Will Remains

Book Club: Bird by Bird – Getting Started The easiest, the scariest, and the most important step.

The easiest, the scariest, and the most important step. #writing #writingcommmunity

Book Club: Bird by Bird It's a book club, but I pick the books and I'm the only one who gets to talk.

It's a book club, but I pick the books and I'm the only one who gets to talk.
#writing #WritingCommunity

Do You Need That? Or can you lay that burden down?

You are not the turd in the punchbowl of life.
#mondayblogs #writing #writingcommunity

Write and Be Damned This will be a rambling post.

Improving your craft shouldn’t be a traumatic experience.
#Mondayblogs #writingcommunity #writing
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A Gentle Reminder to Book Designers Honestly, people.

Has this happened to you? You may be entitled to compensation. #mondayblogs #writingcommmunity #books
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A Leap of Faith Here are two things I know about showing up.

Here are 2 things I know about showing up.
#mondayblogs #WritingCommunity #writing
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Your Goals Work for You, Not Vice Versa As a highly-motivated goal setter and a usually reliable goal achiever, I’m always curious about whether and how other creative people set goals. I wish I could be one of those laissez-faire writers who wanders through their day being as creative as they feel like, for a few hours or not. Unfortunately, I have to work for my supper, so my opportunity time is reduced by half.

Are your goals a tool or do they boss you around? #mondayblogs #writinggoals #writingcommunity

Happy New Writing Year Will Remains Writing for January 2026

In addition to my Monday posts, I also have a monthly newsletter. The news over there leans personal. This time I talk about cancer, books I’m reading, and a great start to my writing year. I also share links to January’s best writing advice and a parting song.

Free to read or subscribe.

Showing Up is Hard Last week I wrote about the importance of showing up, whether that means showing up at your writing desk or in-person at a workshop, conference, or book festival. In retrospect, I fear I may have sounded a bit glib. As I’ve developed my blog over the past several years, a few recurring themes have emerged. Authenticity and being true to oneself is a subject I return to again and again.

Showing up is hard, but it's worth it.
#mondayblogs #writingcommunity #commitment

Showing Up Writers and other creative people struggle with various aspects of the process, but as I watch them interact online and in my real world, I find that many flounder because they fail to master the most important skill: Showing up. I’ve had this problem, including periods when I didn’t write at all, even though I claimed to want to. In all the years I wanted to make writer friends and build my little community, there were plenty of meetups I missed, conferences I skipped, opportunities blown.

Showing Up; it's half the battle!
#mondayblogs #writinggoals #writingcommunity

Writing Goals 2026 A few weeks ago, I gave myself a report card for my 2025 writing year, which means it’s time for new goals for 2026. I don’t always hit every goal, but posting them publicly keeps me accountable. Saying it out loud ensures that I do something to move the ball forward, even if I don’t reach the pitcher’s mound. Did I say that right?

Are you setting writing goals for 2026? Put 'em here!
#mondayblogs #writingcommunity #writinggoals

What’s on your reading list this year?

'Books are going to take longer to get to libraries': What Baker & Taylor's demise means for comics - The Comics Journal Diamond’s disintegration is not the only crisis facing comics publishers these days. The latest distribution company ceasing to exist is the venerable library distributor Baker & Taylor. If you’re not...

Library distributor Baker & Taylor is going under.

Great book! I just finished his “Anatomy of Genre” which is also very good.

Five Writing Wishes for the New Year The holiday season is also a good time for indulging traditions, and here’s one of mine. I’ve gone into the background on this meditation in previous blog posts, so if you’ve read this before, feel free to skip to the end. If you’ve joined me in the last year, this will be new. I adopted this creative exercise from the writings of psychologist Gay Hendricks, fittingly from his book…

My annual tradition: Five Writing Wishes for the New Year #mondayblogs #writingcommunity #writing

I don’t think there’s a single best answer. Pick one or two you like and plant your flag. I’m leaning into Substack but I still have the most connections on Facebook.

On the surface, things look good. Inside, it’s a white knuckle ride. How are you? Are you going ok?

The Cure to Missing Out One of my should-do-but-might-not-do goals this coming year is to interact more on my social media accounts. When I started my branding (loathsome word) project last summer, I cleared much of the detritus from my various public accounts and limited myself to following or friending folks actively engaged in their creative work. I deleted all my pop culture and political pages on Facebook and added a few writing groups that seemed both active and useful.

When you're engaged in doing, you forget to be afraid of missing out
#mondayblogs #writingcommunity #fomo

Isn't it the best feeling?

Parting Glances There’s never a bad time to stop and reflect on life, but the end of a calendar year lends itself to both a sense of conclusion and new beginnings. And even though March feels like it happened about three weeks ago, we’ve arrived at the end of another December. If, like me, you are time challenged, I apologize for breaking this news so abruptly.

I had a good writing year, but finding my people was the best gift of all.
#mondayblogs #writing #writingcommunity

The Year in Music In addition to my (usually) weekly blog, I have a monthly newsletter where I recap my writing month, discuss books I’ve read, and sometimes share news of a more personal nature. It’s my version of DVD bonus features: a bit of behind-the-scenes flavoring for the blog’s main courses. I conclude every newsletter with a parting song, generally something that reflects my mood in the moment I’m writing.

The Year in Music

In addition to my (usually) weekly blog, I have a monthly newsletter where I recap my writing month, discuss books I’ve read, and sometimes share news of a more personal nature. It’s my version of DVD bonus features: a bit of behind-the-scenes flavoring for the blog’s main…

Energized, Connected, and Grateful A bit quiet on the blog front this month as I needed to prep two presentations for the Manor Mill Writers Retreat. I meant to blog a bit after the event, but I needed a bit of downtime. I also ended the day feeling energized to work on my creative writing, which I did, and I set aside some time to beta read and provide feedback on a novel from one of the writers in my network.

Excerpts from a writers' retreat and a funny anecdote. #mondayblogs #community #writersretreat

Morality Play Over the summer, I wrote about the new Superman movie and wondered whether we were shifting into a cultural phase wherein audiences would crave the concept of heroism – actual heart-on-the-sleeve, morally upright, sacrificing for the greater good heroism – rather than the cynical, manipulative, trust no one, ends-justify-the-means type of protagonist that has been much more prevalent these past years.

Antiheroes are a staple of fiction, but why do so many writers misunderstand them?
#mondayblogs #writing #writingcommunity

Writing Lessons I Learned Painting My Craft Room I’ve been posting a bit less than usual the past few weeks. August was intentionally a skimp period, given my brief mid-month vacation, but I full anticipated getting back into a steady writing and posting rhythm in September. That…didn’t happen. There are several factors, but importantly, I was visited by the brilliant idea of painting my craft room over Labor Day weekend, which in my youthful days would have been an achievable task.

Writing Lessons I Learned Painting My Craft Room #writing #mondayblogs

Discovering My Brain’s Native Language | Jane Friedman An AuDHD writer considers where her mind’s fragmentary and circular style of expression fits in a paradigm of linear storytelling.

What if your life experiences do not necessarily translate into “good” writing? Christina Larocco describes how her writing is circular, referential, fragmented—all qualities typically identified as weaknesses.

Take Five I’ve been beating myself up about the blog the last few weeks. I missed a deadline two weeks ago – my first this year – and have been dreading writing the next few posts. By coincidence, I came across a post I wrote in 2023, which contained a timely message: It’s ok to take a break. Take five. Take ten if you need it.

If you need to take a break, here's your sign.

Speaking Engagement: Talking Business at Manor Mill Writers Retreat On Saturday, November 15, I’ll be joining a dozen other expert authors at the Manor Mill Writers Retreat, where we’ll discuss questions about craft, publishing, and platform. Local writers can expect a welcoming, casual environment and lively discussion with peers. Where and When Manor Mill is a newly restored historic grist mill and miller’s house in Monkton, Maryland, located in northern Baltimore County.

Speaking Engagement: Talking Business at Manor Mill Writers Retreat #mondayblogs #writingcommunity #writing

Not Powerball! $1.5 Billion on the Line for Writers Pirated by AI Firm According to MSN, GenAI developer Anthropic has agreed to pay at least $1.5 billion to settle a class action lawsuit alleging the firm pirated thousands of copyrighted works to train its large language model Claude. In June, U.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled that Anthropic was within its "fair use" rights to use legally acquired works to train its LLM, because the platform transformed the material into "something new." However, Alsup also found Anthropic…

Not Powerball! $1.5 Billion on the Line for Writers Pirated by AI Firm

I call it the “barf draft” - I get all my ideas down about character, theme, setting, and direction, and organize it into something resembling a plot. That draft usually runs about 50% of my expected total word count, even if most of it doesn’t survive the actual writing draft.

I have several tricks. Daily word counts are motivating when I’m in the fast drafting stage, but when I’m doing the writing-writing, then I track my milestones (usually chapters).