The Daily Writer

All of us deal with a certain amount of friction as writers. Even under the best of circumstances, there are obstacles and problems that threaten our productivity and success. When you are under a deadline or experiencing a high amount of stress, it’s time to reduce the friction. The easiest way to do this is by prioritizing your commitments. On this episode, you’ll be reminded that even though yo...

One of the reasons that writing feels so hard to many people is because their expectation doesn’t match the reality of how a clean draft actually gets written. Many people have an ideal of sitting down at a computer and just letting the words flow out perfectly. The heavens open up, birds sing outside, and a ray of light descends from above as they post their work, email it, or send it off to the...

If someone gave you the assignment to write a sentence without the letter E, how would you respond? Would you think it’s too difficult, or that it can’t be done? What about a whole paragraph, a scene, or even a whole chapter? And ultimately, an entire book? How could you possibly write a book without the letter E? It simply can’t be done. At least, that’s what people kept telling a writer named Er...

Have you ever thought about why do so many writing projects get started, but never get finished? Lots of people want to write a book, start a podcast, create a blog, or build a writing business. But why do so many people stop short of following through? The answer is simple: it gets hard and people give up. You have probably fallen victim to giving up as well. You have started something, it got ha...

We all know that Amazon and other print-on-demand companies give authors an amazing opportunity to get our books out into the world without having to stock and ship our own books. But you may not have known about the opportunities that exist for custom-printing your own books. This is an area I’m exploring myself with at least one current project and possibly future ones for both me and my clients...

One of my very best friends is a guy named Eric Elder. He is a musician, author, and creative genius who runs TheRanch.org . A few years ago, we were on a call and he showed me how he stays motivated to finish the books he starts writing. You can find out more about Eric Elder and his books, music, and more by visiting TheRanch.org . On this episode, Kent shares one of his friends’ tips for how yo...

Some 4,500 years ago, tens of thousands of Egyptian workers descended upon the Giza Plateau to begin a massive construction project like the world had never seen. Over a period of twenty years, workers placed 2.3 million blocks of stone with such accuracy that it still confounds scientists today. Known as the Great Pyramid of Giza, it is the only wonder of the ancient world that survives today. On...

One of Aesop’s best-known fables is “The Tortoise and the Hare.” You’ve probably heard the story before. The hare challenges the tortoise to a race, confident he will win by a long shot. The race begins and the hare gets so far ahead of the tortoise that he takes a nap. When the hare wakes up, he finds that the tortoise kept moving and won the race! We can learn a lot from the tortoise. It may tak...

There’s something that has been bothering you. It’s like a pebble in your shoe that irritates you just enough that you think about it all the time. It intimidates you, taunts you, and won’t let you stop thinking about it. On this episode, Kent encourages us to face what is bothering us head-on, so we can move forward and make progress. *** Are you looking for a community of enthusiastic, generous...

This is the seventh and final entry in our mini-series on dealing with rejection. Rejection is not fun, but it still has an important place in our business and creative lives. When you’re rejected or criticized, it forces you to ask tough questions like these: Is this something I should have been doing in the first place? Do I really, truly want to be doing this? Even though I’m in love with this...

This is the sixth entry in our mini-series on dealing with rejection. When your writing has been rejected—or at least when you perceive that it has—you respond emotionally. And that’s totally natural. We all respond emotionally when we’re hurt. And what do we do when we’re hurt? We lash out. We want retribution. We find a way to strike back. On this episode, Kent reminds us that when dealing with...

In this episode, I begin a series on the making of my Father’s memoir of his experiences in Vietnam. I’ll be writing it with him over the next year or so. I talk about why I’m doing it, some of my fears as I start the project, the process I’m using to figure out the theme of the memoir, and some of the resources that will be helpful as we create the memoir. *** Are you looking for a community of e...

Whenever I talk to new writers, the most overwhelming emotion I sense from them is confusion. There are so many options and resources for writing and publishing a book that it's hard to know what to do next. Fortunately, there is a clear pathway forward, and my friend Brigitte Cutshall is here today to walk us through the formula for publishing a quality book. In fact, the title of her new fa...

This is the fifth entry in our mini-series on dealing with rejection. If you saw the 2009 movie Star Trek , which was, of course, a reboot of the classic TV show, you might remember the scene where Spock gets into a fight with Kirk, then steps down from his command. The reason was that he was “emotionally compromised.” Spock knew that if he couldn’t control his emotions, it would prevent him from...

This is the fourth entry in our series on dealing with rejection. One of the biggest paradoxes of feeling hurt is that everyone experiences it, but when you’re going through it, you feel totally alone. This happens to every great writer, leader, and artist. Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, Walt Disney, and Steve Jobs all faced rejection or failure at some point. But they persisted. On today’s episo...

This is the third entry in our mini-series on dealing with rejection. The publishing world has changed radically in the last fifteen years or so. In the past, you would have to go through some kind of gatekeeper in order to get your message heard by others. This typically meant finding an agent, who would then pitch your book to publishers until one of them offered you a contract. But you no longe...

This is the second entry in our mini-series on dealing with rejection. It’s happened to all of us. You had your heart set on an opportunity and it falls through. Maybe it’s a writing job, a podcast guest appearance, a collaboration, or another type of opportunity. You thought it was going to happen but now it isn’t. As the 1960s group, The Monkees, famously sang, “Tomorrow’s Gonna Be Another Day.”...

Today’s episode is the first in a seven-part series on dealing with rejection. As writers, we deal with rejection in many forms. You can be rejected by a reader, a publisher, a literary agent, a podcaster, a beta reader, a book reviewer, a peer, and so much more. This rejection can be formal or informal, big or small. It can be direct and aggressive, or indirect and passive. Whatever form rejectio...

Have you ever noticed that writers like to talk about the things they’re working on? It’s a strange habit, isn’t it? Maybe it’s because we like to get feedback on our current work in progress, which is totally fine. Most of the time, it seems like we talk about our current writing a lot because we lack confidence and want assurance from other people that we are going in the right direction and tha...

We've all heard the stories about people who take years to write a book. In some cases, that's necessary, especially if the author is writing a very large book or one that requires a lot of research, such as a biography or a technical book. However, in most cases, we can write books much more quickly if we will just get focused and organized. My guest today is here to give us a system fo...

If writing is a house, each of us lives on two levels. The ground floor is where we invite people in. We share things we think people want to hear. Underneath the ground floor, there is also a basement. The basement is where we keep boxes full of the things we really want to say. But we rarely bring them out because we’re not sure how people will respond. On this episode, you’ll be emboldened to s...

The way some of us writers shrink back from a challenge, you’d think we live forever. We hesitate to write that book because we fear what others will think. We don’t set up that website because it feels too hard. We don’t meet with that person who is five years ahead of us because we’re intimidated. We don’t make that social media post because we question whether we’re a good enough writer. It mig...

When you begin studying the lives of the great writers, one of the most surprising things you’ll learn is how well aware most of them were regarding their limitations and the role that luck played in their success. For example, Ernest Hemingway once said, “I have tried simply to write the best I can; sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.” On this episode, you’ll learn that luck p...

One of the curses of being a writer is that we are too rational. We pride ourselves on reporting the facts of a situation accurately. We love the idea of having an objective point of view, then giving our commentary or perspective. We don’t like the idea of getting carried away with our emotions. We don’t want to be irrational or have a skewed point of view. Is being “rational” really the best way...

I want to take a moment to let you know about an important milestone we just passed here on the podcast in the last couple of weeks. We hit 100,000 downloads and we are right at 700 total episodes of the podcast! So, what’s ahead for the Daily Writer? Let me share a few things we have on the horizon. *** Are you looking for a community of enthusiastic, generous writers to help you build better hab...