Create a Comic Book in 10 (simple?) Steps

Comics and other graphic texts are one of the fastest growing areas of publishing, and they seem to be getting stronger each year. If you haven’t considered getting graphic, you might want to.  This post is for creators, especially writers, who are interested in graphic story-telling. Even if your art skills are limited to crooked, one-armed stick figures, […]

The One Thing I Wish Someone Had Told Me About Creating Characters

There’s a lot of conflicting advice out there about characters. Do you make them quirky and unusual (like Amelia Bedelia), or more ordinary  (like Charlie Brown)? Do you make them heroic (someone readers might aspire to be, like Katniss), or deeply flawed (like FH in Jesus’s Son)? Do you make them raw and human (like […]

Writing Advice Part II (my top six other best pieces of advice)

The single best piece of writing advice I ever got was to write the book you most want to read (more on that here). After that, here are six other bits of writing advice that have made the biggest difference for me (and that I need to keep reminding myself of to keep on going). […]