by Derek Murphy | Apr 26, 2025 | Craft
Some of the best writing happens when you’re not writing. You step away from the desk, fully intending to come back in ten minutes, and suddenly you’re washing dishes, reorganizing your bookshelves, scrolling through obscure Wikipedia pages. Hours pass, and you tell...
by Derek Murphy | Apr 26, 2025 | Craft
Writers swear their characters aren’t based on them. They insist that the brooding detective, the ambitious young artist, the isolated scholar—none of them are self-inserts. They’re just characters. Made up. Fictional. And yet… something familiar lingers in them. A...
by Derek Murphy | Apr 26, 2025 | Craft
Some desks feel different. You sit down, and something shifts. The mind clears. The words come faster, easier. It’s not just a piece of furniture—it’s a place where books are born, where stories take shape, where thoughts crystallize into something real. For many...
by Derek Murphy | Apr 26, 2025 | Craft
Some writers won’t start without a specific pen. Or a certain notebook. Or a ring they twist on their finger between sentences. They swear by these objects—not just as tools, but as something more. A charm. A key. A physical tether to creativity itself. It sounds...
by Derek Murphy | Apr 26, 2025 | Craft
Some writers feel different when they write under a pen name. The words come easier. The style shifts. The voice feels like it belongs to someone else. This isn’t just about privacy or marketing. Some authors report that switching to a different name actually changes...
by Derek Murphy | Apr 26, 2025 | Craft
Fairy tales are everywhere. We tell them to children, reimagine them in books and movies, reference them in everyday life. But the oldest fairy tales—the ones that came long before Disney, before the Brothers Grimm, before they were ever written down—weren’t just...
