Whether you're staring at a blank page or halfway through a draft, overthinking can bring your novel to a standstill. Different symptoms, same root cause: both writers are trying to solve problems they're not ready to solve yet, overthinking to the point of paralysis. In this episode, I share a four-part framework to help you stop chasing certainty and start getting more clarity and direction for your story.

Links Mentioned In This Episode:

One Day by David Nicholls

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

The Perfect Couple by Elin Hilderbrand

For years I measured my work ethic by how many hours I put in at my desk. I'd arrive, coffee in hand at 7am, break around Noon for lunch, back at my desk till 6 or 7pm, sometimes later. I thought putting in the time was the thing that would move the needle. It was actually the thing keeping me from doing my best work.

In this episode, I share two small, counterintuitive shifts I made to change not only the volume of creative work I get done, but the quality — and in half the time it used to take me.

How much exposition is too much? Should you begin your story with exposition? And how do you write exposition in a way that isn’t excessive, awkward, or dull?

In this encore episode, we'll talk about how to write exposition in a way that doesn’t sound like exposition.

We'll cover:

• What exposition is, and why it's essential;
• When to begin your story with exposition and when not to
• Two different types of exposition; and
• How to slip exposition into the action so the reader isn't aware it's even there.

Episode Website