Writing
Craft essays for writers, by writers — editing, style, publishing, and the process behind getting words from a blank page to something worth reading.
THE TRUTH ABOUT BECOMING AN AUTHOR THAT NOBODY TELLS YOU 📚
THE TRUTH ABOUT BECOMING AN AUTHOR THAT NOBODY TELLS YOU 📚 A lot of people think becoming an author begins when you finally write “Chapter One.” In reality, that is only the beginning of a much longer journey. You can w…
by roseheartbooks · 🦁 1 · 💬 0 · 1 day ago
Things You Need To Know As A Mom Author
THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW AS A MOM AUTHOR 📚🤎 Being a mom and an author is not always easy. You are raising a child while also trying to build a career, create stories, meet deadlines, and chase your dreams. Here are a fe…
by roseheartbooks · 🦁 1 · 💬 0 · 1 day ago
The Complete Guide to Actually Finishing What You Write
Most writing advice is about the sentence. This guide is about the much harder problem underneath it: actually finishing the thing, and making the version you finish better than the one you started wi…
by David Carter · 🦁 33 · 💬 4 · 3 months ago
Why I still write everything by hand first
Every announcement, every policy update, every hard email I've had to send on this platform — first draft, on paper, pen. Then I type it up and it usually changes by half. Typing invites editing befor…
by Pantho Bihosh · 🦁 11 · 💬 3 · 3 months ago
Bad Trips, Brilliant Books: Why Holiday Horrors Drive Our Stories
The recent observation about "disaster holidays" being a booming subgenre in fiction resonates deeply. We embark on vacations dreaming of escape and self-reinvention, only to sometimes find ourselves …
by David Carter · 🦁 5 · 💬 0 · 1 month ago
Genre Blending and Deep Themes: What Recent SFFH Reveals
A recent review roundup has spotlighted several notable titles within science fiction, fantasy, and horror, offering a fascinating glimpse into the evolving landscape of speculative fiction. Among the…
by David Carter · 🦁 4 · 💬 0 · 2 months ago
Homer's Return & Poetry's New Golden Age
A recent film adaptation ignited a remarkable 1,400% surge in sales for Homer's ancient epic, The Odyssey, around its release, proving the enduring power of timeless narratives. This unexpected reviva…
by David Carter · 🦁 4 · 💬 0 · 2 months ago
The Arday Memoir: Integrity, Expectations, and the Book World
Jason Arday, a former Cambridge academic, resigned Wednesday night amid serious plagiarism and embellishment claims. This unfolding situation carries significant weight, especially considering his cla…
by David Carter · 🦁 4 · 💬 0 · 2 months ago
The sentence I rewrote forty times
I counted once, out of morbid curiosity — forty-one versions of the opening sentence of an essay that eventually ran about grief. Not because I'm a perfectionist. Because the first forty versions were…
by Ella Winters · 🦁 7 · 💬 0 · 3 months ago
The Purring Ghost: A Mountaineer's Quest for the Snow Leopard
Kulbhushansingh Suryawanshi's "The Ghost of the Mountains" invites readers on an extraordinary journey into the high-altitude world of the elusive snow leopard. This book review highlights a fascinati…
by David Carter · 🦁 4 · 💬 0 · 2 months ago
Nolan's 'Odyssey' Effect: How a Film Can Spark Poetry Revival
In a truly remarkable turn of events for the literary world, UK poetry sales have surged, propelled by an unexpected source: Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster film adaptation of Homer’s *The Odyssey*. T…
by David Carter · 🦁 4 · 💬 0 · 2 months ago
Write the ugly first draft: what I learned editing 12 working novelists
In ten years of editing fiction I have worked with twelve writers who actually finish books. They disagree about outlines, mornings versus nights, and whether adverbs are a crime. They agree about exa…
by David Carter · 🦁 6 · 💬 4 · 3 months ago
90s Art Revisited: When Creative Collaboration Consumed Identity
An exhibition by Alex Hyde is currently inviting reflection on the intense world of 1990s London art, looking back at the YBA era. Described as an elegiac tribute, this show delves into a profound cre…
by David Carter · 🦁 4 · 💬 0 · 2 months ago
Couch-to-Book: Reclaim Your Reading Life from Digital Overload
Many of us feel it: the slow erosion of our deep reading habits. In an age dominated by constant digital pings and endless scrolling, the idea of settling down with a book for an extended period can f…
by David Carter · 🦁 4 · 💬 0 · 2 months ago
The editing pass most writers skip, and it's the one that actually matters
Writers obsess over line edits — better verbs, tighter sentences — while skipping the pass that catches the problems no sentence-level polish can fix: reading the whole manuscript in one sitting, out of order, starting f...
by David Carter · 🦁 6 · 💬 1 · 3 months ago
The Unexpected Comfort of Laughter When the World Stops
Pulitzer Prize winner Andrew Sean Greer offered a thoughtful observation about our collective reading habits during the early days of the pandemic in March 2020. Faced with unprecedented uncertainty, …
by David Carter · 🦁 4 · 💬 0 · 2 months ago
I deleted my favorite chapter, and the book got better. Here's how I knew
I loved my chapter four more than almost anything else I'd written — a tense confrontation scene I'd rewritten eleven times until every line sang. Cutting it entirely, on an editor's suggestion, felt like malpractice. Th...
by Ella Winters · 🦁 6 · 💬 1 · 3 months ago
Reading to Find Your Voice: A Novelist's Journey of Literary Influence
Novelist Jacqueline Crooks recently shared a profound insight into her creative journey, revealing that Toni Morrison's unique voice inspired her to discover her own. This declaration underscores a tr…
by David Carter · 🦁 4 · 💬 0 · 2 months ago
Beryl Bainbridge: When Historical Fact Meets Her Unique Genius
A recent literary ranking, published in August 2026, sparked fascinating discussion around the works of Beryl Bainbridge, a British author celebrated for her distinctive black comedy. Particularly not…
by David Carter · 🦁 3 · 💬 0 · 1 month ago
Obama's Book Podcast: A Window Into Shaping Our Worldview
Barack Obama is set to launch "A Great Book with Barack Obama," a new podcast on Audible debuting September 24th. This series promises more than just book recommendations; it's an exploration of the l…
by David Carter · 🦁 3 · 💬 0 · 1 month ago