Sorry there was no post last week. Wednesday-Thursday turned into this blur of flight cancellations, rescheduling, re-re-scheduling, re-re-re-scheduling, and all the while coordinating with Blackstone’s marketing and publicity folks about the event I was supposed to be going to and hopefully still would end up at…?

I made it. Barely.

And yes, somewhere in there I forgot to write up a ranty blog post.

So, a few weeks back I mentioned how one of the cool things about following a bunch of writers is getting lots of tips and advice. And there is tons of it out there. Actual digital tons. Some of it ends up being stuff I enthusiastically agree with. Some of it… isn’t. Sometimes it’s things that don’t work for me, but may for other people. Sometimes they’re things that only apply to a certain point or stage in our writing careers. Being able to sift through writing advice is, in my opinion, one of the best skills an aspiring writer can develop.

And—pretty much inevitably—someone decides to make a list. It’s how the internet works. If there’s more than one thing, we have to have an order. A priority list. A number-one-thing-to-do! This is the most important rule when it comes to writing! Ravens hate this one trick that will save you years!

Anyway…

For your enjoyment and possible education—and with the Golden Rule firmly in mind—here are my top ten tips for writers. I made up an earlier version of this seven or eight years back but I figured what the heck—it’s the internet. There’s always space for an updated list.

1 – Write Every Day
The controversial one, right up front. Allow me explain. Or defend myself, depending on your personal feelings on the matter.

I’ve said more than a few times that my intended audience here at the ranty writing blog, since the very beginning, is the folks hoping to write professionally. Maybe as a side gig, maybe the stars line up and they get to do this full time as a career. If that’s not you—no worries at all. There’s value to your writing no matter why you want to do it, and I think a lot of the things I talk about here are usable no matter what your end goal is.

With that in mind… if you follow any pro writers on social media, a very common thing you’ll see is that all of them are writing every day. Yes, even the ones saying you don’t have to write every day. I post about toys a lot, but guess what? I’m writing every day, five or six days a week.

If I want to do this for a living, I have to think of writing as a job. Yeah, sure, we’re not all there yet. We were just saying that. But the whole reason I got here was because I stopped treating my writing like a hobby and started treating it like something that had to happen every day.

Yes, lots of things count as writing. We’re going to get to that, don’t worry.

2) Read
It’s three weeks into September as I write this and I’m picking up my 24th book of the year. I think that works out to a book every… eleven days? My final count for the year is probably going to be in the 30s. And that’s not counting research material, news articles, and things like that. Or stories I get in other formats– movies, tv, podcasts. As I’ve mentioned once or thrice before, I’m a big believer that you can’t have output without input. People who think they can write without reading, well… they’re going to have some problems. A variety of them, really.

So read. Read everything you can. Read things in the genres you know and love, but also try to read books by people you’ve never heard of in genres you’re not a fan of. Push yourself to grow and learn and experience more.

3) Learn to Spell
I’ve talked about this many, many, many times. Learn words. Learn how to spell them. Learn what they mean. Words are the bare-bones foundation of writing. Wanting to be a writer when I can’t spell is like wanting to be a chef when I don’t know the difference between salt and flour.

Never be scared to grab a dictionary or type something into Google. I do it all the time, even just to confirm I’m right about exactly what a word means. Nobody’ll judge you for it. But they’ll absolutely judge you if you get it wrong.

4) Exercise your mind
This is kind of related to Tip #2. I think our minds work just like a muscle. We can’t just do one thing with them all the time. Spend a little time doing something else. Build a bookshelf. Build a model. Cook a meal. Sketch something. Paint something. Sing something. Hell, balance your checkbook. Do your taxes. Give your brain a chance to flex in different ways and it’ll work better overall.

5 ) Exercise your body
Another sad truth about writing. It generally involves sitting on our butt and, well, that’s kind of it, physically. Sadder truth—our brains needs oxygen to work. Oxygen comes from blood, and blood flow increases with exercise and decreases when we… well, sit on out butts.

So exercise actually makes it easier to write. This doesn’t mean go get a gym membership or run a 5k every morning. If you can do that, great, but just stand up from your desk or kitchen table and move around a bit. Go for a walk. Play with your cats. Do some jumping jacks. Stretch! Just get that blood flowing.

6) Learn the Rules
Nobody likes to hear this part but… there are rules to writing. Like spelling (see #3 up above). They exist and they exist for a reason. Rules are the common ground we share as authors and readers. If I don’t know the basic rules of a language, I can’t be surprised if I can’t communicate with people who speak that language.

Likewise, there are rules to storytelling. Again, not unbreakable ones, but they’re real and–on one level or another–we’re all aware of them. Certain universal expectations, and also some that are more tailored for different genres or styles. I need to have a good sense of how these rules work if I want to tweak or openly subvert them.

7) Enjoy it
Whatever reason I have for writing, I should be having fun with it. Yeah, even with all the rules and spelling and exercise. Writing should be enjoyable. Why would I want to spend all my time doing something I inherently don’t like? Write about stuff you love and ideas that fascinate you. Let writing be the high point of your day, and let that enthusiasm carry through onto the page.

And please ignore those weirdos who talk about starving artists or suffering for their art or any of that nonsense. All that approach does is make you… well, not like writing. Why would I approach this in a way that makes me not like doing it? Believe it or not, you can be a real writer without ever once feel tortured, traumatized, or misunderstood. Like so many things, if writing makes me feel miserable and frustrated… maybe I’m doing it wrong.

8 – Actually write it
I 100% believe that a lot of things count as writing. The planning and outlining. The twenty minutes kind of staring into space, or maybe the long walk where I quietly murmur dialogue to myself as two characters talk in my head.

But at the end of the day, the only real yardstick we have for progress is making words appear on the screen, the legal pad, the expensive little notebook, or those parchment scrolls you make yourself at your secluded cabin out by the lake. I can attend all the conferences and seminars, read every instructional book, or skim every random blog post with a list of rules, but if I never actually write anything… does any of it matter?

I was that guy for a while. I could tell you a lot about writing, what it meant to be a writer, what I planned to write, what real writers needed to do… but I never wrote anything.

The only way to move forward is… writing.

9 – Don’t be Scared to Break the Rules
So there are rules. No question, no discussion. Rules exist. We were just talking about that a few paragraphs up. But I don’t need to be trapped by them. I shouldn’t feel like rules are the end-all, be-all of writing. Just because someone can quote a rule that my story breaks doesn’t mean I’m doing anything wrong. It doesn’t mean I’m doing anything right, either, just to be clear, but it doesn’t mean automatic failure.

Y’see, Timmy, the rules are there as sort of a baseline starting point. Learn to do X and then we can talk about Y. They’re trying to get you past all those mistakes we see again and again and again in submission piles and sophomore writing classes. As Django Wexler pointed out a while back on Bluesky, all these rules have the silent, unwritten coda of “…until you know what you’re doing.”

Writing is an art. Even if I’m writing for commercial purposes, it’s still an art. And art is unique to every artist. I can use creative misspellings and odd story structures and characters who don’t fit perfectly in that heroic mold. Or the heroic tights. Or the heroic top… which seems to have shrunk a little in the mid-section since I became a full-time writer. We learn the rules so we can learn how to break them for maximum effect.

For example, you could tell everyone you’re doing a top ten list and just stop at nine. That’s okay. It’ll give people a chuckle and they’ll be more likely to remember the other things you said.

And that’s that.

Oh, if you’re in the Southern California area, this Saturday I’m going to be at Artifact Books in Encinitas signing copies of the Dread Coast anthology with a bunch of other authors. You should stop by and hang out, maybe pick up a copy. It’s for a good cause.

Next time… well, it’s getting near the wonderfully gruesome time of year, so let’s talking about cutting out that pound of flesh.

Until then, go write.

I’m planning out this massive book tour for God’s Junk Drawer at the end of the year and it’s kind of freaking me out in a few ways. Once or thrice now I’ve sort of stopped and quietly shifted my attention to… something else. Anything else. Because then I don’t have to think about how I’m doing all this traveling and signing and talking in just ha ha ha ha like two months. Holy crap, it’s seriously only two months away now.

So let’s talk about something else.

Well, no, hang on. Let’s talk about that. About being a little scared and freaked out. And how it can effect us.

I think a lot of time when people say they have writer’s block, what they really mean is they’re worried that the thing they want to write just isn’t good enough. That their take on it isn’t good enough. Heck, maybe they’re not even the person who should be writing it. It’s not worth doing, especially not with everything going on in the world! Is this page, that paragraph, this sentence as good as it could be? Is this the best way to describe this? Will my writing sell, win awards, or get me mocked on TikTok?

Most of us go through this at one point or another. We start over-analyzing our work and second-guessing everything we put down. And eventually… we don’t so anything. I’ve mentioned the term paralysis by analysis before, which sums this up perfectly. We get so scared at the thought of doing the wrong thing—something that isn’t perfect—that we don’t do anything.

And it’s kind of understandable, right? None of us want to waste time writing the wrong stuff. Putting down a lot of words that we know aren’t the right ones. That’s not how real artists do it.

We’ve talked about this before, though. Not getting it perfect the first time is pretty normal for writing. I need to get past this idea my work should be flawless out of the gate and just admit my first draft isn’t going to be perfect. Maybe not the second draft, either. It’s going to need editing. Maybe lots of editing. Possibly even major rewrites. That’s just the way this whole writing goes.

Once I can admit this to myself, I can get past that block—that fear—and my productivity will go through the roof.

Another cause of writer’s block is a voice issue, or possibly an empathy issue. A lot of us tend to write the way we speak, especially when we’re just starting out. Maybe a little cleaner or clearer, but it’s not unusual for our narrative voice and character voices to use all the same words and phrases and metaphors that we do in our day to day life. It’s normal because it comes naturally. It’s us telling stories about characters who also talk like us.

But at some point—maybe early on, after a few months, maybe a few years in some cases… things stop matching up. We realize that high elf ladies of court and interdimensional aliens probably shouldn’t talk like stagehands from San Diego. They’re not going to see the world the same way a retail clerks from Amherst would. They’re going to have different vocabularies and cadences. They’re not going to sound like me.

And suddenly I’m not writing “naturally” anymore. It’s not that easy gush of words. I need to put myself in a different headspace and look at the world—even this made-up fictional world—in different ways. It takes effort! It’s work.

For some folks this becomes writers block. It’s not that they can’t write, they just can’t understand why it’s become an effort. Because writing should be glorious and effortless, yes? And if it isn’t… well, I should probably wait for the muse to return and the words to flow.

There’s one other big thing that I think can cause writer’s block. And it’s a painful one.

Sometimes people have writer’s block because they don’t have anything to write.

There’s a lot of reasons people sit down and try to write. Could be I have a clever idea, but no real story. Perhaps I just think it’ll be an easy side-hustle to make some money. Maybe I want the adoration for a finished work more than I want to… well, write something.

I know this sounds harsh, but I also know most of us—one way or another—are acquainted with someone like this. Someone who likes the idea of being a writer more than the reality of being a writer. And these folks will talk about being blocked when the truth is they just have no real interest in the act of writing. But I mean if they’re blocked… I mean, that can’t be helped, right?

You may notice one thing I haven’t mentioned is “all this crap going on in my life.” And these days… yeah, there can be a lot of it. It can feel overwhelming and exhausting and oh sweet jebus how do some people find time to write? How is he getting so much done?!?

But that’s not being blocked. That’s just being tired. It’s a self care issue. A scheduling problem. It’s reality, and we’re all living in it (well, most of us). Sometimes, we all have to put the writing aside for a while and deal with, well, life. That’s just the way it goes.

Y’see, Timmy, I don’t really believe in writer’s block. I think it’s just a big, catch-all name we throw over other problems. Fear. Inexperience. Lack of interest. It’s intimidating when it’s a vague concept, but once we break it down and actually identify it, we can address it. And deal with it.

And beat it.

<insert Rocky music here>

Oh, minor segue– if you’re in the San Diego area this Sunday, I’m filling in for Jonathan Maberry and hosting the Writers Coffeehouse at Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore, noon to three. It’s absolutely free, no requirements, no sign-ups, no minimums, no secret password needed. Just show up and talk about writing, publishing, and some of the weird spots where they overlap (or don’t talk and just lurk). Bring your questions and I’ll try to bring some answers. And if I don’t have them, someone else there probably will.

Next time… okay, I know people are still reading this thing, but I feel like I’m just throwing stuff out there. Much like the Coffeehouse, is there anything in particular anyone would like me to talk about or address? Just drop a comment down below. Otherwise I’ll… I don’t know, give you a top ten list or something.

Until then… go write.

This is going to be another one of those kind-of rambly ones.

Big shock, I follow a lot of other authors on social media. Some I’m a fan of, some I’m actually friends with, and there’s a pretty good-sized Venn diagram overlap there. Actually, I think it’d be a circle-within-a-circle.

Anyway…

It’s always neat to hear other writers talk about craft. Y’know, the nuts and bolts stuff I like to talk about here. Tips. Tricks. Common problems and uncommon solutions.

I bring this all up because Kameron Hurley was at a con a few weeks back and sort of live-posting things she heard from different panels. Not panels she was on, just different ones she decided to attend. So it was interesting takes on things and little snippets of advice.

Now, at one point an author on a panel brought up a certain story element and referred to it as XX. And Kameron Hurley noted that, huh, she generally called that element YY. Sad to say. this whole overall idea I’m talking about it what stuck with me and I didn’t make a note of the actual, specific element they were discussing. But we don’t really need it.

Once or thrice here I’ve talked about the idea of plot vs. story. But I’ve also mentioned that some more literature-minded folks out there might refer to these same ideas by fancy Russian names. And some folks might say what I’m calling story is just the character arc.

Writers are weird. The vast majority of us are more-or less self-taught at this, and sometimes we’re too creative for our own good. We each come up with our own unique ways to say similar things about how to tell stories in our chosen format. And once or thrice here I’ve talked about different college professors and the terms they come up with to describe those same things.

And that’s before we even get into different formats having their own terminology. Like, a scene in screenwriting is a very specific unit of storytelling, while in prose it’s a little more general. And an act is something very specific in television that’s kind of similar to an act in a play, but not at all the same thing as when we’re talking about three act structure. As I define it, anyway.

Yeah, even me. I say it here fairly often, but all the terms I use here on the ranty writing blog are just how I tend to describe these things. A couple of them I remember from college, some I picked up here or there, but a lot of the time… it’s just me. There’s a really good chance another author, an editor, a writing coach, or a random article on the web uses a different name for that exact same idea. Or maybe when they’re talking about XX on their social media or website, they mean something completely different.

Normally, no big deal. What does it matter what we call things, right? If I want to have my own special terms and phrases for that moment my hero does this or the specific challenge that causes that… so what? As I’ve mentioned here a few times it doesn’t matter how I write, all that matters is what I’ve written. What works for me won’t necessarily work for you and it definitely won’t work for him.

But…

I think sometimes we hit problems when these personal, unique terms get out into the wild and bounce off some of the more format-specific ones. People can start interpreting them in different ways. Weird ways. Because they see the same thing called by two different names—or maybe two different things called by very similar names—and then they try to distill these down to make “simplified” rules and definitions.

Like, okay, remember a while back and I was talking about structure, and how many different aspects of writing structure could refer to? And how often people would combine or confuse definitions and then spit that confusion back out as advice? Or, again, as rules that needed to be followed.

Heck, just a few weeks ago I talked about conflict, and all the different ways people define it. And then all the different ways people then try to judge conflict in a story based off all those random, personal definitions. It can get messy and confusing really fast.

Y’see, Timmy, we shouldn’t immediately take writing advice at face value when we stumble across it, no matter how simple or straightforward it sounds. I’m not saying it’s wrong, but pay attention to what being described more than what it’s being called. Someone might be giving you advice about conflict, but they’re really talking about action. They might keep referring to plot when they’re describing three act structure. It’s up to us to parse out what they actually mean and where this thread of advice fits in that big process -spiderweb of rules and tips and advice we each create

Yeah, the process-spiderweb. Doesn’t everyone call it that?

Random other thing—some of you may have noticed I didn’t post the August newsletter here on the last of the month as I usually do. I’m not doing that anymore. It’s making a few things feel a bit cluttered and redundant. From here on I’ll just add a link to the newsletter archive in the last post of the month. Like this. And of course, you can always just sign up for the newsletter and then this all becomes moot.

Oh, and if you’re in the San Diego area, this Saturday at 2:00 I’ll be at Mysterious Galaxy for the launch of the Dread Coast anthology. Come get books and get them scribbled in! Hear me read aloud in my squeaky, supposedly-accented voice.

Next time—unless I get a request from one of you—I’d like to go for a walk around the block.

Until then, go write.

This is one of those posts where I’ve sort of come up with a new way to look at something I’ve blathered on about before. A different way to think about things, if you will. And it kind of ties into a few different things I’ve talked about recently, which may be what sparked it in my mind.

Stick with me, okay.

A while back (a long while, really), I had a couple posts that talked about the whole “starting with action” thing. And as we broke it down, one of the issues that came up was that a lot of things are technically actions. Getting a drink from the kitchen. Doing laundry. Taking a shower. Sleeping. Breathing. Heck, sitting here at my desk typing this out is me performing actions.

But we understand none of these actions really count as the big Actions we mean when we’re talking about “starting with action.” I hope most of us do, anyway. I also hope we know better than to take “starting with action” too literally. I just linked to a couple of other posts about that, just in case.

Anyway…

One of the major things that separates these actions (and often conflicts) from more notable ones is consequences. Or, as we sometimes call them in the literary world, the stakes. What happens if I do (or don’t do) this thing. If I ask the cheerleader out, what happens? If I don’t enter the six numbers into the computer every two hours, what happens? If I make a sandwich for lunch because my beloved ate the last of the leftover pizza, what happens?

Now I can toss out these hypotheticals all day, and I’m sure any of you reading this could fill the comments with clever ways me not getting pizza for lunch is the worst thing ever. You’re a creative bunch. There’s probably a dozen possible ways we could come up with where not getting pizza could mean the end of my life—or the end of all life as we know it!

But we don’t want to talk about random potential stories. We want to talk about this story. This one right here. The one I wrote. Or you wrote. Or maybe the one we’re reading or watching.

So in broad terms, let’s talk about a few ways things could play out and the possible consequences we could be facing…

One— nothing happens. My character does (or doesn’t do) the thing and… that’s it. No fallout. No notable changes. We can’t even really tell the thing happened (or again, didn’t happen).

Y’know what, just for all our combined sanity, from here on I’m just going to say “do the thing” because you all understand that not doing the thing/ the thing not happening is also part of that decision/action process. You all get that right? Okay, cool.

If nothing happens or changes, then this particular choice or action probably isn’t really important within my story. Plot-wise or story-wise. And if it’s not important to my plot or my story, well…

Two–something happens, but it doesn’t effect me or anyone else in any way. It’s a “consequence” in the sense of cause and effect, but in a narrative/ plot/ story sense it’s still nothing. My character goes too fast while they’re trying to fix up the Surf Shop and gets paint on one of the windows! So they have to sponge it off! And then they keep going!

A while back I mentioned the idea of episodic storytelling structure, where every action or conflict gets resolved and puts us… right back where we were before. There’s no real evidence of forward motion or character development or.. anything. Really, this is the same thing as my last point, it’s just that I’m trying to make it look like something has happened in that breathing-counts-as-action way. There was a “consequence” from my actions, but effectively nothing’s happened.

Three – something happens, but it don’t effect me, or anyone else in a way that anyone could see as a negative. I have to ask the cheerleader out in front of her friends, but if she says no I get a million dollars and a date with a swimsuit model. Why? Who knows. Just how these things work sometimes. Our investigation did reveal toxic waste dumping all through our neighborhood, but somehow it acted like airborne chemotherapy and cured everyone’s cancer!

Yeah, I know, this all sounds silly. And I wouldn’t bring it up except I’ve seen it so many times. Someone’s forced to make a “tough choice” except every possible outcome is… well, a positive. It’s like if I’m disarming a bomb and if I cut the red wire it deactivates instantly but if I cut the blue wire it deactivates and tells me the mad bomber’s name. And, for some reason, a date with a different swimsuit model. So there are “consequences” and they do move the story along, but they only move it in one way. There’s no downside or risk to taking these actions. There’s no “or else…” Characters may try to act like one option’s a negative, but it’s clear to the reader that nothing bad’s happened.

Four – something happens, and it’s going to leave a mark. Physically. Emotionally. Maybe both. Yakko’s finally going to ask the cheerleader out and she’s either going to say yes or no. Or possible say no in a way that humiliates him in front of the entire school. Except, crap, this is during a game so there’s actually two schools here today. Maybe… maybe it’s not worth asking her? I mean, he’s only been pining after her since sixth grade. Or heck, maybe he was going to finally ask her out but that’s when the space ninjas attacked! Is he going after them or not? That teleportation arch isn’t going to stay open forever…

Weird how this fourth option is the only one that seems to have anything compelling about it…

I’ve talked once or thrice before about how making choices is how characters work their way through a plot. The decisions they make—or refuse to make—shape their story. But if there’s no pressure for my characters to make any of these choices, one way or another—no real consequences to face—we all sort of instinctively understand they’re just not that meaningful. They’re not going to make my characters rethink their strategies, conquer their fears, or change their priorities.

Y’see Timmy, we all understand that if the characters aren’t going to face any consequences for the choices they make—if there are no stakes—it doesn’t matter if they make those choices or not. Their decisions are irrelevant in the big scheme of things.

To be clear, I’m not saying every single thing a character does should have world-shaking ramifications, for them or the world. People need to eat sandwiches and take showers and, well, breathe. But I should be aware of which decisions do and don’t have real stakes, and give them the appropriate weight in my story.

Because if my characters aren’t making any relevant decisions in my story… well… there’s probably going to be consequences for that.

Next time, I’d like to talk about what we call that thing. No, the other thing. Yeah, that one.

Until then, go write.