What I Learned About Writing From Reading Margaret Atwood

There are many authors who have one or two books that I can count among my favorites. Margaret Atwood is not one of those authors.

To me, and many others, everything that she’s written is fascinating and worthy of a spot on my list of favorite books.

As a teenager, her gripping plots, masterful storytelling, and relatable characters had me pulling all the Atwood novels that I could carry off the library shelves. I’ve read everything that she’s written since then with equal gusto.

Writing for Online Readers? 9 Simple Tricks for Better Engagement

If your writing is meant to be published online, then you’re writing for online readers. And this writing can be in different forms like a blog post, an article, a web page, a product description, a buying guide, or a case study.

But there’s no guarantee that anyone will actually read your writing.

Behind the Screen: What You Can Learn About Writing From Reading Scripts

It’s safe to say that I’ve always been a fan of television and movies. According to my mom, I had The Wizard of Oz on repeat when I was a child. When I got older and smarter (and a lot more devious), I would sneak out after bedtime to catch as much of The Sopranos as I could before my parents caught me.

It’s no surprise that two decades later, I’m living in the movie and television capital of the world, attending one of its top film schools, and working my butt off to write movies and television that measure up to those that inspired me as a child.

When Sarah Ramsey published her article on how watching television can make you a better writer, I beat myself up over not thinking of the idea first. And damn, she wrote a good article.

What Should You Do With All Your Old Writing? Delete, Ignore, or Update?

Do you have a stash of old writing?

Perhaps it’s a partial novel manuscript in a bottom desk drawer, or a handful of short stories in a folder on your computer, or a tatty pile of school magazines that published your earliest poems.

It might not bother you at all. Those old pieces may not weigh on your mind, and they may not feel like clutter, just a part of your writerly history, which is fine!

But if you occasionally think about that half-finished project from five years ago, or those stories you never managed to sell, or that excruciatingly bad fanfiction you wrote when you were 15 (or is that just me?), then you might want to think through your options.