The Week in Creativity: Jan 29, 2023 — I started the week struggling with a humor piece for a newsletter I’m launching. Humor is the sort of thing that takes more work than I ever expect. I published it, then realized its many flaws and changed each one in a fresh panic. The saving grace was that no…

The Week in Creativity: Jan 22, 2023 — I wanted to be a screenwriter for a long time. In the late eighties, with no reason to believe I’d succeed, I bought a couple of books on screenwriting and went after it. Within a few months, I’d finished my first script. It stunk. But I didn’t know it stunk…

The Week in Creativity: Jan 16, 2023 My father had a penchant for driving cars until they fell apart. I was driving his Plymouth Fury when a tie rod broke and the front wheel collapsed. My brother drove that same Fury to school but couldn’t get it into Drive after school, and had to drive it home…

The Week in Creativity: Jan 8, 2023 — My sleep habits got messed up over the holidays. They’ve never been great but the past ten years I finally realized how critical sleep is for my creativity, health and happiness. Also productivity. But just being able to have fun and do stuff requires a rested body and mind. I…

I’ve spent this past year dealing with a novel, completely abandoning the story and starting over from scratch. I kept the characters and the setting, but everything else went in the toilet. …

Introduction For the past seven years, I’ve made plans at the beginning of the year. I make plans for books I want to write and publish, screenplays, or short stories. I also try to blog to boost my “platform.” All that’s in my plan. A couple of years ago, I had…