I turned 60 at the beginning of this month, which seems impossible. But after doing the math 397 times and throwing myself three killer celebrations (with at least three more pending), I've not only reconciled myself to the inevitable, I'm happy about it. Over the...
Massachusetts financial planner Derek Reed had stalled out on his book, which uses stories from his dad—a swordfisherman who captained the Andrea Gail until one year before it sank in the perfect storm—to educate readers about saving and investing for retirement. Over...
I just read Dusan Djukick's book Straight-Line Leadership. I love this part about how we decide (or don't decide) to take action, for example on that book we say we want to get to. She writes: Your inner stance is the position or mental posture you create to live your...
"I want to have my book done by late July," a prospective writing coach client recently told me. How many chapters do you figure will be in your book?" I ask. "Twelve." "That means you'll be cranking out a chapter every other week, assuming the editing can happen in...
In 1982, my dad, Leonard Gross, published what I've always felt was his best book. The Last Jews in Berlin interweaves the real-life stories of a handful of Jews who hid in Berlin throughout WWII and lived to tell the tale. The book was heralded by critics at the...
There are lots of reasons to write a book. No matter what has inspired you to spend hours and hours on your manuscript, you can't just publish it when you reach the end. You still have to go back through and edit your work for logic, continuity, flow, and accuracy on...
In last week's post, I wrote about how building tension brings dimension to your character development and interactions. This is critical when it comes to engaging your readers. We readers fall in love with novels because we like and care about the characters the...
We all have stories about ourselves. And for better or worse, everyone we know has his/her own story about us as well. I was reminded of that during a recent phone conversation. When the person on the other end of the line mentioned a couple of my foibles in passing,...
When it comes to making time to write, there's a difference between accountability, giving yourself a reality check and beating yourself up. If you find you're not writing as much as you would like start by examining your priorities. Is writing your book, that article...
Quotation marks are sprouting up everywhere these days like uncontrolled weeds. Here are some examples from material a client recently sent me: The reason for this book is to tell about one of the very few times, the “Apache” Indians won. They came out on top,...
