Lessons learned from five years of short story rejections — After floundering around in both writerly and career doubt in my early-twenties a few years post graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing (I kid you not), I rededicated to writing, editing, and submitting short stories in mid-2015. In the half-decade since, I have accumulated over 250 short story…

No one tagged me, but I’m doing it anyway If you haven’t seen it yet, there has been this deserted island book trend going around Medium, and I’m jumping in. The premise is nothing new, and you’ve probably heard a version of this in an office icebreaker, a random conversation…

Different approaches for the unloved element of fiction — Setting is an element of writing that has always been bit of a consideration in the aftermath for me. I’m much more interested in characters, themes, and prose than the background where the action inevitability will take place. …

Or how to lie to your readers — We all know that people don’t always tell the truth to other people. We also know that fictional characters — in their reflection of our reality — don’t always tell the truth to other characters. But what about a narrator that doesn’t tell the truth to the readers? Well, you…

Lessons from rereading your cringey early writing — Any writer — in fact, probably any artists of any kind — knows the absolute horror of going back and looking at their old art/writing. Its like looking at photos of yourself in middle school. Cringe. Embarrassment. And hopefully some good hearted humor at what we used to find cool. …

Lessons learned on the slow way to making not that much money — So I finally earned over one hundred dollars in a month on Medium. It feels like a landmark, because I’ve seen more than one article about the slim number of writers who get over this threshold. It is hardly a living, but it’s nice extra bit of change. And far…

A quick set of no-gos to start your writing career out right — For a beginner, submitting their short stories to literary markets can be intimidating and overwhelming. There are a lot of steps. There is a lot of jargon and best practices that may be unfamiliar. And scariest of all… you are sending out your precious story, a little bit of your…

How to say it and say it well — I’ve spent two and a half years writing about writing here on Medium, and many more years actually writing. And, of course, plenty of years hearing other writers’ rules about writing: The good, the bad, the well-intended, and the misaligned. After all of that, I’ve come to the conclusion that…

Four tips for making your short fiction the best it can be — What makes short stories a special genre is their ability to pack a narrative punch in a “short” amount of words. This reigns true in everything from 100-word pieces of microfiction to almost novella-length 10,000-word pieces. Short stories are works of narrative that have the potential to be read in…