I read every novel and novella Becky Chambers has ever written. All of them back to back. If you haven’t read her, the best way I can describe it is like this: it feels like therapy. Warm, unhurried, and quietly transformative in a way you don’t notice until you surface for air and realize something in you has shifted.

I didn’t expect to need it as much as I did.

Here’s what’s been bothering me. A comment on Hacker News stopped me cold: “there’s literally nothing special about the human experience.” They were writing in reaction to ChatGPT-5.4 solving a complex math problem. For the record, my human experience does not include any complex math problems, but that’s neither here nor there. Still though, this bothered me because I recognized in it the same rhetoric being spouted by tech billionaires as they attribute layoffs to AI. I find these statements to be cynical and deliberate lies, performed with the sole purpose of raising stock prices. Jack Dorsey and the Block layoffs is a recent example. For those wondering, recent layoffs a result from pandemic over-hiring, fueled by pandemic stipends and zero-interest rate spending.

Underlying the idea of the “singularity” and “superintelligence” is the assumption of Functionalism. Functionalism states that consciousness is essentially software that can run on any hardware, whether that’s a computer or a human body. What Functionalism misses, as Michael Pollan argues in A World Appears, is that the software and hardware are inseparable in the human nervous system. In our brains, information is stored in the neuronal connections, the type, and quantity of chemical receptors. What’s fundamental to the human experience is embodied sensation, felt experience.

As tech rejects humanism, I feel pulled closer to it. Which may explain why I couldn’t put down the books by Becky Chambers. What is fiction but a record of embodied sensation, a study of the subjective human experience? At the core of her work is an optimism that’s contagious. What I love about science fiction is its ability to explore big ideas. Chambers doesn’t ask if humanism is right, instead she stress-tests it, explores its boundaries and edge cases.

She explores subjective human experiences with non-human characters. Which is so science fiction. Like in the Monk & Robot duology, Mosscap the robot could live forever, yet it chooses to die by not repairing itself. Now, he must learn to cope with the existential dread of his own inevitable death. What’s more human than that?

Her alien species have unique family structures, designed to hold up a lens to our own. Often, examining the identity of parenthood, specifically motherhood, and asking what if a society collectively cared for its young?

But wait, you said this LLM AI stuff is anti-humanism, and yet Chambers has several AI characters in her books treated as human. There’s Mosscap, mentioned above, and also Lovey in Wayfarers book 1, who is an AI that controls a ship who has a romantic relationship with one of the crew. Well, Chambers clearly knows her stuff because her AI characters are not LLMs, they have bodies with sensations and feelings. They have thoughts of their own volition, free of prompting.

This topic is explored in Wayfarers book 2, Chambers does not set up equivalency between AI and humans. The AIs have their own distinct embodied experiences, while different from how humans experience the world, are valuable in the same way the experience of any sentient creature. Let’s not judge people for being different, but celebrate those differences and see them as a chance to grow our own understanding.

It's worth pausing on Chambers's word choice here. Her books make a distinction between “sentient” and “non-sentient” creatures, but Michael Pollan would push further and call them "conscious." In neuroscience, that's a meaningful upgrade. Sentience is just the capacity to feel. Consciousness is the whole subjective experience of being something. Chambers's AIs, with their embodied sensations and unprompted inner lives, clear that higher bar.

Book 3 of the Wayfarers series follows a society of human who live on massive spaceships. Forced to flee Earth after allowing it to succumb to environmental disaster, they built a new society with equity and sustainability as its core tenets. Again, the idea in wonderfully character-driven way. We have 5 POV characters, each coming from a unique background. How does an insular society survive the influence of the free market? How does it handle outsiders who wish to join? Chambers doesn’t ignore the complicated implications of such a society. Rather embraces them as a central form of conflict through the identity of her characters.

If there’s one thematic thread running through her work, it’s the found family. I believe this as the defining characteristic of the Cozy Fantasy genre. Unlike the power of friendship in epic fantasy, the found family is not defined by adversity, testing bonds. For example, epic fantasy needs the power of friendship to defeat the demon lord, and each character contributes their unique magic or skill. While in a found family, striving towards belonging is the whole point. Cozy Fantasy novels revolve around strangers who, despite having no good reason to do so, accept, support, and help each other. The subplots revolve around the characters’s individual barriers to achieving a sense of belonging: being rejected by their own family, being the last survivor of their species, being something considered illegal or abhorrent.

The core message is clear: survival hinges on building community. I wanted to live inside the worlds Chambers created because they’re tolerant, more forgiving places. There conflict is not caused by hate, but misunderstanding of conflicting beliefs or identity. They resolve problems by talking them out, never by violence. This place values individual embodied experience, regardless of species.

Here’s what I keep coming back to. The Hacker News commenter who said there’s “nothing special about the human experience” was wrong, but I understand the temptation. When you’re staring at a blank page, doubting whether your story matters, it’s easy to wonder if anyone needs another novel.

Becky Chambers answers that question on every page. What she’s really writing about is the same thing you’re writing about: the desperate, necessary, fundamentally human project of finding your people. Her found families don’t come together because the plot demands it. They come together because belonging is the whole point.

That’s worth writing about. That’s worth the struggle of showing up every day and putting words on the page, even when it feels inadequate. Especially then.

An LLM can generate a found family story. It can hit every beat, populate it with charming characters, and produce something that reads like the real thing. What it can’t do is mean it. It can’t write from the specific loneliness of being a person, feeling pulled toward humanism precisely because the world keeps insisting you shouldn’t bother.

But you can. And that’s the whole game.

I took a thinking day in San Francisco, with no devices, inspired by a suggestion from Cal Newport’s podcast. With my phone and laptop in the coat check at the Asian Art Museum and armed with a pen and notebook, I browsed the museum, walked along Market St, before finally settling down in the San Francisco Public Library to write in my notebook. My intention was to write about something that had been bothering me lately. Why does it feel so hard to make any progress?

My goal for my writing practice is to give my life energy and intention, and yet, so often it can feel frustrating. I get overly fixated on the goal. Writing a novel is a massive undertaking, and the reality is it’s not always my highest priority. I have a full-time job, people who depend on me, and my own mental and physical health to take care of. Looking back at a year of fits and starts of writing makes me feel like I’m spinning my wheels in place.

Which is why a thinking day is exactly what I needed. The first thing I noticed was how mindful I felt without my phone or laptop. San Francisco is a weird place. I saw a man dressed in a bright yellow shirt and pants, like the guy from Curious George, with a parrot—later I saw him riding around on a bicycle wearing a parrot mask.

The other observation was how much easier it was to concentrate. That’s what writing is all about, really: clarifying thought. Brandon Sanderson talks about how a novel is a record of the writer’s transformation. Writing is becoming a way of defining what’s important and worth paying attention to.

All the self-help writing advice always boils down to the same sentiment: journey before destination. What my thinking day made me realize was that the writing life, and its benefits, is not exclusive to professional writers. The biggest barrier is having the time freedom to commit to the practice; let’s put that aside for now. If you’re able, you can start living the writer’s life today. You don’t need to publish or get an MFA. You just need a pen and a notebook.

We live in a culture obsessed with observable progress. Or more accurately, I’m obsessed with observable progress. I want to see my tickets move across my Kanban board into the done column. Videogames can keep me playing for hours, as long as the numbers keep going up. I track my daily word count, chart it, and review it quarterly. You could say it’s a destination over journey mindset. The inevitable outcome is burnout or quitting out of frustration. The formula for success is consistency.

I realized I had fallen into a trap while reading The Path of Excellence by Brad Stulberg. Stulberg writes, “Beware of addiction to observable progress. You get 1 percent better every day until you don’t—what happens next is key.” This is especially true for writing. What does it even mean to get better at writing? It’s so multifaceted and subjective. Stulberg’s recommendation is to pay attention to how you feel, what gives you energy, and how the actions you take impact your mood. You can get better quickly when learning a new skill, but you’ll plateau.

My thinking day left me feeling energized, my mind clear, and a sense of gratitude. It made me realize what writing is all about. I had written by hand in a notebook without tracking the word count, with no intention of publishing it anywhere. (I recognize the irony of me now turning it into a blog post.)

I didn’t realize just how much my attention had degraded because of digital distraction. While I was at university, I would go to the library and read for several hours straight. Now, when I sustain my focus for more than a few minutes, I want to reach for an LLM to make things easier, to look something up online. That being alone with my thoughts makes me so uncomfortable was a powerful signal of what needed to change. Writing is the mental workout I need to reclaim my mind from the attention economy trying to take it over.

So if you’ve also been feeling like your writing isn’t taking you anywhere. Know that being able to focus and build on ideas is a superpower is our distracted world. It’s not about word counts or publishing. It’s about finding the energy to keep going.

I was thrilled to hear this week that Brandon Sanderson has finally sold the rights to his Cosmere novels. Amazingly, he retained creative control of the project, and he’ll even be writing the screenplay for the first feature film adaptation of book 1 of the Mistborn series, Mistborn: The Final Empire. The part I’m most excited about is seeing how Sanderson will rewrite the ending. Sanderson has long been saying that in retrospect, he wasn’t happy with the original ending. And now he’s finally gotten his opportunity to do. Before we continue, this post will contain spoilers for the ending of Mistborn book 1. If you plan to read it, then I strongly recommend you stop reading. You’ve been warned!

How did Sanderson, an author known for the satisfying midpoint and ending twists in his novels, write an ending he wasn’t completely satisfied with? What happened is he had already started working on the outline for the sequel. Elements from book 2 started bleeding into book 1, without being properly motivated in book 1.

The problem with the ending is a bit of Deus ex machina moment. For the uninitiated, Deus ex machina (God from the machine) refers to a moment where there is a sudden and unexpected solution to a difficult problem. In the novel, the main character Vin in her ultimate confrontation with the Lord Ruler, the Big Bad, when she discovers a hidden power. She can inhale the mist and use all the metals simultaneously. While researching this article, I realized that this ability is subtly foreshadowed. Specifically, when Kelsier theorizes the possibility of Allomancers burning metals, they shouldn’t be able to. In fact, her hidden power is internally consistent with the magic system. As a “Mistborn”, Vin has access to all the metals. Much of the book is her training in how to use each metal. So it logically follows that a Mistborn could use all the metals at once.

The issue is that it feels random. In his 2025 lecture, Sanderson says a good ending is surprising, yet inevitable. Inevitable in the sense that it has a strong causality with the previous events. A great ending encourages the reader to revaluate everything they’ve learned up to that point. Even if a character’s hidden ability is well motivated by the magic system, it can’t feel like it came out of nowhere. Ideally, the reader will figure it out right before it’s revealed. And it should be possible for a reader to figure it out sooner if they’re reading very carefully.

As fans of speculative fiction, let’s do a little speculation on what might change. Let’s start with the obvious options. He could plant more seeds along the way about the power. Or he could lean into the spectacle of the visual medium and make the power unveil be a moment of wonder powered by CG. For some reason, I think he’ll restructure the story completely.

Since this is fantasy, there’s always the power of friendship ending. Sanderson set out with the intention of writing an ensemble novel about a heist. It ended up being more of a master-apprentice novel focused on Vin’s relationships and power scaling. If the film has A-list actors attached as members of the crew, we’d expect them to have bigger parts.

Another possibility is that burning all the metals has a higher power cost, forcing Vin to make more of a sacrifice. This could elegantly explain why Vin becomes an assassin for the new empire. Not as a choice, but as a consequence of what she had to do to save it. In a way, she is becoming the thing she fought to defeat. It’s all a bit too tragic though. Sanderson’s writing strives skews towards the optimistic. It also somewhat undermines the romance subplot, diluting the stand up and cheer moment when Vin is reunited with Elend.

Whatever Sanderson does, the film gives him something most authors never get: a chance to fix what bothered him. And given his track record, I’m sure it’ll be great.

I recently started volunteering at a non-profit that takes book donations and sells them for the benefit of public libraries. The work consists mostly of sorting through donations and “culling” the books they can’t sell. People will bring in boxes of books accumulated over a lifetime. It’s like looking at a snapshot of someone’s life. For example, we received a box filled entirely with books about divorce. To be fair, people published and purchased many of these books before the Internet’s invention, when reading books on a topic was basically the only option.

I believe the boxes tell the story of fixations. A box containing books about starting a business. Did that person ever become an entrepreneur? I could see myself in that discarded pile of books, their broken spines, yellowing and dogeared pages. The truth is reading can be procrastination. We so often tell ourselves that we will do the thing, but only after we’re ready, one more book, one more class, after I finish this big project at work. The reality is we’re externalizing our anxiety, incapable of facing the uncertainty that we may fail. Or even worse, that we’re not even interested in doing the thing we tell ourselves we want to do.

It surprised me, the sheer volume of low-quality books. Future books for the culling. People regard reading as universally good, and it is, at least compared to social media. Like anything, though, there is a wide range in quality. Surely, I only read the finest and highest quality of literature, I thought. Then I saw Show Your Work by Austin Kleo, a book I own. Not to throw shade on Kleo. I enjoyed his book, and it achieves what it sets out to do, providing inspirational and actionable advice in a bite-sized package. But it hit me. I could get way more mileage out of my reading simply by focusing on quality books and cutting out all the fat.

The low-quality books I can’t stop reading are writing books, many of which I’ve written about here on this newsletter. This past week, I had started yet another inspirational book on the creative life, which particularly primed me for this realization. I was so excited when I bought it, finally the key to unlock the creative life. After a strong opening chapter, it quickly devolved into all the same conventional advice as every other book of its ilk. It feels like I keep waiting for someone to give me permission, to tell me I’m ready. Preparing properly would stop writing from being so scary, right?

Reading these books doesn’t resolve the anxiety. It defers it, like all good procrastination does. How great it would be to not have to try, to kill this resistance. George Saunders describes writing as a purely intuitive process. He lets his subconscious guide his hand, building the story one sentence at a time, often without an outline. This couldn’t be further away from my own lived experience.

Learning about the Four Stages of Competence was helpful for me. In the beginning, it’s the unconscious incompetence stage, and through action, it eventually transitions to unconscious competence. This gave me permission to push myself. I’m still a beginner after all. Like all things, it gets easier with time. For a beginner, the hardest part is doing the thing, preferably every day. Writing is learned by doing. You can’t learn it by reading a book. Some writing books are genuinely useful. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott comes to mind as especially useful for absolute beginners and experienced writers alike. I believe you can get 90% of the value that all writing books offer by studying and deliberately applying the lessons found in this one book.

I’ve largely come to despise the motivational category of writing books. These are to be avoided like the plague. Their inspiration is fleeting and rarely leads to concrete action. The best craft books like Stephen King’s On Writing are actually most effective for writers who already have their own process. The insight lies in comparing their method to your own and finding the universal truths they share.

All of this is to say: I’ve decided to stop reading writing books. At least, until I finish my current project, maybe forever. Instead, I’ll read books that feel relevant, in tone, content, or category to my newsletter or novel. I’ve always enjoyed reading broadly. Books are a buffet and variety keeps things fresh. Now, It feels like time to dig in deep, to learn the specific conventions of the form I’m attempting to write in.

Here’s an invitation for you take a step back and look at your media consumption diet. Not just books, you should include everything: TV, movies, social media, manga, podcasts, videogames, whatever, you get the point. Put it all in a box and hand it in to the donation center in your mind. Ask yourself you’re proud of what you see. Does the media you consume reflect your values, goals, your mission in life? Or does it reflect a need to numb the anxiety of exhaustion and overwhelm which modern society forces upon us? Build a a box the donation sorter inside your mind would be proud of.

Everywhere I went, I kept running into Ada Lovelace. First, in the Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers, which is excellent, by the way, and you should totally check it out. There’s a character named Lovelace. “That’s a weirdly specific name,” I thought to myself, yet did not bother to give it a search. Last weekend I went to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, where I learned who she actually was. Fun fact: her father was Lord Byron, the famous novelist, poet, and champion of the Luddite movement. Then Lovelace reappeared this week while I was attending a lecture by Hannes Bajohr about Novels and LLMs. He paraphrased a quote from Lovelace from her famous Appendix G in her essay, The Analytical Machine. Why did this keep happening?

First, let’s talk about Bajohr and what he discovered when he tried to write a novel with AI1. It feels like a misnomer to say that he wrote it, because a large language model (LLM) generated it. What he found was that while the output was a convincing imitation, it was lacking in something crucial. While superficially it read like a novel, in reality it was completely incoherent, lacking any underlying causal logic.

Going back to Lovelace, her essay was a description of a theoretical “Analytical Machine” — a massive machine powered by steam, which would fit the description of Alan Turing’s general-purpose computing machine. The machine was modeled after looms, which at the time were using punch cards to create elaborate designs with automation. In her essay, Lovelace made the claim that machines don’t “originate anything” rather, they do whatever they’re instructed to do.

I encountered the same idea at university, under a different name, called the Chinese Room. The idea is, if an algorithm is simply following instructions, can we assign it sentience if the output matches the complexity of what a human would produce? Modern LLMs are basically the Chinese Room. Their procedural generation relies on pattern matching using correlations formed in the training and stored as weights in arrays of numbers. What they can’t do is care. When you set the temperature to 0, it becomes a deterministic algorithm. When given the same input, you’ll always get the same output, with each token passing through each matrix multiplication, predetermined during training. There is no intention.

Intentionality is, after all, what readers really want when they pick up a novel. They want to feel a sense of connection to another mind, to see a certain way, to be changed by what they’ve read. An AI will never do this. As context windows get larger and reinforcement learning from human feedback tuning makes the results more convincing, the fundamental fact is unchanged. LLMs are incapable of intentionality. As Bajohr points out in his experiment more practically, they’re also terrible at causality. Causality is so important to narrative. Narrative momentum arises from one action rising inevitably in reaction to another.

So, LLMs will never replace writers. As the torrent of AI-generated slop gains momentum, people’s appetite for authenticity only increases. We see in the online backlash to the use of AI in popular video games like Baldur’s Gate 3 and Claire Obscur: Expedition 33. In an increasingly disconnected world, we crave connection.

That’s why a daily writing practice is so valuable. It’s an exercise in living life deliberately. An opportunity to step back from the world of infinite digital distraction and listen to your inner voice. The newsletters on Substack that are the most popular are written by authors with a distinct voice, strong opinions, and who make you feel like you’re on a journey together. Compare that to LLM-generated text, which is literally optimized for blandness. By design, it aims to provide the most likely output, or the statistical average. Basically, it’s mid by design.

A book is a carefully crafted experience striving towards a specific effect in the reader’s mind. Maybe it’s an idea, or an emotion with a novel. George Saunders describes the writing like driving a motorcycle with the reader in the sidecar. The author’s goal is to keep the reader next to you at all times, to make them feel how you feel, as you give them a thrilling ride. With AI, it’s more like riding inside a Waymo. Sure, it’s a smooth and comfortable ride, and we end up where we told it to take us. But it wasn’t a memorable ride. Now compare that to scraping pegs on Skyline Blvd and try to tell me they’re the same thing.

Ada Lovelace is the coolest computer scientist that I never learned about studying computer science at university. Her quote is a reminder to me that there is no substitute for chatting with another mind. In his book “On Writing,” Stephen King describes writing as telepathy across time and space. It’s nothing short of magic.

“The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform. It can follow analysis; but it has no power of anticipating any analytical relations or truths. Its province is to assist us in making available what we are already acquainted with.”

- Ada Lovelace

Last weekend, I found a delightful used bookstore. I was meeting some friends at Redwood City and had arrived early. While walking around downtown, I noticed a sagging and dirty sign for the bookstore on a stairwell going into the basement under the history museum. Only open on Saturdays from 10 AM - 3 PM.

You walk down a utility hallway, past a giant foam reel of film, which must have been a decoration in a movie theater. The first room is claustrophobic and cluttered. My initial reaction was underwhelming, to say the least. As you move deeper inside, the store opens up into 3 large interconnected rooms with large displays. It created a sense of discovery and wonder to find this hidden space.

While scouring the stacks, I found a first edition mass market copy of Elantris by Brandon Sanderson, published in 2005. The very first book he had published. In interviews, Brandon talks about how he wrote 13 books before he got Elantris published. Elantris sold OK, well enough to get him another book deal, but not well enough to make a living as a professional writer. It wasn’t until the third book in the Mistborn series, The Hero of Ages (2008), his breakout success which propelled sales for the Mistborn series, did he become a commercially successful author.

In this blog, I write a lot about Brandon’s free YouTube course on writing science fiction & fantasy, because I think it’s the best (and free) educational resource out there for SFF writers. Of course, I’m also a fan of his writing. For publishing professionals, even outside of SFF, they can’t help but remark on how ambitious Brandon is with his company Dragonsteel Books. Many authors are content to let their publishers handle everything. While Brandon built one of the largest privately owned publishing companies in the world.

When I think of Brandon Sanderson today, I think of the publishing mogul, whose every move creates ripples through the whole publishing industry (e.g. popularization of audiobooks, books as a luxury product). Yet, in 2005, he was a new author doing everything he could to break into the industry. Even before he published his first book, he was just as industrious and focused.

It reminds me of the concept in meditation of the beginner’s mind. Bring a sense of curiosity and openness into your practice. When you assume you have all the answers, you close your mind off to potentially useful possibilities. When I picked up the book, it reminded me that Brandon did not build his empire overnight. He still takes risks on new projects, giving each book what it needs based on its unique themes, characters, and setting.

So I paid a whole $3, and I bought it. I kept it by my desk as a reminder. Be like Brandon in 2005. Put everything you got into the project you’re working on right now. Being a professional means showing up and giving it your all. No matter what happens.

After studying the publishing industry, I had a realization. I wouldn’t even like being a successful writer. It’s too easy to mythologize the writers and the writing process. In reality, the more expectations the publisher has for your book, the more you get pulled into doing marketing and public relations, meaning less time for writing and reading.

What if we’re chasing the wrong thing? We already know fixating on outcomes results in perfectionism, feeling guilty about not being productive enough, which is paralyzing and counterproductive. Even worse, we may work hard only to discover our reward is less time doing the very thing you wanted to do.

Rebecca Yarros has spoken in interviews about how exhausting the book tour was for Onyx Storm. For a mega successful author like Yarros, going the self-publishing route without promotion would feel like failure. Why slow down when you’re on top?

This forced me to reevaluate my reasons for writing. If I wasn’t chasing fame and glory, then why do all this effort? Cal Newport in his newsletter talks about a concept he coined called engineering wonder. It’s a quick read, check it out. He proposes wonder has the antidote to aimlessness. Wonder keeps me coming back to Sci-Fi and Fantasy. It’s also the most enjoyable part about writing.

In this article, you’ll learn how to reframe your novel as a wonder project. Why writing towards wonder makes the writing habit more sustainable and enjoyable.

What Cal Newport Means by “Engineering Wonder”

Cal Newport shares 3 criteria for what makes a wonder project:

• Large in scope (ambitious, unreasonably big)

• Outside your normal job and family responsibilities

• Pursued for the wonder itself, not external rewards

I would argue writing a novel matches these criteria perfectly. He suggests avoiding projects involving screens. Try writing outside the house in a novel and exciting setting to capture the effect.

A lesson I keep encountering as I learn about writing is how reading and writing are both driven by emotions. You may read romance to feel that warm and fuzzy feeling of falling in love. As readers we intuitively know this, even if we don’t think about it consciously.

The same can apply to writing. A good writing session leaves you feeling energized. Not to say it should feel easy. Writing is difficult, you’re supposed to feel uncomfortable, it takes intense concentration over long periods of time. To borrow from the alpine community, writing is Type II fun on the “fun scale.”

Ideally, after writing you’ll feel satisfied having done so. You feel surprised at the associations you created. About the wonder you felt by seeing the world through the eyes of your characters.

Why Success Might Not Be What You Want

So what does “being successful” actually look like? Cal Newport gives the advice to research the job you want to have. That way you’re not inventing stories of what it’s like. Luckily, there’s a ton of information online about what it’s like to be a writer. To research the topic, I read memoirs, interviews, substacks, took courses, listened to podcasts by editors and agents, all about the publishing industry.

Let’s say you’re a traditionally published commercial author. Your publisher expects you to write 1, or even 2 books per year, on deadline. While the publisher will help with marketing, you don’t know how much, and you’re expected to contribute. For me, the hardest part would be public relations. Writers do book tours, interviews, podcasts, conferences, conventions, and all kinds of public appearances. I’m afraid of public speaking. I don’t enjoy traveling for brief trips, spending all my time in airports, airplanes, and hotel rooms, like George Clooney in Up in the Air. This isn’t the life I want.

It’s even worse for self-published writers. The burden is entirely on you, hiring an editorial team, book covers, distribution, foreign agents (if you are so lucky), and lots of time spent on marketing.

It’s difficult to overstate how much effort goes into selling a book. The reality is publishing is a buyer’s market and there are already enough books out there to last us many lifetimes. To get a publishing house to buy your book, or a consumer, you need to use marketing to cut through the noise. Tim Ferris says if you want to write a book, expect to work on it full-time for a year, spending at least 30% of that time on marketing. In self-publishing,

We romanticize the outcome of writing. When I imagine writing, the image which comes to mind is Ernest Hemingway sitting in a cafe in Paris, thoughtfully smoking a pipe, as he watches pedestrians walk by. Fan communities idolize authors, treating them like gods, paying sizable sums of money for their autographs.

If you watch Brandon Sanderon’s weekly updates on his writing, you might get the wrong impression. When he says he wrote 20,000 words that week. It doesn’t mean 20,000 words that are ready to be published. It’s more like 20,000 words are now ready for the next phase of the editorial process, to be reviewed by his developmental editor, beta readers, copy editor, or whatever. Naively, it may seem that writing a 100,000 word book is simply writing 10,000 words a week for 10 weeks. The reality is there is a ton of revision which happens, as he’s writing, and afterwards.

How to Treat Your Novel as a Wonder Project

I’ve taken many continuing education creative writing classes. There’s always at least a few people who say “this is my first novel and I need it to be published.” The instructors do their best to be optimistic and offer their advice. They’re afraid to offer a reality check because writing classes are supposed to be aspirational, giving students permission to let writing into their busy lives.

What these instructors wish to say is that getting published takes a long time. If you come in with this attitude of do or die on your first attempt, then you’re not gonna make it in the long run. Because you probably won’t sell your first novel. Which is OK, because your first novel won’t be very good.

Forget about publishing. Focus on the process. Ask people to read what you wrote and if you get feedback that it’s fantastic and worthy of publication, then consider it. Everything before that is premature.

A better heuristic is to ask yourself “Am I experiencing wonder?” It’s a much more important question than “is this good enough?” because it won’t ever be good enough. How could our projects live up to our expectations? The goal is to capture in portraiture the complexity and emotion of life. Yet, written language itself is a lossy form of compression, incapable of capturing the depth of emotions as we experience them.

Ask yourself where is the wonder in your current project? How can you build your process around harnessing it? Allow yourself to work at a natural pace, inhabiting your characters, getting absorbed into the sensory landscape of your scenes. Keep a writing journal and write about your story, your process, interview your characters.

What This Means for Your Daily Writing Practice

The proper reward of writing is personal development. I truly believe writing is good for you. Writing has improved my life by creating a forcing function to define my values, my goals, to slow down, and get out of my comfort zone. Focus on what you can control: keep showing up. The biggest barrier to writing is doubt. (Is there interest in me doing a post on doubt?)

Measure your success by your emotional state after you’ve finished writing for the day. Do you feel curious, engaged, and interested in continuing? The goal is to write for life. Not to get a book deal. I can do a post on it, but book writing is statistically not a good way to make money. It’s a winner-take-all market where the large majority of sales go to the books in the top 1 or 2 place spot on the bestseller list. If you calculate the pay-per-hour on the average advance, you’re basically working for cents on the hour. Of course, it’s possible to make a living. In reality, it won’t be for everyone. It takes an incredible amount of time and dedication to break through. Most people who’re interested in writing already have careers, families, and hobbies.

Which is why busy modern day knowledge workers need a separate mental framework for writing compared to professional writers. Write in a way that gives you energy. Do what makes you want to keep going. Find the wonder.

Success is a poor motivator. While wonder is much better. Brandon Sanderson has a beautiful essay about how giving readers a sense of belonging is a powerful motivator for his writing. Find what resonates for you and pursue it with single-minded devotion.

Let’s be honest, you never cared about the book deal, anyway. You’re writing because you love to read books. You want to be part of this 5,000 year tradition of telling stories to give people the hope and courage to live their lives. Here’s an invitation to treat your novel to engineer wonder into your life today.

A successful writing career is one you can sustain for a lifetime. It can be a substantial source of strength, allowing you to live a life true to your values.

And who knows? Maybe what you’ve written will help others, will be a small part of the solution. You don’t even have to know how or in what way, but if you are writing the clearest, truest words you can find and doing the best you can to understand and communicate, this will shine on paper like its own little lighthouse. Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.

- Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird

Nine months ago, I confidently told myself I’d finish the first draft of my first novel by the end of 2025. I had spreadsheets, and writing schedules.

Today, I’m staring at 20,000 words and the sobering realization that my timeline was completely unrealistic.

If you’re a busy professional who’s been wrestling with your first novel. Watching your work target slip away and getting crushed by the weight of real life, you’re not alone. The gap between our novel-writing fantasies and reality is wider than we imagine. But here’s what I’ve learned: those “failed” timelines aren’t actually failures. They’re part of the messy, non-linear process of becoming a novelist.

In this post, I’ll share the hard-won lessons from my first nine months of novel writing, including why traditional goal-setting backfires, the phases of book creation that no one talks about, and how to build a sustainable writing practice when you’re already juggling a demanding career. By the end, you’ll understand why your struggles aren’t signs of failure.

New York Times bestselling author Neil Schusterman says there’s no such thing as writer’s block. Writing is getting stuck. It’s how we solve these creative problems which defines our writing.

Why traditional goal-setting fails for novels.

I recently came across “The Art of Slow Writing” by Louise DeSalvo. She breaks down writing a book into 6 phases.

First, you imagine the work, think about it, and take notes about it, perhaps long before you actually begin writing. Second, once you start, you work provisionally, knowing you’ll have many opportunities to get it right. Third, you work in stages, writing, revising, letting yourself learn what your subject is really about as you work. Fourth, you figure out order, structure, and image patterns late in the process, though you may have some ideas from the start. You revise accordingly. Fifth, you fine-tune the work, tightening where necessary, adding information your reader needs when necessary. You go through the work word by word, sentence by sentence, and paragraph by paragraph. Sixth, you don’t show your work until late in the process. And then you revise again, based upon feedback.

The duration of phases 1 and 2 are extremely variable, lasting years, or even decades. Brandon Sanderson said the idea of a non-liquid sea, which appears in Tress of the Emerald Sea, came to him 20 years before he would write the novel.

Let’s look at the rough timeline of another of his books, A Way of Kings, the first book in the Stormlight Archives series.

• He first started writing the story in the 1990s

• Characters, scenes, and specifically Bridge Four, appeared in his Masters thesis in 2000

• He finished the first draft in 2003 (The Way of Kings Prime eBook)

• After receiving a rejection from Tor, he switched focus to write the Mistborn Trilogy

• He would finally publish the book in 2010

By my estimates, he spent at least 10 years in phases 1 and 2 alone.

We all know writing a book takes a long time. Where I fell into a trap is that it feels good to create a plan. You can tell yourself “I’ll write 2,000 words a day.” Maybe you’ll use a tool like Pacemaker to make a writing schedule. Suddenly, writing a 100k word novel seems easy. All I have to do is stick to my plan and I’ll finish in no time.

Oliver Burkman in his book “Meditations for Mortals” uses the analogy of a kayak vs a superyacht. When we make plans for the future, we pretend our life is like a superyacht. We plot a course on our GPS, deciding where we want to go (our goal), then we sit back in a comfy leather chair, sipping cocktails, smoothly sailing to our destination. When in reality life is like kayaking on a raging river, paddling just to stay upright. Being able to control our time is just an illusion.

When I tell myself to write 2,000 words a day, that’s a yacht mindset. Then when writing is hard, or I’m unable to make time, I feel upset, and the negative feelings make me even more unlikely to write. If we can accept that we will never have enough time to do the things we want to do. Our books will never be as good as we want them to be. If we can accept we’ve already failed, then maybe we could make something meaningful out of what’s left.

I gave myself 6 months to do the outline and 6 months to write the first draft. The decision to divide the goal into half years was to mirror the way the company I work for does planning. For a 100k fantasy novel, it worked out to around 500 words a day. This may seem realistic. But the real challenge is showing up every day. Every missed day leads to more missed days. Taking a week off can lead to a deficit of 3,500 words, it adds up quickly.

What actually works.

First off, 6 months was way too long of a time to work on an outline. Mainly because I had no idea what I was doing. For an outline to be useful, you need to know how to use it to save you time and energy when writing the actual scenes. Because I had no experience writing scenes, it ended up being mostly procrastination. I spent so much time and energy agonizing over decisions which didn’t matter or ended up getting cut completely.

Don’t put off decisions. What’s important isn’t the decision itself, rather it’s what you do after you decide. In a novel, the elements are supposed to weave together to create a sum greater than its part. How will you build on top of what you already have? When working on plotting, go hunting for decisions. Make them quickly, knowing you’ll have opportunities to go back and fix them later.

The #1 habit for novel writing is to get into a dailyish routine of writing prose. By dailyish, I mean not every day, maybe 4-5 times a week. Staying inside of the project, touching it every day. Because as soon as you step out, the amount of energy needed to get back into it goes up. Be willing to write today as a one-off. Even if it’s not part of a writing system, outline, or detailed plan.

I didn’t seriously start writing prose until 3 months ago. My thinking was a more developed outline would lead to more efficient writing. Now I know I was suffering from worldbuilding disease. A condition I see among participants in online writing communities like NanoWriMo and r/worldbuilding. Worldbuilding serves the plot and character. To excessively worldbuilding in isolation is basically daydreaming. It’s easy enough to make you feel good, which can trick you into thinking you’re writing a novel.

Now, I understand the biggest challenge is being consistent with coming back and writing prose. My struggle primarily is with overcoming doubt. Our brains are efficient at convincing us to do something easier and instantly gratifying. Why work hard on something that’s going nowhere? It’s not like I’ll ever be good at this, anyway? I’m going to do a post on this topic, eventually.

My new approach.

I remember back when I started this project thinking that I could continue my regular cadence of blogging. It’ll be easy, I thought. I’ve been blogging for a while, it’s part of my routine. Well, let me tell you, as soon as I started seriously focusing on the novel it became challenging to maintain the blog. Which is why I’ve decided. The blog is now about writing my novel.

Combining these projects will reduce my mental capacity of maintaining this blog. I like to think about ways of improving this blog. How to make the content more useful and resonant with the type of readers I’d like to reach. How to distribute it in a way to create more visibility. Well, forget all of that. My current vision is a blog like the early days. No promises of big results, or life hacks, or free templates. Just me trying to figure things out and sharing what I’ve learned.

In the Heroine’s Journey by Gail Carriger she writes.

They say the oldest trick in nonfiction is threefold:

1. Tell them what you’re doing.

2. Do it.

3. Tell them what you did.

So here’s my promise, I’ll tell you how I wrote my first novel and what I learned. That’s it.

There’s a lot to learn in Phase 1. Just writing scenes from my outline gives me ideas and teaches me about my characters and plot. Yes, there are enormous gaps between scenes, everything will need to be revised. What’s important is that the more I write, the more I learn about what I want this novel to be.

If you try to incorporate everything you learn into your current draft, it’s paralyzing. When I discover a new thread I’d like to include, I make a note, and keep going. I’ll come back to that later on the next draft.

Now, my plan is to take everything I learned and go back and write Act 1. I want to build a solid base for the rest of the novel to unfold. I want to practice my phase 3 writing, writing and revising one section to develop that voiciness which can only emerge from revision.

I’m also trying something new with external accountability and feedback. I’ve done many writing classes, both didactic, and workshop format. After reading so many writing on writing books, the didactic lessons feel too familiar. Also, reading other people’s work takes me out of the flow of being inside of my work. Don’t get me wrong, you can learn plenty from reading other people’s work. It’s just I learn more by focusing on my own projects.

So I’ve tried out using a book coach using Reedsy. A book coach is a professional with an editorial book who can help you develop a book while you’re still writing. Opposed to a developmental editor, who typically only works with authors who already have a manuscript.

The book coach I found was not as expensive as I thought it would be. I’ll be sending them my book proposal, detailed outline, and first 10k words in November. In my mind, I’m putting together a packet to pitch my book to him.

In memoirs I’ve read of writers, writers develop long-lasting relationships with editors from publishing houses. The editor takes them on as a new writer and helps develop their voice over decades. It’s always appealed to me entering a sort of apprenticeship, getting feedback from an experienced professional. Someone who can see my improvement and learn what I’m trying to do over a time span longer than a semester. So I’m trying it out. Let’s see how it goes!

When I took a class on film photography in high school, I fell in love with small, compact film cameras. Did you know they're smaller and lighter than digital cameras? The problem is that no one makes them anymore. Sure, you can find mass-manufactured film cameras from the 70s and 80s online. But I always wanted a compact film camera designed with 21st-century technology.

That's why news of the Rollei 35AF, an analog autofocus camera, thrilled me. Despite the high price tag ($800), I rushed to preorder. Mint Camera, a company based in Hong Kong, designed and manufactured the camera, best known for its Polaroid cameras. They took an enormous risk in making this camera, so I was happy to support them. What they've built is a unique product. In this article, I'll explain the technological advancements of this camera. Also, how its particular constraints led to major unlocks in my mental models surrounding photography.

How do you put autofocus in a film camera without digital light sensors?

The designers of the camera wanted to maintain the compact body and design of the Rollei 35, a classic analog camera from the 1980s. They also didn't want to add a digital light sensor and a screen. If they did that, it would resemble a digital camera that shot film. The designers set a constraint: the form factor had to remain true to the original.

How do you add autofocus without adding a digital light sensor? Traditional "autofocus" sensors are no longer being produced. Autofocus on digital cameras today relies on algorithms embedded on microchips in phones and digital cameras.

The solution: Lidar technology. The first analog camera to make use of this technology. It's a brilliant solution. Since lidar is being used more in self-driving cars and smartphones, the technology is becoming cheaper.

Here's what the founder of Mint Camera, Gary Ho, had to say about using Lidar:

> Lidar offers several advantages. It is accurate across various environmental conditions, including dark and bright places, and it works on all surfaces. Additionally, it offers a good range. It proved to be the perfect choice at the right time.

Thus creating the most technologically advanced analog camera ever created.

From constraints come unique (and delightful) user experiences.

The delight of using a camera is learning to work with its individual quirks. Its interface will be familiar to anyone who's used a film or digital camera before. The autofocus engages when you press down the shutter halfway. What you'll notice after activating the autofocus is the sound of a motor inside the camera moving the focus ring.

Without a screen, the focus point is unknown. Only the length of the sound gives feedback. At rest, the focus ring sits at infinite focus, used for when the subject is far away. What you'll learn is that longer sounds mean the camera is focusing on a subject nearer to the camera.

It's the first camera that I know of that requires the use of audio cues. Using these cues, the user can gauge whether the camera is focused at the right distance or not.

Some limitations stand out. For example, lidar will focus on the glass, rather than the subject behind it. It's difficult to focus on objects behind a mesh, like a fence. Limits though, lead to workarounds. Since it's a wide-angle lens, you can set the focus to infinite by pointing it at the sky and taking the photo from the hyperfocal distance for a clear image.

The Big Unlock: Mental Models and the Photographer's Playbook.

I do photography, but only as a hobby. The Rollei 35 AF gave me an epiphany. Though I suspect this may seem obvious to experienced photographers. And perhaps a little sad that it's taken me as long as it did to realize it.

Let's begin with an analogy. Software engineers use mental models like design patterns learned from experience to solve fresh problems. In the same way, I've begun to build mental models around photography I call my photography playbook.

The playbook contains techniques for achieving specific images based on the camera settings (i.e. ISO, shutter speed, and aperture), distance to the subject, and lighting conditions. As an example, using a wide-angle lens set to infinite distance from a hyperfocal distance with a fast aperture on a sunny day. It's a guaranteed way to have a large depth of field for capturing the entire scene.

When I watch movies or look at other people's photos, I add them to my playbook. It's a reminder of how learning a skill requires building mental models around achieving specific effects and understanding how to do it. Without the constraints from the Rollei 35 AF, I don't think I would ever have had this realization.

When I started learning Modern Greek I was frustrated. Typing "Greek Learning Resources" into Google, every item on the first page was for Ancient Greek. It is more common for American universities to teach Ancient Greek than Modern Greek. Why is it so hard to find good resources for Modern Greek?

Eventually I did find great resources for learning Modern Greek, it just took a lot of digging. Here I have compiled my favorite resources so others can avoid the effort I had to do.

The resources are arranged by level using the European CEFT system. Using these resources, I created a deliberate practice routine to teach myself Modern Greek.

Absolute Beginner (A1)

Language Transfer is a series of 120 podcasts, each around ten minutes long. The podcasts follow a formula the creator calls "The Thinking Method." The Thinking Method is a way of learning the fundamental rules of a language by presenting one rule at a time with examples, then allowing the learner to think of sentences that utilize that rule.

Because the podcasts are short they are easy to do once a day in under fifteen minutes. Making them the perfect way to begin a language learning routine. The concepts covered get progressively more complicated.

I like how the Thinking Method focuses on learning by doing. It teaches the form of the language through demonstration, while encouraging the learner to actively engage with what they've learned.

This is a more generative way of learning a language that simulates how children naturally learn language, by hearing it and then speaking it. Greek (like all languages) has surprisingly few rules that when combined can produce beautiful and complex language. The focus of this program is to teach you the basic rules so you can identify correct sentences from incorrect sentences. Then you can start thinking in the language and self-correct your own mistakes.

This podcast was a major game changer for me. I had been struggling with learning on my own for some time when I had found it. Afterwards I felt like I had a really solid foundation and could finally wrap my head around the first principles.

Resources

Here is a collection of referential resources I find useful. I'd recommend getting comfortable with using them early on. They are useful for when you are reading, writing, or listening. I would highly recommend avoiding Google Translate. It's not very good at translating between English and Greek. And some people might use it as a crutch.

WordReference

WordReference is the most comprehensive English to greek dictionary I have found. It also has slang and info for different dialects. This is handy for looking up the meaning of words you don't know.

Cooljugator

Cooljugator Is a website that allows you to look up the verb conjugations for a given verb. It can help you when you are having trouble remembering a specific conjugation. Or if you see a word for the first time and you want to know if it's irregular.

Wikitionary

Wikitionary Is helpful for looking up the Etymology of words. Greek is the oldest continuously used language in the world. Many words have a rich etymology and surprising associations with words you already know.

I have intentionally not included a website for pronunciation, though there are many out there. Greek is a language with a one-to-one ratio between letters and sounds. There is no ambiguity in what a word should sound like. The challenge is pronouncing it correctly! Once you learn the alphabet and the vowel sounds you will have all the tools you need to guess a word's pronunciation. Developing an accurate accent is something that would come much later. (An accurate accent is not a realistic goal for myself.)

Upper Level Beginner (A2)

At this stage you have a basic understanding of Modern Greek. I define this as being able to conjugate verbs in the various tenses, use pronouns correctly, and comprehension of basic sentences with the help of a dictionary.

The goal in this phase is to grow vocabulary, improve listening comprehension, reading comprehension, and the ability to generate language. These four things should be worked on simultaneously, if you have time then use all three resources every day.

Reading

Modern Greek for Classicists is a Graded Reader designed for beginners. A graded reader is a text designed to use grammar and vocabulary that is easy enough for people learning a language. (The Routledge Modern Greek Reader is excellent as well.) It gets progressively more difficult after each chapter. Don't worry if you are not familiar with Greek mythology, It is useful to anyone learning Modern Greek.

What I love about Graded readers is that they are the appropriate difficulty for a beginner. Even with my limited vocabulary I could understand 95% of the words on the page. This makes you feel like you are really reading Greek. When you read a language with high comprehension things begin to click as the pieces come together in real time.

At the end of each chapter are exercises to test your comprehension and to practice your reading and writing. This is a good opportunity to practice writing by answering the questions. Or what I like to do is to answer the questions verbally by talking to myself.

Note: The book costs $20 and shipping is around $5 for those in the US when I bought it. This is not an affiliate link or an advertisement.

Vocabulary

ClozeMaster is a game available on web and mobile that utilizes cloze deletion tests for learning vocabulary and natural phrases. A cloze test is a sentence with a word deleted and you have to guess the word. This game is free for the basic features with no limits on how much you can play.

I have tried flash cards as well as other gamification vocab apps, I find cloze deletions to be the most effective method. What is enjoyable about ClozeMaster is that it uses natural language for the example sentences. So it's a fun way to pick up expressions and phrases, to learn how people actually speak.

I like to practice speaking by talking to myself as I play the game. Using the example sentence as a starting point, I'll make small adjustments, adding a clause, changing the tone, swapping the object with the subject. This helps the vocab stick in my mind as well as helps me practice generating the language.

Listening Comprehension

Peppa the Pig (Πεππά το Γουρανάκι) Is a youtube channel that makes educational cartoons for preschoolers. The language is simple enough that it is accessible to beginners. I have found that if I try to use materials that are too difficult for me it will feel really discouraging. So it's better to use something that is the appropriate difficulty.

One downside is that a lot of the vocabulary is not relevant to being an adult. For example when peppa plays with dolls or jumps in puddles. These are not words adults use with a ton of frequency. The main thing here is to focus on understanding what is being said. Greek is spoken quickly and it takes the brain some training to hear where the gaps are between words and phonemes.

Lower Level Intermediate (B1)

At the intermediate level you can start expanding your practice to some more challenging resources.

Easy Greek is a great way to practice listening to Greek as its spoken naturally. They also have a podcast. In these videos Dimitris walks around Athens interviewing people on various topics. He then captions the video with Greek and English subtitles.

As I watch the videos I read the Greek subtitles and listen for when they're spoken. When there's a word I don't know I pause the video and look at the English translation.

There are several ways to engage with this material. Sometimes I will listen to a phrase then pause, think about what was said, then read the subtitles to check if I'm right.

If you become a Patreon supporter, they also provide worksheets and online flashcards, as well as audio recording with slower speaking. I'll watch the video over and over again until I can watch it without reading the subtitles, and only listening.

Once you can start understanding Greek without subtitles you are ready to watch TV in Greek. This is probably my favorite way to practice because it creates a low friction way to practice listening comprehension for an extended period of time.

There are a lot of shows and movies dubbed in Greek on Netflix. I would recommend starting with the Dreamworks animated shows and movies. For example, I really enjoyed Kipo, it has great characters, story, and voice acting. Blood of Zeus is surprisingly approachable because the characters speak in short simple phrases.

Conclusion

The journey of language acquisition never ends because there is always room for improvement. While this sequence can be followed in the beginning as you get more advanced your practice will need to be more self-directed. It's best to use as many different types of resources as possible. For example you could use a combination of different mediums like books, podcasts, tv, and audiobooks.

As you get better, you’ll be able to consume content produced for Greek speakers. Eventually something as advanced as Greek TV and podcasts will become accessible. At that point practicing can consist of speaking with natives or watching a funny sitcom like Στο Παρά or Είσαι το Ταίρι Μου.

There are no shortcuts so the best thing to do is love the process. Approach the language each day with a beginner's mind, and have fun with it! If you are like me, progress may be slow. As long as you are enjoying the process that will help sustain your practice.

The original version of this article appeared on my old blog: babbling.fish. This article has consistently gotten the most traffic so I’ve decided to republish it on my new blog.

Last week, I was reading Tress of the Emerald Sea when a single sentence stopped me cold. Brandon Sanderson described a sunset not as beautiful, but through the eyes of a vicious pirate captain who saw herself as "a celestial executioner, sent to make certain the day rightly expired." This is the true power of third-person limited point of view (POV). As fantasy and sci-fi writers, we have this incredible tool at our disposal, yet many of us graze its surface.

Today, I'll show you how to wield the third-person limited POV like Sanderson does, turning simple descriptions into powerful character moments.

Descriptions use diverse character perspectives.

Here's that passage I described above:

> She drank the water from her cup, then dangled it from her index finger, staring toward the sun. As if she were a celestial executioner, sent to make certain the day rightly expired.

Here lies the true strength of the third-person limited POV. The narrator describes characters and objects from the perspective of the character being described or the character who perceives them. Not only is it entertaining, it creates a lot of characterization. In this passage, it reinforces the pirate captain as a dangerous person, who the main character cannot trust.

There's a subtle bit of exposition going on here, calling attention to the captain's insistent habit of drinking water. This all happens without breaking immersion, keeping us close to Tress throughout the scene. Brandon Sanderson is a master at doing this. It's a big part of the reason the characters feel so vivid in his novels.

How to choose POV according to Brandon Sanderson.

How do you choose which POV to use?

Genre conventions offer a suitable starting point.. In the hyper saturated modern state of publishing, readers of genre fiction like to binge read. By meeting their expectations, your book will be more familiar and easier for them to read. Conventions exist within genres for valid reasons, discussed later.

The first-person present tense dominates YA and Romance markets today, which are the two biggest markets in fiction. As readers of YA grow up, they may continue to prefer this style. Which is one explanation I've heard for the shift in Romance from first-person past tense to first-person present tense.

For Science Fiction & Fantasy written for adults, the third-person limited POV is the most common. Using the omniscient third-person POV has almost completely gone out of style.)

Several reasons explain why authors write science fiction and fantasy in the third-person limited:

• Character views zoom, as needed. (e.g. zoom out for the fight scene, zoom in for an emotional character moment.)

• Writing the character's name makes it easier for the reader when you have multiple POVs and lots of characters

• It's easier to include worldbuilding details in the third-person without breaking immersion

Naturally, exceptions apply. Use a different POV if it serves your story. Let's take the popular series "The Murderbot Diaries." This is a Science Fiction series about a rogue security cyborg, written in the first-person past-tense POV.

These books depict scenes like this:

• Murderbot evaluates the threat level of a situation

• Then he makes a quip about how he'd much rather be watching TV or how stupid humans are

• The threat unfolds and Murderbot dispatches them with his sweet robot moves

Murderbot's core loop features both apathy and capability, which the first-person perspective highlights well. It's also a 1 POV character in a novella length story which helps by limiting the scope. These are not epic space operas, they're stories about 1 person's journey.

Tips and Tricks for the third limited close POV.

Readers will come to your story bundled with expectations learned from reading hundreds of novels. Breaking any convention will create distance between the reader and your story. If you choose to do it, ensure you have a compelling rationale. Let's go over some of these implicit expectations readers.

A scene should have a single character as the focal point. You can't be jumping between heads. The interiority will come from 1 character for 1 scene. When changing perspectives, there should be a scene break or a new chapter.

The purpose of interiority is to give interesting character reactions to a situation. This isn't effective exposition or worldbuilding. In Science Fiction & Fantasy, secondary or tertiary characters deliver worldbuilding exposition dumps via dialogue. Audiences have more tolerance for exposition when it's coming from an interesting new character. It's handy to have a "newbie" character to make these scenes feel more organic. The real skill is to avoid info dumps, if possible.

So the next time you introduce a character, describe the character how they would describe themselves. Or if you're describing an object external to a character, figure out who is perceiving the object, then describe it as they would. It's amazing how much this improves descriptions.

You've tried the 15-minute morning sessions. You've committed to 500 words a day. Yet somehow, your writing habit is not giving you the results you want.

Imagine trying to bake bread by using a measuring scale or a timer. Without a scale, you'll end up getting your hydration levels wrong. No timer means inconsistent proving. Using both tools yields the most reliable results.

After experimenting with several strategies and analyzing my writing habits over the past year, I've found what works best for me, to get the results I want. In this article, I will go over the two most common methods for tracking progress, measuring time, and word count. Then I'll explain why I think the best strategy is to use a combination of both.

I will work for X minutes each day.

The strength of this strategy is in its simplicity. Daily writing struggles? Start here. The problem with time-based tracking is it leaves too much room for futzing around and procrastinating. We are writers after all, and writers ‌are experts at finding creative ways to procrastinate, if nothing else.

The definition of what qualifies as writing is abstract and resists a specific definition. Is reading yesterday's work considered part of writing? What if I'm thinking about my story as I'm walking? Spending two hours talking to Claude about my magic system? (Ok, this last one doesn't count, but it's a super fun way to avoid writing.) You could say that only writing in a word doc counts toward the goal. But when are you supposed to do your research if not during the time you designate for writing?

In my experience, it's too easy to fill up the time without being goal oriented. Our brains will take the path of least resistance. The act of writing is uncomfortable. It requires staying within our thoughts, challenging our assumptions, and working through problems. If given the option to do something easier, like listen to a podcast, or do research, our brains will choose that instead.

I will write X words each day.

The online writing community is maybe too obsessed with word count. I will lay much of the blame at the feet of NaNoWriMo. The online community that encourages people to write 50,000 words in November. If you read the forum posts during NaNoWriMo, you'll witness what I can only describe as binge writing. People will produce over ten thousand words in a single session in order to "catch up." But what is the quality of those words? Spoiler alert: not great.

If you write 300 words a day, you'll eventually have a novel, even a lot of them. This is how Graham Greene wrote his novels. It's a powerful realization that incremental daily gains accumulate into a substantial body of work.

Yet, when it becomes a single-minded goal, it's hard to make progress. Because writing is rewriting. Revision is a huge part of the process. When you're revising, you'll cut more words than you're taking out. Even if you exclude deletions, you won't be adding many words during revision. A system which disincentives revision can be harmful when revision is the most important part of the process.

Time Block Planning + Daily Word Count = Win

The solution is to merge both approaches. Time block planning is when you use a calendar to schedule periods during the day to work on specific tasks, focusing on one project per block. Assign each block a measurable outcome, for example, revise yesterday's chapter, or write one new chapter. The paradigm is daily output via directed effort at a specific time.

I used to spend writing sessions oscillating between different tasks (journaling, blogging, working on my novel) but the context switching was killing my momentum. Context switching is a sneaky form of procrastination. My stupid anime brain is always seeking novel simulation, afraid of being bored. The longer you can stay focused on the same project, the more progress you'll make.

Unlike time based tracking, the goal is not to maximize time spent on the task. An interesting side effect is you're not incentivized to work longer than you planned, since the total time is not the thing being tracked, it's the output. Time block planners don't wait for inspiration. If they reach the end of a session with more to say, they outline the next session and stop, anyway.

The measurable output part is to keep yourself honest. As covered before, without accumulating small gains, it's difficult to make progress. Each session should produce some kind of artifact you can measure.

My tracking system is super basic. I use Google calendar to block time on my calendar, usually in 90 minute chunks, but do however long you can for a day. If you can do it at the same time each day it's more likely to be habit forming. Then I track how many words I wrote inside of a spreadsheet.

In the spreadsheet I have the columns:

• Location

• Start Time

• Duration

• How many words I wrote

I review the spreadsheet to analyze when I'm most effective and which days of the week I stick to. My current process is to start by adding new words. Then after hitting my target, I'll revise what I've written the previous day.

By the way, this can work for any kind of output. For Substack posts, the output could be a post rather than a word count. Since posts are variable in word count based on the topic. With time-based tracking, I used Rize.io, but it felt too cumbersome.

It bears repeating, there is no "right" way to work. What works best is what works for you. Some days will feel easy, while others will feel much harder. Consistent daily progress matters most. Be patient and kind with yourself, try things out.

What makes a character compelling for a reader?

If you've ever taken a creative writing class at the university level you'll know they tend to emphasize style, themes, atmosphere, and other literary qualities. Yet, they fail to answer what is an urgent question for writers. How do you write characters that keep readers engaged?

Brandon has the answer, his framework for compelling characters is simple and easy to follow.

There are 3 attributes that make characters fun to read:

• Proactive

• Relatable

• Capable

Your character won't excel in all 3. ‌A rule of thumb, not to be followed too closely, your character will be really high in one, low to medium in another without change, and their character arc will involve developing the third.

At the end, I will elaborate on tips Brandon provides to apply this framework.

Proactive characters drive the story forward.

The number one thing you can do to make a character interesting to read is to make them proactive.

You've probably had the experience of not liking a character and wondering why they’re n the story at all. These tend to be passive characters who don't move the story forward. Because it's frustrating to feel characters are obstructing the story. Readers want the story to happen, they’re excited to see what happens next. (If you’re doing your job correctly.)

That's why Brandon's tip for writing a compelling character is to make them exceptionally proactive. Because proactive people are constantly driving the plot forward, essentially making the narrative happen. Audiences naturally bond with proactive characters.

When writing a character intro, Brandon shared practical tips for showing a character is proactive. Make them want something, even if it's small. You might not introduce the real big bad until the end of Act 2, but you can have smaller actions resonate with the central theme. He uses the example from Disney's Mulan (1998) where Mulan finds a creative way to feed the chickens by attaching a bag of feed to the collar of her dog.

Brandon leaves us with an exercise. Think about your favorite characters. What makes them proactive? It can help you understand what characters you're drawn to.

Capable characters are just really cool.

As human beings, we're drawn to competent people. We admire people who dedicate themselves to their craft or professions to gain hard-earned skills that are valued by society.

So many TV shows rely on this capability to hook you into the characters. Think about all the mystery shows about brilliant doctors, detectives, or lawyers. In these shows, the audience is trying to solve the mystery the genius main character has already solved.

In fantasy novels, capability often appears as magical powers. The master-apprentice plot is about the young and naïve magic user learning how to become a competent mage. Even better, the apprentice uses their new powers to create a sense of wonder using magic to save their friends.

Relatability creates connections between readers and characters.

Relatability does not mean making your characters likeable. Brandon outlines a few strategies for creating relatability.

• From the book Save the Cat! Have your character save a cat or someone else. Seeing a character care for someone else is a sure-fire way to create empathy.

• Making characters self-aware of their flaws can soften their hard edges. Brandon uses the example of Mr. Darcy from Pride & Prejudice. Mr. Darcy acts like a jerk, but we forgive him for it because he admits it and says he's working on it.

• Relatable experiences your reader can understand. Even if you're writing an epic fantasy, it's effective having your characters do something normal like cooking or drinking tea. Common experiences create bonds.

• A technique Brandon uses often in his writing is to view the main character through a different character's perspective. It allows the new POV character to highlight the more relatable features, the sort of things the main character would not notice about themself.

Most times, your character arc will involve the main character becoming more relatable to the audience.

Creating your character arc.

The character arc comprises your main character, improving on one (or two) of these attributes.

• Overcoming a flaw makes a character more relatable

• Learning a skill to become more capable

• Developing proactivity

When crafting the character arc, ask yourself where your character needs to grow? Where are they strongest? Which one will stay low and mostly the same?

Design the character's arc around progression that will force the character to grow.

Last year, I took my first foray into outdoor gardening. I built a trellis from PVC pipes and grew sweet potatoes, cucumbers, and tomatoes using the string trellis method. The results were less than stellar. After months of growing they hardly grew at all.

My little garden patch is flanked by trees, fences, and buildings. After a year of observation I've learned it gets a max of 6 hours of sunlight even in July when there's 12 hours of sunlight. Even worse, the fences and surrounding concrete create a greenhouse effect, making it significantly warmer.

The problem, I learned, was a combination of heat stress and lack of sunlight. The plants I was growing needed more than 6 hours of light to thrive and fresh air circulation to keep them cool.

When I was planning my garden for the current growing season, I realized I need to work with my plot, instead of against it. It reminded me of the book I had recently read on Zen Buddhism, Charlotte Joko Beck's "Nothing Special: Living Zen."

Here is how planning a garden taught me about the mindset I need to write a book.

On seeing things as they really are

My original plan was to do everything I did last season, only better.

• Grow my plants larger and stronger indoors before bringing them outdoors

• Increase the fertility of the soil with compost and organic fertilizers

• Add higher density shade cloth to reduce the temperature

• Increase spacing to allow more airflow

Thinking about it now, I optimization would only produce incremental gains. I am facing a fundamental mismatch between the kind of plants I want to grow and what can thrive in my given space.

I thought it was cool to grow Okinawan Sweet Potatoes (AKA Hawaiian Sweet Potatoes) because I had read about them in "Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life." In the book it explains how Okinawan people avoid overeating by eating nutritious and filling superfoods like the sweet potato. It also has a beautiful purple color that would look great as mashed potatoes or a whipped topping.

I was focusing too much on what I wanted and not what my sweet potatoes wanted. They wanted tons of sunshine and lots of water. I have a raised garden bed, it drains quickly, so keeping the soil wet would require constant watering. It's not something I want to do in drought prone California where water restrictions are a common thing.

After raising 6 plants I bought in the mail for over 12 months, I produced 0 potatoes. A few of the plants got pretty big. But they never thrived to the point where they produced potatoes.

The reality is my plot is not a good place to grow Okinawan Sweet Potatoes. While I could increase the yield through optimization, I'd be fighting an uphill battle. It made me realize how often I attach myself to fantasies disconnected from reality and how they’re holding me back.

I was too focused on what I wanted, cool purple potatoes I read about in a book, and not paying attention to what was possible. As an aside, they sell Okinwan Sweet Potatoes at the farmer's market, so I did get my potatoes after all.

On Trying not to Try

There is a great irony when it comes to any sort of practice, whether it's gardening, writing, or meditation. The only way to get something is by not wanting it too much, not trying too hard. But in order to learn this lesson, you first have to try (too much).

Going back to my analogy about gardening, I learned the constraints of my plot through trying to grow sweet potatoes. By seeing my cucumbers undergo heat stress, I learned about the heat. The stunted growth is what cued me in on the lack of sunlight.

To try less means working within the constraints of my garden plot. My goal is to spend 1-2 hours a week in my garden so I want plants that will thrive effortlessly with little assistance.

That's why I've decided this year to plant native California wildflowers like the California Orange Poppy and the California Sunflower. Wildflowers are drought-tolerant and heat resistant. They don't require a lot of sunlight or fertile soil. I got the idea on a walk when I noticed how wildflowers can grow even at the shady edges of fields where there's less light.

Now, when I leave my apartment for a trip I don't have to worry about my plants shriveling up and dying in the dry Californian heat, I know they'll be just fine.

What does this have to do with writing books?

I have so many fantasies surrounding my writing. A lot of them have to do with perfection, some have to do with status, or money. Let me know if any of these sound familiar:

• Once I sell my book, I'll be able to quit my corporate job

• Once I publish my book, I'll finally get validation as a writer

• Once I write my magnum opus, my life will have had meaning

While there's nothing wrong with having aspirations–they can be motivating–in my experience they are distracting. When it comes to the act of writing itself, the way to make progress is focusing entirely on the article, or the story, whatever the project requires at that moment.

When you chase fantasies, it's "trying too hard", it's like growing sweet potatoes in a crowded urban garden. Writing is a long game and extrinsic motivation can only take you so far. Finishing a book requires intrinsic motivation and stamina. Otherwise, you are bound to get discouraged and give up when you hit your fisrt major roadblock.

Writing a book is like growing wildflowers. Your process should feel low friction, I won't say easy though, it should feel like work. The best method is the one that works best for you and produces the results you like. The most important thing is to focus on the work, figure out where you feel excitement, and then follow it wherever it goes.

Next week I'll be continuing my series on Brandon Sanderson's 2025 Lecture Series. There was no lecture last week due to a last minute cancellation, hence why I am doing a one-shot post this week. Tune in next week for a post covering what makes characters compelling and how to write your first novel.

Have you ever wondered why some stories feel deeply satisfying while others fall flat?

For busy professionals trying to write their first novel, understanding story structure can feel overwhelming. Here's the good news: Brandon Sanderson's favorite plot structure, the 3 Act Structure, offers a flexible framework that can help you craft compelling stories. Even if you're writing in 10-minute chunks during lunch breaks.

In this article you will learn about the most important plot beats of the 3 Act structure for the first 50% of your novel.

Don't be too slavish to your framework.

Before we dive into the framework, I will reiterate, you are a chef, not a cook.

Your goal is to combine elements according to your tastes and following the needs of your story. If you follow a framework too closely, you'll get elements that feel out of place.

Brandon uses the example of the movie Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. A movie near and dear to my heart. My brothers and I watched this movie ad nauseam dozens of times on VHS when I was growing up. I've enjoyed seeing it memed to infinity on r/prequelmemes where it's taken on a second life.

At the end of the movie (spoilers incoming) we learn that Luke Skywalker is a virgin birth of the force. George Lucas was following the Hero's Journey formula exactly, where the hero is born of a god. But in that movie it comes off as bizarre and confusing.

Frameworks are there to help you. It's OK to lean on them when writing your first novel, because you haven't been following along so far, your goal for your first novel should be to just get it done.

What is the 3 Act Structure?

The 3 Act Structure is a template for writing stories popularized by screenwriters.

Brandon recommends in his lecture the most popular book on the topic, Save the Cat! It's basically a distillation of the western storytelling tradition broken down into foundational story beats. These beats when combined are what make a story satisfying.

For writers, the 3 Act structure is a useful tool for troubleshooting when a story isn't quite working. Below I will highlight the beats Brandon talked about in his lecture.

The heading name includes how Brandon referred to the story beat followed by the name of the beat from Save The Cat in parenthesis. The focus here is on the first half of the novel.

The beats of the second half are more widely known and easily identified:

• The All Hope is Lost Beat

• The Dark Night of the Soul Beat

• The Finale

The dramatic question (The Theme Stated)

Compelling characters are the main reason readers keep reading.

When we read a story we are experiencing it through the POV of character. A conflict will only seem like a conflict if the characters view it as such. This beat introduces the character arc including: character's status quo, need, want, and why they can't have it. Much of the momentum of your story will play on conflict surrounding your dramatic question.

Keep in mind, it is something you can figure out as you write and fix later in revision.

The inciting incident (The Catalyst)

The inciting incident is what sets everything into motion, destroying the status quo.

Your story is a set of dominoes you've carefully set up and the catalyst is what starts knocking them down. All the conflict from the story follows as a natural progression (or escalation) of the inciting incident.

If you're like me and nothing seems to happen in your stories, this is where you might be going wrong. Stories are not realistic. Stories are filled with coincidence, everything is already in motion, waiting for the main character to show up.

Another aspect of the catalyst is it forces the main character out of their status quo. Ideally, it fits nicely with the character's arc, in terms of goals, fears, and needs.

Allow your characters to fail (Fun & Games)

It's only satisfying to see a character succeed if you see them fail first.

Here you want to show your character working towards their external want but coming short. Either because they don't have the skills, magic item, or the people they need to succeed. Readers have expectations for solutions the main character could try. Show off your cleverness as a writer by addressing these expectations and explaining why they don't work.

The goal is to build tension towards your finale, what Brandon calls the stand up and cheer moment. When we become attached to a character we want to see them win. But if it's too easy for the character the payoff won't feel earned.

The key to softening the blow of failure is allowing the character to make progress on a separate plot thread. Brandon talks about the try/fail framework. Every plot beat is either a "yes, and" or a "no, but." Meaning, if a character succeeds there is a complication. When a character fails there is some additional info to bring the character closer.

Don't be afraid to put your characters in difficult situations. Otherwise, there won’t be tension. The culmination of this sequence results in the Midpoint Twist.

The Midpoint Twist

This is the big twist that cranks up the stakes for your main character.

It doesn't need to be a surprising twist. In fact, you can clearly signpost it and do exactly what you say you'll do. The goal is to make a twist which causes the main character and audience to completely reevaluate everything that's happened. A midpoint twist will change the whole feel of the story.

Figuring out your midpoint twist early can help you with the structure of your story. As I've written about in previous entries, outlining backwards from your climactic moment is a useful way to make sure your story is building to satisfying moments.

The type of twist will depend heavily on the kind of story you're writing so don't be afraid to experiment.

Are you an aspiring novelist but are having trouble understanding where to begin?

In this article, we dive into Brandon Sanderson's lecture on his framework exploring the fundamental components of plot. You'll learn how to play on readers' expectations and deliver a satisfying narrative experience.

But that's not all. We'll also reveal five invaluable tips for developing the plot of your first novel, including:

• Why you should rewrite your book's beginning

• How to start your book

• M\astering pacing by defining your plot type early on

Whether you're a planner or a discovery writer, these strategies will help you refine your storytelling skills and create a novel that stands out in the crowded literary landscape.

Join us as we uncover the secrets to writing a compelling novel that resonates with readers and leaves a lasting impression.

The 3 fundamental components of the story.

Brandon Sanderon breaks stories down in 3 components: Plot, Character, and Setting.

At the intersection is the conflict of your story, conflict creates tension and keeps the reader going. Plot will do most of the work when it comes to generating conflict. For this reason, it's a good place to start because you build everything else around it, also you're likely to use an existing archetype.

Brandon likes to discover his characters as he's writing. When you lock in your characters too early you are at risk of making everything too neat and presupposed, rather than allowing the character and story to react to each other organically.

The 3 components of story ranked by importance:

1. Character

2. Plot

3. Setting (Worldbuilding)

Notice how you can have a great story with weak worldbuilding. A common mistake I see people make is spending way too much time on their worldbuilding.

The 3 components of story ranked by difficulty to innovate:

1. Plot

2. Character

3. Setting (Worldbuilding)

The lesson here is you can go crazy with your worldbuilding, but character and plot are more challenging to innovate. It makes sense when you think about it, story has been around for thousands of years. When you analyze stories, it becomes apparent there are these recurring plot and character archetypes.

For example, the book Dune uses the same plot as Hamlet. Both stories are about an uncle killing the king and seizing the throne and a prince avenging his father. Yet, the setting in Dune makes the story seem different. Like Brandon, Dune is my favorite fantasy novel of all time.

Promise, Progress, and Payoff the theory of plot.

Stories work by playing on the expectations of the reader.

First, the author makes promises to the reader about what kind of story they're reading. It could be a character arc, a humorous tone, or even the packaging itself. For example, a long fantasy book suggests an epic adventure. In genre fiction these promises can be specific tropes. Another example is how Romance novels always end happily ever after.

Progress are the incremental steps made against the promise. Progress is by far the most important of the 3 and it's what keeps reading turning the page.

Finally, payoff is the ending that resolves the promise. The payoff is what the audience is most likely to remember and tell their friends about. Ironically though, it's not what keeps people reading, that's progress.

For further reading, check out my other article where I go more in depth on the topic.

Tip #1: You'll probably need to rewrite the beginning of your book.

People online (including myself) like to talk about pantsing (writing by the seat of your pants) and planning as two different styles of writing. Everyone is on a spectrum between the two. It changes between projects too, different projects require different approaches.

Really, we are all discovery writers, because we discover the book as we write it, even when you create an outline. Think about it, an outline is much shorter than the book. When you are filling in the gaps between your bullet points in your outline you are discovery writing.

A result of discovery writing is the book goes in a new direction as you write than you originally planned. As a result, the promises made at the beginning of the book don't cleanly match the progress being made. That's why it's common in the industry to rewrite the beginning of your book after finishing your first draft.

It's easier to write a perfect promise once you know your ending and how you get there. In fact, you will likely delete much of your early chapters. That's why it's important not to obsess over your opening and focus on moving forward.

Tip #2: How to write the early chapters of your book.

The beginning of your book is the most important part, it's where readers decide whether or not they want to read the whole book.

For a longer book, readers are willing to read further before deciding. Even so, you need to give readers a reason to keep going. In the lecture, two strategies are discussed for how to open your book.

The first is the cold open. You basically tell a miniversion of the whole book in microcosm. Instead of 300 pages, you tell it in 15 pages, with a beginning, middle, and end. The Indiana Jones movies are really good at this. These help give the reader an idea of exactly what kind of experience they are in for.

The cold open prologue has become commonplace in epic fantasy. Epic Fantasy novels tend to have a power fantasy progression element to them where the main character starts out weak (boy on a farm) then becomes a space wizard by the end (Star Wars). This progression is done explicitly in LitRPG novels like Dungeon Crawler Carl. The prologue creates an opportunity for an exciting beginning before we cut to the kid on the farm.

When you want to introduce your main plot at the end of Act 1 or reveal the real enemy at the end of Act 3, a cold open won't always work. The second kind of opening is the character intro. In the character intro the goal is to create a compelling character the reader will want to continue learning about.

The character intro consists of teasing a character's arc:

• What do they want?

• What do they need?

• Why can't they have what they want or need?

Tip #3: Innovation is hard to pull off, but has a higher upside.

Readers of genre fiction have very specific expectations when it comes to how a story will unfold.

Every time you deviate from the convention you earn a figurative red mark. Your goal isn't to get rid of the red marks because they are what makes your story unique. Instead, figure out which red marks are essential to your story, then build everything else around them, ruthlessly cut the rest.

Red marks are how your story differentiates itself from others on the market. Use them deliberately in service of the story you are trying to tell.

For genre fiction readers who tear through novels on Kindle Unlimited, novels that play it safe don't leave a deep impression. When a book innovates in an interesting way, it makes people want to share it with their friends.

When you create a differentiated story it has a higher upside. Meaning when it does well, it has the potential to become a bestseller or go viral. It's the difference between getting fans and superfans.

Don't be afraid to be different, but do so with intention.

Tip #4: The Pacing of your story is closely connected to your tone, plot, and writing style.

Bad pacing is the #1 reason readers put down a book.

What makes pacing difficult to get right is it depends so much on the story and writing style. Stories more focused on a character's internal journey tend to be paced slower. While stories focused on external conflict, like thrillers, are more fast paced. The problem is when the pacing does not match the story.

It's one of those things you need to learn by writing. The kind of pacing you are capable of depends heavily on your writing style and the kind of story you're telling. If something feels off, it could be the pacing does not match your story.

Tip #5: Figure out what kind of plots you are writing as early as possible.

This piece of advice completely changed the way I think about writing: start with the end and work backwards.

When you know where you're going it's easier to make sure everything is relevant. You want to signpost progress to your payoff like bread crumbs along the way. Otherwise, it can feel like things are going nowhere.

More specifically, you need to think deeply about what emotion your ending is meant to evoke. The progress in the book should resonate with the same target emotion. In his podcast Writing Excuses, he breaks down stories by emotion and describes each one in greater detail. I will do a series of posts on this topic at some point.

The same technique works in nonfiction writing. Tell the reader what they'll learn in the title and then make sure each paragraph makes progress on that promise.

Starting your first book as a new writer often feels like staring at a blank canvas, with a world of stories inside you, but no clear path to bring them to life.

It’s a daunting process filled with self-doubt, endless questions, and the overwhelming pressure to get it just right. But fear not, for even seasoned authors like Brandon Sanderson faced the same struggles. In fact, Brandon struggled for 10 years to sell his first book. In this article, we'll explore 7 actionable tips from Brandon's first lecture in his 2025 lecture series.

This lecture is designed to help you cultivate the writer's mindset and navigate the intimidating journey from blank page to finished manuscript.

Tip #1: You are a chef, not a cook.

Brandon created a handy analogy to help new writers understand writing advice: writers are chefs, not cooks.

A cook follows a recipe without fully understanding why they are performing each step. A chef reads recipes to learn how other people did it. When it comes to execution, the chef intuitively combines different ingredients and cooking methods with intuition and curiosity to achieve their desired result.

Writing advice are the recipes in this analog.

All of this is to say, you should ignore most writing advice.

As the chef, you need to experiment to find what produces the results you like most. Blindly following advice without understanding how it works will make it impossible to grow as a writer. Each writer's journey is unique, based on their particular skills and interests.

Keep only what works for you and throw away the rest.

Tip #2: Your first book will teach you how to write books.

What's the point of working so hard on my first book if I can't sell it?

I have been thinking about this a lot lately. Brandon recommends going into your first book without the intention of selling it. The purpose of your first book should be to teach you how to write books.

If you are writing part-time, or plan to write full-time, you will need to learn how to make writing books second-nature. Because life is a balancing act between writing and everything else. Brandon recommends new writers to aggressively invest time into their writing routine so they can develop their process.

Here Brandon offers an analogy of playing the piano. If you listened to someone who had been playing the piano for 6 months vs someone who has been a professional concert pianist for 20 years, do you think you could tell the difference? Of course you could.

That's why editors can reject a book after reading the first page. The skill of a writer is self-evident in every sentence. It's a useful analogy because piano is an obviously difficult skill. While everyone knows how to write, not everyone can write well. It can be a difficult fact to accept for new writers. It takes time and practice to reach the level of a professional writer.

By thinking of your first book as a training ground for developing your process, you can eliminate perfectionism. This mindset shift has been immensely helpful in overcoming my own blocks to keep moving forward.

I used to entertain fantasies of selling my first novel, but now I just want to get it done.

Tip #3: Use this simple formula to write your first book.

In the spirit of getting your first book done, Brandon has a number of practical tips to help unblock you.

He recommends picking a premise and committing to it. Resist the temptation to keep changing your premise and rewriting your opening, because you can't finish books that way. Instead, he recommends using a prompt generator. Or if you already have an idea for a setting, character, or plot then run with it.

Now take that idea and combine it with a movie plot from a different genre.

That's it.

It can be that simple if you allow it to be. The key to avoiding overthinking is accepting whatever you have as good enough and keep pushing forward. I have a separate article where I talk about plot archetypes and how to extract them from movies. I will also be covering the plot lectures once they're released.

Once you've written your first book, put it aside and start your second book. You can go back to your first book later to revise it based on everything you've learned.

Tip #4: Write a 5 part series in the same universe.

This advice is specifically for the author of Science Fiction and Fantasy.

When you are constructing a high concept epic fantasy novel, you will invest a lot of energy into creating a wiki of worldbuilding details for your world. It's impractical to throw away that effort. Brandon has a specific piece of advice.

Write a 5 part series in the same fictive universe.

He goes on to recommend using the same strategy he uses in many of his series. Create an ensemble of characters in the first book and then each character in the ensemble gets their own book as a sequel. This technique has the added benefit of creating a web of interconnection to lead readers from one book to the next.

I found this to be a very actionable tip for writers looking to write their first series.

Tip # 5: Survivorship bias obscures the randomness of success.

Survivorship bias is perhaps the most useful concept for understanding success in any industry.

It might be difficult to hear, but success is almost completely random. They're many skilled writers who are not making a living wage with their books despite consistently producing high quality books.

Survivorship bias is the tendency for people to mistake their process as being the cause for their success (see: Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Taleb). Brandon warns against online self-styled gurus who claim to have the answers.

It goes back to the chef and the cook analogy. There's no point in trying to copy what a successful author did. The advice here is simple, no one has the answers. Everyone's journey will look different.

Trust in your process!

Tip #6: Persistence is the key to success.

Many agree, it takes 10 years to be successful in a given field.

It might seem discouraging, 10 years is a long time after all, but I find it inspirational. To be successful you simply have to keep going.

For example, it took Brandon 10 years to sell his first book.

He wrote around 13 books before selling his first book to a traditional publisher. He was working the night shift at a hotel. A job that allowed him to write during his downtime. Think of the sacrifices he had to make. Working at night means he had no social life and the job was not building towards any kind of career.

When he was ready to sell his first book, George R.R. Martin's A Song of Fire and Ice was reaching dizzying new heights of success. Publishers wanted books in the same style, often called grim dark, only shorter. Because shorter books are cheaper to produce and have a better profit margin.

Brandon's style is long epic fantasy novels with a tone of hope and optimism, very much not grim dark. Despite receiving so many rejections, he refused to give up. Now, he is one of the most successful authors in the world, in any genre.

Based on the small group writing workshop he teaches at BYU, he puts the odds of making it as a full-time writer as 1 in 20. He goes on to say, if you exclude the people who give up, the odds improve by a lot. This is a very important point.

The reality is most people give up. When they encounter rejection and discomfort, they decide to do something else. When you tap into the intrinsic motivation for writing as it own reward, writing for 10 years becomes easy.

I looked at this and I thought: "Am I going to stop writing?" And looking seriously and honestly at my heart, I said no. Whatever I end up doing, I'm not going to stop writing. This is who I am. I'm going to keep writing and if I'm at age 90 and I never sell a book and my books are only for my family and my friends then I'm a success, that's the success I can control.

— Brandon Sanderson

Tip #7: Being a nonprofessional writer is a wonderful thing.

Capitalism has conditioned us that things must have monetary value to be valuable.

While money is useful as a neutral indicator of value, and you probably should use it as a feedback mechanism, it's not everything. Writing is good for you. It will make you a better person, I truly believe that.

You are your art. The writing you produce is a reflection of who you are. As you improve your art, something funny happens, you end up improving yourself. A life spent in pursuit of writing is a life of learning, empathy, and introspection. There is no better way to embody the values of contemplation, silence, and curiosity.

Being a published author is unlikely to change your life in any material way. But I guarantee a daily writing habit will change your life forever.

Does staring at outline feel like trying to solve a Rubik's cube blindfolded?

You know all the pieces need to fit together, but where do you begin? Especially when you only have small pockets of time to work on your novel. Here's the good news: You don't need long, uninterrupted writing sessions to craft a compelling plot. By breaking your story into smaller, manageable pieces, you can make meaningful progress even if you only have 10 minutes a day.

Brandon Sanderson in Part 2 of his 2020 lecture series provides a wealth of practical tips on how to break your plot down into bit-sized pieces you can work on during your lunch break.

Start with how you want the reader to feel.

Bookstore genres exist for the purpose of marketing, or selling books.

A better way to categorize books would be on how they make you feel. While the bookstore genre gets people through the door, the subgenre keeps asses in the seats.

The Writing Excuses podcast team breaks it down into 11 Elemental Genres. A good rule of thumb is the more elemental genres you include, the longer your book will be. Nearly every book has an element of mystery. Most books will feature some kind of "relationship" plot as the main plot or subplot. By choosing your elemental genres upfront you are forced to make hard decisions about what kind of story you are writing.

New writers often think it'd be cool to start a story with one elemental genre, only to dramatically pull the rug out from under the reader to a different elemental genre. Let’s say we start as Romance and then suddenly switch to Horror.

It's actually the worst thing you can do and will inevitably lead to reader remorse. If you read read Plot Part 1, you should know that staying good on the promises of your genre is essential to making a story satisfying to read.

Start with your elemental genres, everything follows from there.

Develop each plot thread independently.

In his lecture series, Brandon Sanderson lets us in on a little secret: each of his 4,000 page Stormlight Archives books is actually a trilogy packaged as one book. He makes an outline for 3 interconnected books and then combines them together under one cover.

Brandon manages the complexity of his books by breaking everything into smaller pieces and then combining them incrementally as he's writing. In his outline, he creates a header for each elemental genre. Then he focuses on developing the plot beats for the plot thread for that genre in isolation, without having to worry about how it will fit together with everything else.

Writing is an extremely incremental process, the elemental genres are your load bearing beams you'll use to build your story.

Outline backwards so your plot goes somewhere.

Every story I've written has gone absolutely nowhere.

A bunch of cool things happen (at least I think they're cool), but it never culminates into a meaningful finale. It can be demotivating because it feels like the story isn't getting better the more I work on it. So I keep pushing forward, hoping some meaningful conclusion will eventually appear, yet it never does.

That's why it was a revelation hearing that Brandon outlines backwards, starting with the final climactic moment. It makes so much sense, by starting with the end, you know the story is going somewhere. Now, the problem becomes how to create incremental steps of progress towards the finale. Creating incremental steps is a much more tractable problem you can work on, for even just 10 minutes a day.

Be warned, finding your finale will take time and you cannot rush it. A good finale should feel exciting and evoke the target emotion of the elemental genre. Outlines need to develop at a natural pace. You can create fairly accurate timelines when it comes to drafting a completed outline, but there's no knowing how long an outline will take.

In his lecture, Brandon said one outline took him 7 years to get right. In the author's note at the end of Tress of the Emerald Sea, Brandon says he first had the idea for a non-liquid ocean over 15 years ago.

Give yourself the time and space to find your awesome ending.

Plot Archetypes as template for story.

As Shakespeare said, "there is nothing new under the sun."

The stories that have survived the test of time survived because they work. Don't waste your time trying to reinvent the wheel, use what's out there.

Brandon calls these forms "plot archetypes." In his lecture, he uses the example of the Heist plot archetype, where a group of specialists steal a thing, as in the movies "The Italian Job" and "Ocean's 11." He recommends choosing a plot archetype from a different bookstore genre as your book. He used the heist archetype in his epic fantasy novel “Mistborn: The Final Empire.”

The plot archetype functions as a template for your story.

I'd recommend you check out "Romancing the Beat" by Gwen Hayes, a deep dive into the romance plot archetype and how it works. (Writing Excuses uses the broader term of relationship plot, instead of romance, because the same structure applies to buddy cop and master-apprentice plots.)

A story is fresh when it blends existing elements in new and surprising ways. That's why Brandon recommends studying your plot archetype. Watch movies and read books, take notes on what has been done, and how they pulled it off. Now try combining it together in a way that serves the plot thread you're developing. You are a chef, experimenting in the kitchen with different story recipes.

When working on a plot thread, ask yourself, what plot archetype is this?

Plot Types are scaffolding to help organize your story.

If a plot archetype is for developing a thread of a story, the plot type is a container to hold your entire story.

An example of a plot type is the 3 Act structure. My favorite plot type is The Heroine's Journey by Maureen Murdock, I would highly recommend you give this one a try. The goal of the plot type is to work as a global organizing principle to ensure the main character undergoes change and tension. Brandon recommends deploying a plot type in your outline as a way to help you bring everything together.

Use the tools available to you as a writer to make it easier to formulate your outline.

Brandon Sanderson, today as I am writing this, posted the first video in his new 2025 lecture series. This effectively makes my posts on his 2020 lecture obsolete. Facepalm.

So, I have decided to start over at the beginning and write about the 2025 lecture series. Having watched the first video in the 2025 series, I can already say it’s going to be really great. Every lecture is packed with insights and actionable advice. I can’t wait to condense it down into articles.

Creating a coherent plot while balancing a full-time career feels like solving a Rubik's cube in the dark.

Science Fiction and Fantasy writers tend to prefer outlines to plan their novels. Without a solid framework for building your outline, you risk losing precious writing time to plot holes and dead ends. This is the first post in my series covering Brandon Sanderon's 2020 lectures at BYU, today we will be covering Plot Part 1.

Today, we're exploring Brandon Sanderson's three plotting fundamentals that will help you write an outline that will save you time in writing your novel.

Fundamental #1: Promises

Where do you begin an outline?

Brandon Sanderson recommends figuring out your promises first. Your story promises are the expectations you place in the reader's mind to play off later.

George Saunders uses the analogy of juggling. When you introduce an element to the story it's like a juggler throwing a bowling pin in the air. Now the reader is eagerly waiting to see when it will come down. The tension in a story comes down to how you treat these expectations.

That's why Brandon likes to begin his outlines by placing story beats underneath the corresponding promise to make sure we are always making progress, more on that later. The main reason readers lose interest in a story, even when exciting things are happening, is because they feel like progress is not being made on the promises. After he's gotten his beats by promise, he will move his story beats in chronological order organized by sections. More information can be found on his outline for the novel Skyward (provided on the writing advice page on his website). I will also go more in depth in Part 2 of plotting.

Figuring out your promise first is useful as a unifying organizing principle, once you know your promise it's easier to tell what does or does not belong in your story. You can simply ask yourself, is this making progress on one of my promises?

You can also start with your progress beats and then figure out your promise. He organizes his promises into a few different categories we will go through below.

Most of the time, a book is not one idea. This is where newer authors sometimes have problems. They pick one really good idea and they try to write a book on it. You can write a short story on one idea pretty well. A book generally needs a mashing together of multiple ideas.

— Brandon Sanderson

Tone Promises

The tone of the writing is the vibe it gives off to the reader.

Changes in tone in the same story can be jarring. You wouldn't want to start with romance then all of a sudden it's horror, these are very different reading experiences.

The tone promise shows the reader the kind of experience they can expect the story to be. So be consistent with your tone by starting with a scene that sets the mood for the kind of story you're telling. In Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, the movie starts with the clone soldiers breaching a spaceship and capturing the princess. The scene conveys we are in for an exciting adventure in space with life and death stakes.

I find it interesting how you can manipulate tone simply by choosing words associated with your target emotion.

Character Arc Promises

The character arc teases the transformation the character will experience over the course of the story.

I will do posts on character later, as there is a lot to be said, but let's summarize. A character's arc has two fundamental components:

• The Want: Internal and External wants that keep the character actively progressing through their story.

• The Flaw: The internal flaw preventing the character from getting what they want.

The character arc promise would convey the want and flaw. Progress is made by the character getting closer to what they want and being forced to confront their flaws.

Luke Skywalker in A New Hope is introduced as a kid on a farm who wants to be a pilot. When he meets his mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi, we learn he will learn how to use the force and become a jedi. Luke's flaw is foreshadowed by his uncle Owen, who says Luke has "too much of his father in him."

By the end of the story the character will have confronted their flaw, and they will have succeeded or failed in achieving their goal.

Plot Promises

Writers like George Saunders don't like to use the word plot. For literary fiction writers, plot is more often than not an emerging property of character conflict.

For Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers, it's a useful concept to think about on its own. Because the story can have multiple subplots, POV characters, planets, and even span multiple books, it's a helpful organizing principle. Plot involves all of the characters working together, especially if it's an ensemble story (a story about the power of friendship). The scope is broader than just individual characters.

The difficult part is everything must be weaved together in the end. Characters must constantly be making progress on their arcs and the plot simultaneously, in fact the two must feed into each other to make a satisfying story.

A memorable finale will often have a climax across multiple character and plot arcs at the same time.

Umbrella Plot

A useful way to think about plot is the concept of nesting. (A concept that should be familiar to programmers.)

The Umbrella plot is the broadest overarching plot which ties everything together. The subplots exist nested inside of the umbrella plot. We cannot resolve the umbrella plot until the nested subplots are resolved first, in fact the subplots are defined by their nesting.

(The analogous concept in programming would be how local scope can read from global scope, but global scope can’t read from local. Also, we cannot exit the global stack until we exit the local stack.)

A useful example here is the Lord of the Rings franchise. The Umbrella plot is to destroy the one ring to rule them all. Nested inside we have the character arcs of the adventuring party, we have the quests tin the cities they go to along the way. It's not until the very end of the story the ring is destroyed.

Writers should create tension by making the umbrella plot a different genre from the nested plots creating what's called a "Strange Attractor." A strange attractor is something familiar yet different. Brandon describes his book Mistborn: The Final Empire as My Fair Lady crossed with Ocean's 11. With Ocean’s being the umbrella plot and My Fair Lady taking up a good deal of the screentime. Since readers have never seen these things combined before, but the stories are familiar, this makes it a strange attractor.

(Here in the lecture Brandon mentions he covers this in more detail in Season 11 of Writing Excuses. Well, now I’m bingeing these episodes and will write a post about it later.)

The hosts of Writing Excuses mention that writing a sequel usually involves switching up your umbrella and core plot from the previous installation. It allows you to retain the core of the story while adding a new plot archetype (more on this in part 2) to keep things fresh.

Core Plot

The core plot is what keeps the reader turning the page.

It's the questions on the reader's mind they want answered. A common example is how romance is often used to drive forward Urban Fantasy books. The Umbrella Plot may be to defeat the invading aliens, but the question of "will they or won't they get together?" is what keeps the reader engaged.

Making progress on your core plot is the key to getting through the middle section of your book, where you are most likely to lose your readers.

Fundamental #2: Progress

Great authors excel at creating a sense of progress. Exceptional authors find ways to give readers more than they wanted on every page.

A novel is a sort of organized system where every component is interconnected. Every chapter gives the audience a sense of momentum towards a goal, the realization of the character's ambitions and goals.

A common mistake made by beginners in Science Fiction and Fantasy is having info dumps on their magic systems and world building. You need to make the reader interested in your magic system as a way to make progress on your promises.

Let's say your story involves a character learning how to use magic. Then the magic needs to be connected to your core plot or character arc. If you introduce a potential love interest then suddenly start dropping lore about a completely unrelated topic, you are guaranteed you lose your reader.

That’s why Brandon’s entire outlining system is designed around progress. Every plot beat in your novel should be giving the reader progress towards the finale.

Brandon suggests the key to being a successful writer is to master the ability to make progress on your promises.

What you do as an author, if you're building an outline, if you want to outline, is you look at what your plot is, and you say, what are small increments I can make along this path that will be really interesting to the reader, that will show we're making progress, or occasionally backsliding.

— Brandon Sanderson

Fundamental #3: Payoff

Finally we arrive at the realization of the promise, the payoff.

If you fail to properly address the reader's expectations they will leave your story feeling disappointed. But if you fulfill their expectations too neatly then your ending will come off as trite.

In his lecture Brandon uses the example of a boy who is promised a toy car for his birthday. A straightforward telling of the story would have the boy receiving a toy car on his birthday. It's not an interesting story, the thing we said would happen happened.

That's why we need to have twists. A twist is a subtle inversion of a reader's expectation, or, a familiar trope of the genre.

Be warned, use twists when they add value, not for the sake of having a twist.

The truth is, almost every plot that has been done, obviously every plot that you conceive has been done. Most of the ways to buck the trend in those plots involves doing something so unexpected that it breaks your promises. Now that can become a feature of your story. But most of the time, you want to do subtle inversions of the promises.

— Brandon Sanderson

The Plot Expansion Twist

In the plot expansion twist the character gets more than they were expecting.

Going back to our story of a boy being promised a toy car for his birthday. A plot expansion could be the boy receives a car instead. It's especially useful in epic fantasy novels where the goal is to keep increasing the scope of the story after each novel.

If you end up reading Skyward by Brandon Sanderson, or the outline, it has a really great epic fantasy ending that gives you way more than you’re expecting.

The plot expansion is about under promising and over delivering.

The Plot Substitution Twist

The substitution works by giving the character something else than they were expecting, but just as good.

It's harder to pull off than a plot substitution because the reader can become disappointed when the payoff doesn't match the promise. The key to pulling it off is to make the substitution be even better and what the character really needs (even if they don’t want it). To do so you have to convince the reader that the substitution is in fact cooler and good for the main character.

In the toy car example, this could be the kid receiving a different but equally loved toy for his birthday.

Bring it all together

Ideally, the ending is both an expansion and a substitution.

For an example, let's look at Star Wars: A New Hope. The plot promise in the beginning is that Luke will deliver a message from the princess to Alderaan, which gets blown up later in the movie. In the end he rescues the princess and blows up the death star. Rescuing the princess is both an expansion and a substitution of our originally promised ending, delivering a message for the princess. While blowing up the death star expands the plot of the whole series. Luke is now fighting the evil republic as a member of the rebel alliance.

There you have it, the 3 fundamentals of plot. Think of these as a troubleshooting guide to creating your outline. If you notice an issue, maybe there's a problem with your promise? Maybe the beat is not helping to create progress? Keep in mind these tools are designed to help you spot problems in your outline to save you time on revision.

You want to write every day, but life keeps getting in the way.

Between meetings, urgent deadlines, and evening exhaustion, your writing dreams keep getting pushed to "someday." Here's the good news: you don't need to quit your job or wake up at 4 AM to build a consistent writing practice. I have been working towards this goal for the last 2 years. Here's what worked for me.

In this guide, I'll show you how to create a realistic writing habit that sticks, even with a demanding career.

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Consistency matters most.

Why bother with a daily writing goal at all?

Consistency is the only ingredient you need to become a writer. Cal Newport estimates it takes around 10 years to be successful. Most give up in their first year.

The formula for being a successful author is quite simple: publish a lot of high-quality books.

That's it.

It's hard because you don't get any rewards for your first book, or even your second and third book. Then your fourth book breaks through the noise, suddenly, you're being showered with rewards and opportunities.

Here’s the thing: You had to write those first three books to get to the fourth book. Because they taught you the hard skills you needed, or the word-of-mouth created your audience.

For example, readers of genre fiction prefer to read series. Your average Kindle Unlimited subscriber will wait for an author to release at least 3 or 4 books in a series before they read it. Why? They prefer to read the complete series at once instead of waiting between releases.

In case you need further convincing, here is a list of authors who started their careers with a consistent daily writing routine on top of their full-time jobs:

• Michael Crichton

• John Grisham

• Tom Clancy

• Lewis Carroll

• Arthur Conan Doyle

• Agatha Christie

• Franz Kafka

Pay yourself first with time.

Ever heard of the expression "pay yourself first" in business?

Why not do the same with your most valuable resource: time. "Pay yourself first with time" means to start each day working on what's most important to you. Now, you can go through the rest of your day with a clean conscience knowing it's done. This idea comes from Oliver Burkman's book Meditations for Mortals.

For my job, I have early morning meetings, a backlog of emails, and a bazillion slack messages. Won't my coworkers notice if I don't respond right away? Trust me, they won't notice, as long as you get back to them in a reasonable amount of time.

Ideally, you would wake up earlier to write, but if that’s not possible, then do a little each morning instead. The big unlock for me was realizing I don't need to spend a lot of time on writing in the morning–though that would be nice–even 15 minutes will do.

I still prefer to write in the evening. But now I don’t feel bad when I get home from work at 8 PM and need to cook dinner, water my garden, feed my fish, oh and I should check the water quality too, and wasn't I supposed to pick something up at the pharmacy?

If I already worked on my personal projects, it's easier for me to be present with my family in the evenings instead of feeling guilty.

Work on a specific project at a specific time.

The key to writing–and life, really–is specificity.

I used to tell myself to "write" without knowing what. Every session started with a feeling of ambiguity and uneasiness. I used to start each session with this prompt generator that deletes all my work if I ever stop typing. The problem was I never made progress. I started writing stories that I never finished. It didn't feel like I was making meaningful progress.

Instead, be clear with yourself what you want to work on.

Make a meeting with yourself to work on a specific project at a specific time. Block off time on your calendar, at the same time every day, including what you will work on in the calendar invite. Over time, something weird happens–your brain naturally wants to write at the scheduled time.

How do you pick a project? Keep reading to find out.

Ambition is your motivation for long-term projects.

The way to stay motivated is to connect your daily activity to your long-term goals.

Becoming an author and writing books is a monumental task. It will take a lot of time, energy, and money. When your daily effort seems disconnected to your ambition, it will feel like a distraction. That's why I would recommend working on the book you really want to write, go right for the goal.

Let your ambition be your fuel. Start writing the book you want to write.

Track milestones don’t set deadlines.

Whenever I've set an ambitious timeline, I end up feeling discouraged and ashamed when I cannot meet it.

There will be times when work, family, or health will be a higher priority, writing will need to be de-prioritized. That's why it's important to work at a natural pace. Instead of setting deadlines, create a way to track milestones. For example, word processors such as Scrivener have a way to visualize your progress towards a word count goal.

I recommend checking in on your progress against your milestones once a week. Sunday works best for me. You need to keep reminding yourself that the daily work brings you closer to your milestones, even if it's just incremental.

We can't control when things get done, but we can control the effort we put in.

The only outcome that matters is finishing.

We have no control over whether people will read our book.

Focus on what you can control. Finishing a book is a tremendous accomplishment in itself. You want to be the type of person who finishes things, because finishing things feels good, and it's contagious. Suddenly, you'll start finishing other things too. Because you'll stop being afraid of working on hard things that take a long time.

The true reward of a daily writing habit is that it unlocks creative freedom and personal development.

My 2025 writing goals

I was debating with myself if there was any value in sharing my goals, when they may change. I try to keep the content of this newsletter educational and actionable, at the cost of resisting my urge for self-indulgent asides. But do indulge me.

The first goal is simple enough. Continue with these weekly newsletter posts.

I have been posting weekly for 7 months now. My newsletter writing routine feels established, I found a direction I like (after changing the direction and publication name 6 times), and it's getting easier too. The newsletter gives me a place to work through my thinking on a topic and practice my non-fiction writing.

For my second goal, I am excited to have started my most ambitious project yet: writing a genre fiction novel.

I am setting the modest goal of having a solid outline by the end of this year. My reach goal is to be in the serious drafting phase by the fall 2025 and be in the revision phase by Winter 2026. I plan to workshop sample chapters with my writing group throughout the year.

That might seem like a long time, and it is, but that's the point. I want to take the time I need to focus on quality and work through issues at a natural pace. Career genre fiction writers release multiple books a year. A pace necessary to sustain a consistent income to support their livelihoods. Since writing is not my career, I have the luxury of being slow.

To help me write my outline, I will watch and write about Brandon Sanderson's lectures on Science Fiction and Fantasy at BYU. I watched these lectures two years ago as edutainment, quickly without taking notes or working on a story.

Watching them today feels completely different. I learned so much about writing in these past 2 years. To get the most out of the content, I’ll be writing about it here as I apply it to my outline. So be on the lookout for that.

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