Researching is one of the Stages of The Writer’s LifeCycle that writers often dread the most. It doesn’t have the freedom of brainstorming, and it doesn’t feel like real writing at all. It’s easy to put off, easy to tell yourself you’ll get to it later, and easy to avoid because it means facing your competition and wondering if you measure up.

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

Quarter One of 2026 is almost over. And I want to ask you something: if your writing life had a Q1 report, what would it say?