#on-writing — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #on-writing, aggregated by home.social.
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The Write Attitude: Doing The Work Amid The Noise
This post is a chapter from my book, The Write Attitude, which is now in a second edition. I’m posting it here to entice you to head over to Storybundle to pick up a copy, along with ebooks by Jamie Ferguson, T. Thorn Coyle, Dean Wesley Smith, Robert Jeschonek and others. Everything in this bundle […]…
https://kriswrites.com/2026/05/12/the-write-attitude-doing-the-work-amid-the-noise/#freenonfiction #NewReleases #OnWriting #publishing #storybundle
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What does writing actually do to your thinking?
I’ve written a lot. Often daily on the blog since 2011, years of weekly writing for 7 for Sunday, and a daily journal that’s grown to thousands of pages. Until I started taking writing seriously, I thought writing was for capturing thoughts I already had. It turned out to be the opposite — most of what I think I think only exists once I write it down.
This thread is about what writing actually does to thinking. Not how to write, or what to write, or even why to write. Just about the strange thing that happens when you put words next to each other on a page — the ideas you didn’t know you had until they appeared, the gaps that showed up only because you tried to bridge them, the changes that happen to the mind in the act of clarification and articulation.
Writing matters
7 for Sunday — February 2025Open with the frosted window. Alain de Botton’s image: consciousness as looking through a frosted window — your own assumptions, beliefs, patterns. Writing is the act of clearing it; you’ll never see completely, but you can clean it enough to see something true.
The writing is easy
constantine.name — July 2020My version of the same thing: “The hard part is deciding what to share.” The cognitive work of writing — knowing what’s worth getting onto the page — is the actual practice. The hand writing or typing is the easy part.
Misunderstanding why
constantine.name — February 2025A writer’s therapist tells her she could just stop writing. “Stop?” she says, blinking in surprise. The lesson I’m still working to internalize: the writing part doesn’t suck — what makes the work hard is also what makes it worthwhile.
What You Hear Yourself Say
Open + Curious Field Note — with Mary JL RoweThe same insight applied to conversation. Speaking, like writing, isn’t the pipe through which understanding flows — it’s the place where understanding forms. Worth reading as the sister piece to everything else in this thread.
Two-fer from an introduction
constantine.name — September 2025Reading as the inverse process. I noticed Will Stone’s translation of Zweig used the word bestiality in a way that didn’t seem right; took me three minutes with an LLM to confirm Zweig had written Bestialität — German for brute savagery, no modern sexual connotation. Reading carefully is just writing-in-reverse — the same attention to what words actually do.
The real fear
constantine.name — March 2025Pressfield names the Master Fear: not failure, but fear of success — the fear that we can become the person we sense we truly are. This is why writing is hard, even many years in. The act keeps insisting that we become who we’re capable of being, and most of us it seems would rather not.
Manual labor of the mind
constantine.name — March 2025Closing with John Gregory Dunne: “Writing is essentially donkey work, manual labor of the mind. What makes it bearable are those moments — which sometimes can last for weeks, months — when the book takes over, takes on a life of its own, goes off in unexpected directions.” That’s what writing actually does. It starts as something you’re making and becomes something that’s making you back.
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#OnWriting #Reading #Resistance #Threads -
Hoping For A Productive Summer
My class ended on Wednesday with a surprise A+ on a quiz I hadn’t studied for. That was lovely. A bunch of other things happened these past few weeks, all good, which I really can’t share except to say that they were marvelous. And Dean Wesley Smith and I celebrated our 40th anniversary on Monday. […]…
https://kriswrites.com/2026/05/10/hoping-for-a-productive-summer/ -
Interview with an Editor: Liam Carnahan of Invisible Ink Editing
Joe Walters interviews Liam Carnahan of Invisible Ink Editing in this AWP edition of Interview with an Editor.
The post Interview with an Editor: Liam Carnahan of Invisible Ink Editing appeared first on Independent Book Review.
https://independentbookreview.com/2026/05/07/liam-carnahan-of-invisible-ink-editing/#Blog #OnWriting #editing #howtoeditabook #InterviewwithanEditor
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The Write Attitude: Sounding Like Yourself
This post is a chapter from my book, The Write Attitude, which is now in a second edition. I’m posting it here to entice you to head over to Storybundle to pick up a copy, along with ebooks by Darcy Pattison, Douglas Smith, Ron Collins, Tracy Cooper-Posey and others. Everything in this Storybundle is exclusive, including […]…
https://kriswrites.com/2026/05/06/the-write-attitude-sounding-like-yourself/#freenonfiction #NewReleases #OnWriting #AddisonRae #Billboard
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What does making something in public for years actually take?
I’ve been blogging since 2011. Movers Mindset started 2015. Open + Curious in 2024 with a different shape. Podtalk started in there too. Each project has its own arc, and it’s own specific thing that draws me to keep creating. After all this time, I can now see there’s a question I never paid attention to which lies underneath all of them: What does it take to keep making something in public, for years?
The pieces below are about the practice of showing up — what permission feels like, what resistance is, how cumulative invisible work pays off, and what “uphill” writing means. A couple are distilled from Podtalk conversations with people who arrived at hard truths and put them into words. This thread is sequenced for someone who’s making something in public and wondering how to keep at it without burning out, quitting, or going sideways into something they didn’t set out to do.
Permission to continue
7 for Sunday — March 2025Open with the inheritance. Someone who modeled the practice for me dies, and I realized the permission they gave wasn’t theirs to give. I already had it. Jack London’s club it — go after what you want with force — turns out to be the most generous instruction possible, because it gives you permission to commit even when the outcome is uncertain.
Sit down
constantine.name — November 2024The Pressfield line that does the most work for me: “It’s not the writing that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write. What keeps us from sitting down is resistance.” Cling to that for everything you’re trying to keep making — it’s not the doing that’s hard. It’s the showing up that’s hard. Really hard.
The illogical thing
Podtalk Field Note — with Cassian BellinoCassian got laid off and immediately built everything nobody asked for — courses, communities, funnels. By any reasonable measure it was a mistake. But: “my emotions wouldn’t have settled had I tried the logical thing.” Sometimes what in hindsight is clearly the wrong path, is actually the only way to reach the destination, and the flailing is how some creators process toward clarity.
Bifocals
constantine.name — January 2026My bifocal attention: solving today’s problem while simultaneously noticing the friction I can’t leave alone. I’ll stop in the middle of the task to write the script, the alias, the doc, the template — not because I’m procrastinating but because that is the real work. The payoff is cumulative and mostly invisible, which is what makes it hard to commit to.
100 issues of my “7 for Sunday” email
constantine.name — August 2024At the 100-issue mark of 7 for Sunday — three years of weekly issues — what mattered wasn’t the number. It was that I’d kept going through stretches when simply knowing that readers existed was what got me through. The life preserver that saves you is necessarily thrown by another. External validation isn’t ideal, but sometimes it’s what keeps you in the boat.
Writing uphill
7 for Sunday — December 2024Downhill writing is what you want to say; uphill writing is what you need to say — the thing you’re afraid of, the thing you think nobody wants to hear. The best writing is almost always uphill. The discomfort is usually the sign you’re onto something real.
When a Podcast Is Finished
Podtalk Field Note — with Alasdair PlambeckClosing on the hardest part: knowing when to stop. Not failed, not abandoned — finished. Alasdair ended his podcast after four-and-a-half years because the work was complete. The skill isn’t just keeping going; it’s also recognizing when keeping going has quietly become a different act than what you set out to do.
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#Creativity #OnWriting #Resistance #Sustainability #Threads -
Video Experiments
I’ve been doing a lot of experimentation with short video. Sometimes I add audio, but every now and then I do something that’s imagery and text. I’ve done that here, with the video I did for Dean Wesley Smith’s current Kickstarter campaign. There was simply too much information to cram into a talky video, so […]…
https://kriswrites.com/2026/05/05/video-experiments/#OnWriting #ScienceFiction #ads #DeanWesleySmith #Kickstarter
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The Write Attitude: Churning It Out
This post is a chapter from my book, The Write Attitude, which is now in a second edition. I’m posting it here to entice you to head over to Storybundle to pick up a copy, along with ebooks by Robert T. Jeschonek, Andrea Pearson, J. Daniel Sawyer, Dean Wesley Smith, and ten more great writers. […]…
https://kriswrites.com/2026/04/26/the-write-attitude-churning-it-out/#freenonfiction #OnWriting #publishing #storybundle #WriteAttitude
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The Write Attitude: Getting Lost in The Words
This post is a chapter from my book, The Write Attitude, which is now in a second edition. I’m posting it here to entice you to head over to Storybundle to pick up a copy, along with ebooks by T. Thorn Coyle, Ron Collins, Darcy Pattison, Anthea Sharp, and ten more great writers. Everyone’s book is […]…
https://kriswrites.com/2026/04/17/the-write-attitude-getting-lost-in-the-words/ -
The Write Attitude: Getting Lost in The Words
This post is a chapter from my book, The Write Attitude, which is now in a second edition. I’m posting it here to entice you to head over to Storybundle to pick up a copy, along with ebooks by T. Thorn Coyle, Ron Collins, Darcy Pattison, Anthea Sharp, and ten more great writers. Everyone’s book is […]…
https://kriswrites.com/2026/04/17/the-write-attitude-getting-lost-in-the-words/ -
The Write Attitude: Getting Lost in The Words
This post is a chapter from my book, The Write Attitude, which is now in a second edition. I’m posting it here to entice you to head over to Storybundle to pick up a copy, along with ebooks by T. Thorn Coyle, Ron Collins, Darcy Pattison, Anthea Sharp, and ten more great writers. Everyone’s book is […]…
https://kriswrites.com/2026/04/17/the-write-attitude-getting-lost-in-the-words/ -
The Write Attitude: Getting Lost in The Words
This post is a chapter from my book, The Write Attitude, which is now in a second edition. I’m posting it here to entice you to head over to Storybundle to pick up a copy, along with ebooks by T. Thorn Coyle, Ron Collins, Darcy Pattison, Anthea Sharp, and ten more great writers. Everyone’s book is […]…
https://kriswrites.com/2026/04/17/the-write-attitude-getting-lost-in-the-words/ -
"All first drafts are horrible" is a pacifying thought. If read from a certain angle, it almost looks like the first draft **should** be horrible. Maybe this thought started the idea that one should write the first draft quickly and carelessly. "You can always rewrite it later."
They don't build houses this way, do they? -
Recommended Reading List: March 2026
Technically, the first thing I finished reading was Anton Chekov’s The Seagull for my theatre history class. I’d read both the play and the short story the first time I was in college 100,000 years ago, and didn’t like them then. I decided to give the dang thing a chance again. Still didn’t like it, […]…
https://kriswrites.com/2026/04/04/recommended-reading-list-march-2026/#freenonfiction #OnWriting #Plays #RecommendedReading #AllyCarter
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Have you noticed that regardless of how good a draft looks, if it brews for at least 24 hours, you'll find parts to improve?
And the process has no endpoint. It seems like the trick is to let it brew for some time, but to still mark it as finished after a few iterations.#OnWriting #AmWriting #ContentArchitecture #draft #editing #writing
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Cover Art
On my Patreon page, I’ve been putting up free posts about the new and improved cover art that we’re doing at WMG. You can find a number of posts, but I thought I’d share this one with you here. (I’ll be sharing the occasional Patreon post throughout 2026 and maybe beyond.) You can sign up […]…
https://kriswrites.com/2026/03/08/business-musings-cover-art/#BusinessMusings #freenonfiction #OnWriting #ScienceFiction #SpaceOpera
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Get A Small Mountain of Science Fiction…
…in the brand-new Kickstarter that just launched. It features my bestselling novel, Alien Influences, which The New York Times calls “a well conceived, well executed novel,” my award-winning novella, Broken Windchimes, and a brand-new collection of my science fiction stories, called Strange People, Stranger Places. In addition, you can get all 28 Diving books in ebook format or more […]…
https://kriswrites.com/2026/03/03/get-a-small-mountain-of-science-fiction/#DivingIntoTheWreck #NewReleases #OnWriting #ScienceFiction #SpaceOpera
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Studying Craft With Me or Kickstarter With Dean
I wasn’t sure I was going to post about this, but Dean already did on his site, so I need to offer this to you folks here. I do a craft mentorship, limited to a handful of people. It’s one-on-one work for people who want to improve their writing. The mentorship is usually full, but […]…
https://kriswrites.com/2026/01/07/studying-craft-with-me-or-kickstarter-with-dean/ -
Two Reminders For Writers
If you want to start the new year right, we can help. First, everything—and I do mean everything—on WMG’s Teachable platform is half off until late on Monday. This includes the 2026 Challenges, to give you momentum or to keep you honest, I’m not sure which. I use challenges on my running to inspire me and […]…
https://kriswrites.com/2026/01/04/two-reminders-for-writers/ -
Recommended Reading List: December 2025
Hah! The first Recommended Reading List that’s been on time in months (years?). I finished it in December, and am putting it up as soon as I can. Feels good. All of this, except for this little part, was written in December as I finished my reading. Now onto finishing the last 2 from…
https://kriswrites.com/2026/01/02/recommended-reading-list-december-2025/#AlternateHistory #freenonfiction #Holiday #Mysteries #OnWriting
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Writers! Increase Your Productivity in 2026
Dean and I are offering a seminar in the new year that will help writers overcome fears and become more productive. Only a few spots are left! Here’s the info, taken from Dean’s blog: FEAR AND PRODUCTIVITY SEMINAR Preparation for the New Year January Seminar January 5th through January 30th It is about craft,…
https://kriswrites.com/2025/12/29/writers-increase-your-productivity-in-2026/ -
Recommended Reading List (Belated Edition): June 2025
For those of you who are coming late to this party, I got very far behind recording the books that I have loved over the past year. I usually do it when the month of reading ends. For almost eight months, I was unable to do that. I posted May’s edition in early…
https://kriswrites.com/2025/12/26/recommended-reading-list-belated-edition-june-2025/#freenonfiction #Mysteries #OnWriting #Romances #AARPTheMagazine
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Maybe try a map?
First a hat tip to Austin Kleon. His most-recent post, Do you have a nemesis? included a mind map, which is the most-recent of the countless times I’ve encountered mind mapping. I’m a fan of Kleon for many reasons, not least of which is that he, like me, flouts the usual guidelines for the capitalization of one’s titles.
I’ve tried mind mapping a few times. (What’s that? Did I overdo it with software and processes? …yes, of course!) Today, I was feeling unmotivated to write for Open + Curious. I thought, “Just start. JUST START!” But I simply didn’t want to face the blank screen of the digital document.
Instead, I opened my idea garden wherein I capture interesting nuggets to be seeds for future writing. In my garden, I rarely (I first wrote “never,” but I don’t want to jinx myself) have trouble finding a nugget to write about. I grabbed my favorite pen, and flipped to a blank sheet in the little binder I keep. So much action! I felt like I was already writing. /s
On that mind map I wrote the “something new” at the center. It’s not a meaningless bit of meta; it’s the central idea from a captured nugget. At this point, staring at the paper with my pen in hand felt great, versus facing a digital document which always feels too structured for me to think in. (ref. Sönke Ahrens.) In just a few minutes of thinking and scribbling I had all those bubbles. Then I had a title. …then a route. …an outline. And from there the writing felt doable.
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#7ForSunday #MindMaps #OnWriting #OpenCurious #SönkeAhrens -
Thank you I. Asimov
Over in my Open + Curious project, I’ve been working intentionally to improve my writing. For Open + Curious the more recent articles all begin with a clear posit (a statement which is made on the assumption that it will prove to be true) and then go on to explain why I believe that to be true; that’s their finished form. I was generally writing each piece, editing it to find and hone a single line of thinking, and then finishing up by crafting the leading posit. Yes, I know, “Craig discovers the essay.”
I’m reading I. Asimov and this advice leapt off the page:
What I do now is think up a problem and a resolution to that problem. I then begin the story, making it up as I go along, having all the excitement of finding out what will happen to the characters and how they will get out of their scrapes, but working steadily toward the known resolution so that I don’t get lost en route.
When asked for advice by beginners, I always stress that. Know your ending, I say, or the river of your story may finally sink into the desert sands and never reach the sea.
~ Isaac Asimovslip:4a1193.
I’ve now written thousands of posts where I’ve led with a quotation from something. I’m forever writing some observation about what I’ve quoted, and then trying to pivot to what I actually want to say. Unfortunately, this style has begun to feel constraining.
Going forward, I’m going to see what happens if I think of what I’m quoting as giving me a direction. This piece starts with my thoughts about my writing for Open + Curious, and then looking “in the direction” of Asimov’s quoted contribution, beyond that I “see” this gibberish about my writing process. Sorry, maybe that’s all too meta? It’s noisy in my head.
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#7ForSunday #IsaacAsimov #Meta #OnWriting #OpenCurious -
Enabling possibility
I feel my title’s use of “enabling” rather than the more common [that I’ve seen] “creating” is important. (Of course, I don’t craft the titles with reckless abandon; There’d be far more, “Wordy werds” and “Completely different” type titles.) But in the past couple weeks I’ve been focused on the distinction between “to create” and “to enable.”
I’ve been sprinkling a Lonely Hearts-inspired call in a few different places as I think it’s time to bring a writer onto the Movers Mindset team. Each time I post it somewhere, it kicks off one or two conversations with someone. Each of those little conversations gives me a chance to refine how I convey my vision for this new role. (As a certain reader would say, how I convey my intention—hi Angie!)
The first thing I realized is that what I am bringing to this potential new relationship is the resources—the raw material that the team has amassed. I don’t in fact know exactly what the new person would be creating. My intention is to enable someone to create something (some things?) from that raw material. I’m not creating the possibility—it’s there already. My hope is to enable that possibility to come to fruition.
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#Intention #MoversMindset #OnWriting -
The process of reflection
Much of the power of the Movers Mindset podcast’s signature question, “three words to describe your practice?” comes from thinking about one’s personal understanding of the word practice. In the podcast episodes, sometimes the guest’s discussion of that understanding is a profound part of their interview. Sometimes their surgical statement of three words is its sublime culmination.
In 2019, we posed the three-words question of the project itself. This turned out to be a surprisingly fruitful exercise. We came up with three words to describe our practice, and I subsequently adopted them as the three words to describe my practice:
Discovery. Reflection. Efficacy.
If those three words describe my practice—the journey of my whole life—then what is the purpose of this web site? Why go through all this work? It’s taken me 9 years and the previous 2,499 posts to understand:
It’s a vehicle for my process of reflection.
I used to think I wrote because there was something I wanted to say. Then I thought, “I will continue to write because I have not yet said what I wanted to say”; but I know now I continue to write because I have not yet heard what I have been listening to.
~ Mary Rueflé from, Madness, Rack, and Honeyɕ
#Apogee #GroupsOf3 #MaryRueflé #Meta #MoversMindset #OnWriting
