As a writing coach, many of my clients are first-time authors writing, or getting ready to write, their first book. One of the most important, and basic, questions would-be authors need guidance answering is this: Should I self-publish or pursue traditional...

The past two weeks in my world have been about dividing and conquering—flipping back and forth between the creative part of my WIP (actually writing chapters of the book) and the business part (making progress on the book proposal, bit by bit). Honestly, now that I'm...

Finally. I'm getting somewhere.  As I sit here reflecting on my journey since I first began blogging this Writer Unplugged series, I'm surprised (but not really) to see that nearly five (5!) months have passed since I fully committed to my work-in-progress. FIVE...

In my last post I wrote about my struggles with focus and motivation. Thankfully, in the past two weeks I've managed to move through that particular bout of procrastination and have been fairly head down working on a freelance editorial project and my...

Maybe it’s the post-project blues, maybe it’s the challenge of fully immersing myself in a new project, or maybe it’s simply February, but I’m still struggling with focus and motivation. How do I know? Because I spent more than an hour of precious work time Saturday...

You know how difficult re-entry into everyday life can be following a lengthy holiday, especially one where you felt transformed or were truly able to disconnect from everyday realities because you were so immersed in the experience you were in? That's kind of how I...

I have a confession to make. I did not keep my writing log over the past two weeks. The truth is, launching Doable threw me into an intense work frenzy followed by periods of malaise, large doses of Netflix, and more frequent naps. To circle back to my most recently...

It's been a tough week for getting things done—jet lag, a houseguest, pressing deadlines with clients, and my house being in a general state of post-travel disarray all seemed to conspire against me, making it difficult for me to be as productive as I like. But it was...

I wasn't sure how my writing projects would fare during two-and-a-half weeks of travel in the US for the holidays. Of course I was mega-ambitious about all the things I would do, including catching up on some e-courses on things like SEO, Pinterest, and Hacking...

We leave for the States on Friday, so I'm officially in pre-travel, pre-holiday fight or flight mode. I tend to focus well in these types of circumstances, yet I'm struggling with the time factor and my ginormous list of things I have to do before we leave, like pack,...

After my poor showing last week, I'm happy to report that I did much better on my writing goals this week. I'm certain this is in large part due to the fact that I made my goals more friendly and less ambitious. I still didn't accomplish anything, but did make some...

I'm not going to bury the lead. This week was, by my definition, a wash when it comes to my writing goals. Writing this post kind of sucks, since I have to tell you that many of those big, beautiful, clear goals I so ambitiously typed out last week remain...