Word count is one of those things that sounds like a technicality until you realize how much it affects your book. Whether you write nonfiction or fiction, understanding the range for your genre is one of the first things you can do to set yourself up for success.

With spring in full bloom and summer rapidly approaching, the weather is heating up. Luckily, there’s one way to ride the heatwaves of the seasons and make the best out of them: a good book (or two) in your armour for maximum enjoyment. And with this year’s trends in fiction and nonfiction, escapism has never been hotter.

Research is how writers gather the information they need before they begin drafting. It helps you build confidence in your details, stay accurate, and shape your ideas into something clear and usable.

This two-part series will walk you through the foundations of writing your memoir, from understanding the craft to setting up your workspace and tools. Part Two will explore how you can take memoir material and transform it into historical fiction. Whether you have been journaling for years or have never written a full page about yourself, I hope this blog series will help guide you.

Most writers have at least one person they trust with their work. I trust my writing to no one else like I trust my son. But if you are being honest with yourself, maybe you do not even have that. Maybe the only reader your work has ever had is you.

If you are a self-publishing author managing your own timeline and your own career, you are running a business. And businesses that do not track their time do not last long. The most common problem I see is not a lack of motivation. It is imbalance. Writers spend enormous amounts of time in the early stages of a project, brainstorming, drafting, revising, and almost no time at all on the stages that matter just as much on the back end: editing, formatting, marketing, and adve

Some writers keep their pen names hidden from their children. From their parents. From their partners. They create an entire alternate identity for the version of themselves that writes, because they are not yet ready to let those two worlds collide. That is internal author conflict, and it is more common than most people want to admit.