her this, because I know how she does it. For years, Jami has enlisted conspirators in writing a ...

Writing can feel like both a thrilling adventure and an uphill climb. Whether you’re staring at a blank page, wrestling with self-doubt, or juggling too many ideas to count, the process of creating ...

If you open up a Twitter thread or an advice column for graduate writing, you’ll probably see advice such as “Just write.” “You can’t edit a blank page.” “Put words on paper—even if they’re terrible, ...

All advice is suspect. I'm not suggesting you break all the so-called rules of creativity you've collected. Only that every tip can be counteracted with its opposite. And some advice is just plain bad ...

Launching from the semester’s end into summer is usually celebrated as a special kind of academic freedom, a chance to get lost in projects and flex your intellectual muscles. But what we’re hearing ...

I recently left my legal career of nearly 12 years to pursue my writing. Things began decently enough, but slowly backslid into a general apathy and laziness that I can’t seem to snap out of. Without ...

The thinking seemed to be that the more fancy words and complex sentence structures they could shoehorn into an essay, the greater their likelihood of getting an A. Much of my job consisted of ...