Monday night I attended a panel given by a Boston-area writing group. My own writing group is coming up on our one year anniversary, so here are some take-aways from their talk, and from my experience.

Want a way to truly get to know your characters? Pick a Myers-Briggs personality for them.

Take the anxiety out of writing — especially freelance writing, which is compounded by having to create great work for others — by simply pounding out a shitty first draft.

I’ve been a long-time fan of Colson Whitehead, and recently read the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Nickel Boys, his newest novel. Read more about it, some of his other works that I love, and the unfortunate significance of reading The Nickel Boys this week.

I reread Leading Men last week for a book club, and it was one of my favorite novels of 2019. Read about what a beautiful, stylistically written book it is, full of longing and desire.