Okay, so where’s the truth? You’ve been sitting there pounding out word after word of what makes sense to you, but it seems like just another string of words that almost anyone could write. Have you ever considered that you writing from everyone else’s truth and not your own? Truth is an elusive little devil that can whack the serifs right off your words, blindside and pummel all those well-intended phrases and words that claim to come from honesty but are actually other people’s thoughts and ideas disguised as your own. Why not make them your own ..read more

“This time,” I thought, “I’ll know what I’m doing.” Surely, it’d be easier the second time around, right? No.  ..read more

Early drafts may include grammatically correct and acceptable WHITs in small doses, but most writing becomes burdened by dozens if not hundreds of vague words per chapter, essay, and entire manuscripts. The opportunity arises to amplify and develop tone, mood, plot, setting, and characters by replacing WHIT vague placeholders with concrete and visual verbs and nouns within active sentence structures.  ..read more

Below is a listicle on how to create a composition that will catch and keep an editor’s attention. the Jesuit priests didn’t care I’m not Catholic nor have I stepped foot in Australia. They liked the advice I was giving. Markets are everywhere. Be persistent in submitting. Yet, first know what you are doing when you create your piece ..read more

Although this was true mostly because I didn’t know many other writers at seven years old, this brazen confidence did not stay with me long. As a kid, I fearlessly shared my poetry with anyone who wanted to listen to it, and many who didn’t. But as I grew, I began to feel guarded about my poetry, fearing the reactions, fearing the poems weren’t any good, didn’t say anything new, or revealed too much. I knew, though, that this was no way to write, that the writing that most profoundly impacted me was most likely the scariest for that author to share. I wanted to get back to a place where I had ..read more

It was an homage to my mother, who had lost her battle with cancer after a double mastectomy and brutal napalm for the body chemotherapy. My father was alone now. My childhood home outside NYC was under contract to be sold so we had to move, and the Florida home she picked out was also. We had no choice but to leave our home and neighborhood behind. The idea had been to get her out of the rat race and move closer to the beach, where she could rehabilitate. My father had quit his job at a prominent college to become her nurse. She was skin and bones and would often fall, struggling on her way t ..read more

The key to getting your writing noticed is to develop your voice. Like the voice of a great singer, a writer’s voice has its own character and energy. Think about it: you can always tell when Rhianna, Kelly Clarkson, or Barbra Streisand is singing just from listening to the first few notes ..read more

As a small child, I couldn't articulate my existential worries.  This made me feel even more insubstantial ..read more

Advice comes and goes. The best advice today is out of vogue tomorrow. Nonetheless, there are certain cliched opinions that are evergreen. One— my dad used to say decades ago— I still go by. The other one is a quotation by a famous French literary elite from another century ..read more

Writing has always come naturally to me. Growing up, I used to fill notebooks with short stories and scripts for school plays. Writing was fun, satisfying, and most importantly, easy. Art class, on the other hand, was definitely not my forte. Take, for example, the time I had to sculpt a head out of papier-mâché. My classmates all achieved varying levels of success, but I could not for the life of me create anything vaguely resembling a head. Eventually I gave up, made a spiky ball, colored it bright pink and purple, and told the teacher it was an alien hedgehog. When it came to drawing, my gr ..read more