Oh, yeah. I’m FULL of it. You heard me. Today’s advice? The Toolbox. Every writer needs a toolbox. You can fix a sink and an oven with a wrench, but you’re not going to fix a window with it. You can fix a laptop with a micro screwdriver, but you’re not likely to fix an engine with it. You get the point, I think. You need different tools for different jobs. You need a whole box of tools to do a really big job, a professional job, a job done right. What do I think is the b

Marcus Aurelius once said, “Of each particular thing, ask what is it in itself? What is its nature?” Okay, that wasn’t Marcus Aurelius, it was Hannibal Lecter paraphrasing Aurelius, but Thomas Harris is actually brilliant, and his distillation of the about eleven paragraphs Aurelius actually wrote in Meditations is a valid one. Your work is more than just a story; like every good story, yours should be a story with a point. And the point isn’t to get the girl (or boy, or ambu

If you’re a golfomizer, or a footballman, or a boxerist (Not a sports guy. At all.) then you practice your moves. You learn the proper technique (see the previous blog… and now I come full circle) and then you practice it over and over. You learn how to use the golf stick to slay the nineteenth hole gorpomizer guardian so you can sink your putt and thereby impregnate the putting green, ensuring future generations will have golf courses to play on……wait. Got away from me there

Practice. If you want to play a sport, you have to learn how. You need to learn not just the rules but the technique. If you golf, you have to learn how to hold your head, your shoulders, your knees, the club. The grip you use is important. The club you use is also important. You don’t use a wedge to putt (I’m assuming, and also referencing the few golf movies I’ve seen… which, in retrospect, are Tin Cup and Happy Gilmore). If you play football, you practice throwing, catchi