Category Archives for Articles

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.

Feeling Like a Fraud? How To Get Over Impostor Syndrome

We see those professional writers and entrepreneurs bask in the glory of their successful careers. They deliver quality work, become an authority in their niche, and seem to connect well with their audience. People get the idea that they definitely know what they are doing.

But beneath that surface can be a frustrated individual who feels like a fraud despite the glaring evidence of success.

We have all been there, one way or another. One minute, we’re feeling a sense of accomplishment with our work, and then next, we’re dragging ourselves down, flooded with guilt, because we feel undeserving of any kind of merit.

“Is it because of pure luck, or is it because of talent?” we may wonder.

Avoid Costly Proofreading Mistakes By Planning Ahead

The proofreader, the last person in the chain of people who guide, suggest, and make changes to writing before it is published, is generally the one who gets the “blame” when things go wrong with that piece of content you want to publish.

If you’ve put your soul into writing a book or a personal essay, you want it to be perfect. So, how do you get to “perfect”?