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Episodes
Validate Yourself First
Have you ever had this experience? You’re sitting with someone you admire over dinner and mention that you completed a writing project that is important to you. You show them your finished project, they look at it for...
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Talent Is Overrated
You probably knew a kid in high school who was supremely gifted. They might have even been voted “most likely to succeed” or “most talented.” Everyone assumed their gifts would carry them on to great success. In most...
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Which Voice Are You Listening To?
One of the most interesting characters in literature is the unreliable narrator. This character might be delusional, a liar, or is simply prone to exaggeration. Or, they might not have a firm grasp on reality because...
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Nobody Knows Anything
William Goldman was one of the most successful Hollywood screenwriters of all time. He was the creative genius behind scripts for The Princess Bride and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, among many others. In total,...
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The Best Way to Stop Being a Perfectionist
On today's episode, I dive into the topic of perfectionism. This is an area where so many writers struggle. We have this ideal of what we should be writing, or the kind of success we should be having, and then we get...
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Tips for Writing at a Coffee Shop
A few months ago, I left my job as a full-time college professor after doing that work for 17 years. Even though I had a fair amount of discretionary time in that job, and I also worked from home during the summers,...
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Dreams Are Made, Not Found
One of the most pervasive ideas in Western culture is the concept of “finding your dreams.” No one knows for sure where this idea came from. The idea goes something like this: the main purpose of your life,...
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Bring Your ‘B’ Game
Do you struggle with being a perfectionist? Perfectionism is the tendency to get paralyzed by the idea that your work is never good enough. Perfectionists imagine there is a standard out there and they can never reach...
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Why Not You?
One of the most helpful perspectives we can adopt as writers is understanding that we don’t have an objective view of reality. This is hard to hear because most of us naturally believe we see things as they are. We...
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Life is Not a Multiple-Choice Test
There is a common trait among successful writers, and it has nothing to do with skill, talent, genre, or style. Instead, it has everything to do with taking responsibility for your own life choices. Most people are...
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Listen and Learn
Have you ever sat in a coffee shop and listened to the conversations happening around you? It’s fascinating. 99% of the time, people are only talking about themselves. Almost everyone in every social situation makes a...
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Vincent Pugliese: Generosity is the Key to Book Marketing Success
There are many keys to your success as a writer and author. Writing a great book is an important part of it, but there are other important things as well. One of those components is book marketing, which can seem like...
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