How Free Writing Can Help You Find Your Subject

In this post, GrubStreet Instructor Ben Berman models the process of how journaling and free writing can help you figure out the subject beneath your subject.
It’s two in the morning when your five-year-old wakes you up and tells you that her belly is too full to sleep.
Try lying on your left side, you say. But she insists that she is going to be sick.
Ben Berman
Starting from Scratch: Staring Down the Blank Screen

Katrin Schumann asks, what happens when, after a long time writing and editing, you once again find yourself at the beginning of an entirely new project?
Some of you have been writing for a long time, and you likely have a manuscript or two going already. You may be astonished by how long it's taking to get your writing to where you want it to be—and perhaps you're learning about the utterly transformative power of deep editing.
Katrin Schumann
Why Creativity Requires Both Playfulness and Discipline

Inspiration is wonderful, but it doesn't go far on its own. In this post, Grub Instructor Ben Berman explores the push-and-pull of inspiration and productivity.
Whoever said there’s no such thing as a free ride hasn’t met my five-year-old.
Whenever it’s time to walk home from some outing she will start to deflate like a football in New England and will refuse to take another step forward until I hoist her over my head and onto my shoulders so that she can bounce up and down as we walk home, picking leaves off the trees or pretending that she’s …
Ben Berman
Tips on Getting Those Dreaded 'Blurbs' for Your Book

Asking for endorsements from established writers for your upcoming book can be a cringe-worthy endeavor. Katrin Schumann looks at how to do it right.
Does it influence you when a writer you admire endorses a book you're considering buying? For most readers, seeing killer blurbs from known names can make the difference.
Katrin Schumann
Everything Novel: Madeline Miller on Power and Magic in Circe

This month at DeadDarlings, New York Times bestselling author Madeline Miller spoke with author and Novel Incubator graduate Rachel Barenbaum about Miller's latest novel, Circe. The book, which was released by Little, Brown this year, traces Circe’s life from her childhood in Helios’ halls where she meets
Most of our readers are writers—and …