Writing Process of Bestselling Author – Andy Weir (“The Martian”)

History: Shooting for the Stars and Falling Short (Temporarily) Years ago, after being let go of from AOL, Andy used the money he earned from selling off his AOL stock options to take 3 years off to write. He wrote two books, the second of which he attempted to get published but was unsuccessful. Normally seen …

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Book Summary: “Lifelong Writing Habit: The Secret to Writing Every Day” by Chris Fox

Book cover for "Lifelong Writing Habit: The Secret to Writing Every Day" by Chris Fox

The secret to success is in the habits you possess. One vital thing that sets successful writers apart from the ones that never make it are their habits. Their ability to come back to their work day after day, regardless of zombie apocalypses and new episodes of Orange is the New Black. Chris Fox correctly identifies …

How to Realign Yourself When You’ve Lost Your Way

I've been running on a high recently. I have managed to maintain a positive attitude despite not having a job, not knowing whether I was on the right career path and wrestling with the decision of whether or not I should go back to school to obtain a designation for said career I am on …

Writing Method: Making a Mess by Me :)

The writing methods summarized in this series were actually in preparation for this entry. Since my method is a concoction of the methods previously mentioned, you might find it useful to refer to them first: Part 1: Writing Method: Snowflake by Randy Ingermanson (Printable Summaries) Part 2: Writing Method: 7-Point System by Dan Wells (Printable Summaries) Part 3: Writing Method: Writing …

Words of a Recovering Perfectionist

I've always been the one to hustle, thinking if I worked hard enough I would never be for lack of options. And I never was. But then I became someone with too MANY options along with a curse of indecisiveness.To top it off, I was stressed out all the time. I didn't think life could be led a different way. …

Writing Method: Writing into the Dark (Pantsers) by Dean Wesley Smith

There are numerous books out there on writing from a plotter’s perspective. So I thought, for fun, why not look at what’s been happening on the other side of the coin? What are the pantsers up to? From the pantser’s club, we have well-known authors like Stephen King, George R.R. Martin and Nora Roberts. You …

Writing Method: 7-Point System by Dan Wells (Printable Summaries)

10 pictures of doors leading, one of them being yellow, with text overlay of "7 point structure to plotting your novel"

Last year, Dan Wells, author of "I Am Not A Serial Killer" went over a story structure he found in the "Star Trek Narrator's Guide: Roleplaying Game", which he renamed as the 7-Point System.  He generously shared his PowerPoint presentation which can be found here (which includes 2 story examples), but as usual, I felt having a summarized …

Mini Habits – Breaking it Down

Stephen Guise is the founder of Deep Existence, a blog about self-development, and the writer of Mini Habits, a book about his personal philosophy on how to get things done (with research that backs up some of his arguments). I found the book to be a pretty good starting point for personal development and so without …

How and Why You Should Face Your Fears

Perfectionism, insecurities, failures and success. It's at the core of everything. It's something that you can't ever look fully in the face because that's when it knows you'll win and it won't let that happen. So fear will do everything in its power to keep you down on the ground or facing away from it. Sometimes this …

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