A thank you, and a few things to take with you

No lesson this week. Just gratitude, three parting craft notes, and a poem.

A cheat code, and the question I promised

No new lesson today. One bonus trick, and the question that shapes what comes next.

Write an Opening Chapter, Lesson 7: The Revisions

The final lesson: I take the notes and rebuild the chapter in the open.

Write an Opening Chapter, Lesson 6: An editor's honest read

Lesson 6 of 7: watch an award-winning author and editor mark up my rough pages.

Write an Opening Chapter, Lesson 5: The Crack Widens

Lesson 5 of 7: let the wrongness spread — and the drafting's done.

Write an Opening Chapter, Lesson 4: The First Crack

Lesson 4 of 7: the small wrong note that tells us the ordinary won't stay ordinary.

Write an Opening Chapter, Lesson 3: The Ordinary World

Lesson 3 of 7: meet the cast — and a quick one-tap question from me.

Write an Opening Chapter, Lesson 2: Meet Your Sleuth

Lesson 2 of 7: your sleuth, revealed by what they notice and what they miss.

Write an Opening Chapter, Lesson 1: Where Your Story Begins

The first of seven Sunday lessons. No rush, no falling behind.

Will learning the rules cost you your voice?

Dispatch from the Drawing Room

How do you write a setting that feels real?

Dispatch from the Drawing Room

Build your genre compass (plus a passage from the novel I'm writing)

Register free now for fall classes, don't pay until the October start

The doors open — and an Agatha winner walks in

You've held a key since you joined. This is where it turns in the lock.

Sunday Dispatch: Why this genre, and not a slightly fancier one

A small defense of the form. From someone who's tired of defending it.

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