So you’ve written a novel, or a story, or a comic, and you want to turn that into a career. What do you do now?

First, you need to assess your mental state. Are you strong enough to handle people seeing it? Commenting upon it? Critiquing it?

If not, don’t worry. Fear is a normal reaction. Listen to it, query it, figure out what you’re afraid of. You might need professional help here, or just a good friend that won’t hurt you.

But let’s assume that you have built up a thick skin. You can handle it. What then? (more…)

I had fears. Big fears. Soul-crushing fears.

Let me give you an example. In 2003, I was a semi-finalist in the Writers of the Future contest. I’d sent in my story (which, BTW, predicted Bluetooth headsets 15 years before they became a thing) after months of sleepless nights and fearing what would happen.

I finished in the top 10, but I didn’t win.

Every quarter, WotF receives some 4 000 entries. My story was in the top-10 of those entries. The top 0,25%. It was judged to be better than 99,75% of all stories submitted that quarter.

But I didn’t win. (more…)

Making plans to change, and New Year’s Eve resolutions, is easy. Making them stick, is not.

However, it is simple – once you understand the science behind habit forming. Here’s Kruzgesagt with a wonderful primer on becoming the best you you can be.

Veritasium says it all. The key 3 points of how to make New Year’s resolutions that stick:

• Keep it small
• Write it down
• Adapt your environment, not yourself

See the entire thing here:

Another Seth Godin post, because the man’s an underappreciated marketing and business genius.

When making a choice between two options, only consider what’s going to happen in the future, not which investments you’ve made in the past. The past investments are over, lost, gone forever. They are irrelevant to the future.

Sunk costs are the number one reason for inertia, for failing as a company. You’ve invested so much money, prestige, emotions into something that you can’t change course.

You’re stuck in the past, rather than considering the future. You’re working with old paradigms, trying to get your foot in the door at a Big 5 publishing house when you could just as well go indie, or go with small genre publisher, or share your writings for free and earn money from supporters.

There are thousands of options. Don’t be the one who holds onto hard-won knowledge that’s become outdated!

And read Seth’s take on sunk costs.

So you’re finally going to start writing that novel. But there is a problem. You don’t know how to craft the perfect first sentence.

But you’ve found a book that talks about this. That’s good. However, it’s going to be two week’s delivery. That’s bad.

But you’ve found it in a second hand shop two towns over. You can get it today. That’s good. Except that your car has summer tires, and it’s a bit snowy outside. That’s bad. (more…)

It only takes 4 things to become an expert:

1. A valid environment
2. Many repetitions
3. Timely feedback
4. Deliberate practice

And I bet that you don’t correctly understand at least one of them… Check out the explanation by Veritasium:

I don’t usually plug email spam, but this you’ve got to see.

James Clear, writer of Atomic Habits, has a weekly newsletter where he delivers 3 quotes from himself, 2 quotes from others, and 1 inspiring, actionable question.

The quotes are all short, to the point, and, quite frankly, great. The question usually has me thinking about how I can improve my life.

Here are some examples: (more…)

Sometimes, you can’t do squat.

Like me. In the spring, I burned out. I’d planned to break the quarter-million-words mark, even hoping to reach half-a-million. I’d managed 235 000 the year before, in basically six months, I was writing at speed, planning a Kickstarter for my series, bright future ahead. And then, BAM!

Burnout. (more…)

An acquaintance asked me about life, and more specifically how to handle that life is inherently meaningless.

Well, I said, “Meaning” is what you make it. (more…)