Fight scenes are notoriously tricky to write — or at least, most writers find them so. Why?

Because everything within a fight scene is heightened. The stakes are sky high, emotions and adrenaline are raging, and the action plays out in rapid-fire sequences not found anywhere else in literature. Translating all of this onto the page while balancing the pace of the scene and pushing readers’ to the edges of their seats is no easy task.

But here’s the good news: no matter whether you’re writing a sword fight, a bar room brawl, a sniper mission gone wrong, or a duel between magicians, today I have eight actionable tips to guide you in crafting a truly epic fight scene. Shall we dive in?

Sitting down to write isn’t always easy.

When creative work proves difficult, many writers turn to goal-setting to motivate themselves to action, only to experience shame and frustration as they fail to fulfill their goals. Sound familiar? You aren’t alone.

Goal-setting often proves an ineffective productivity hack for one simple reason: a goal is an aim; not an action plan.

Are you tired of struggling to sit down and write? You aren’t alone.

This phenomenon is so common that jokes about writing procrastination abound around the internet. But why is it so hard to put pen to paper when you desperately long to write? The answer to this is deceptively simple: because writing isn’t easy — and neither is drumming up the motivation to complete difficult creative work.

Sure, it’s easy to throw yourself onto the blank page when you’re running on the high of inspiration, when you’ve dreamed up an exciting new scene or a story idea you can’t wait to explore. But inspiration doesn’t last forever. Eventually, the muse departs and you’re left with an unfinished manuscript you’re struggling to find the motivation to finish.

This reality doesn’t mean you’ve lost passion for your project. Writing simply isn’t all sunshine and rainbows at all times, and that’s okay. There’s a reason so many writers profess to love having written more than the act of writing itself. If your story idea still energizes and excites you, it’s worth finding a way to complete the difficult creative work to finish it.

And when inspiration wanes, that way can be found in habit.

French author Honore de Balzac once wrote, “When you doubt your power, you give power to your doubt.”

I find this quote to be incredibly powerful in and of itself because it recognizes a key misstep taken in much of the advice surrounding the phenomenon of self-doubt. Rather than being an obstacle to overcome or an enemy to defeat, doubt is simply the reality of a choice: will I place faith in myself or will I place faith in my fear?

The truly wild reality is that neither of these options is wrong, so long as you’re choosing the best option for you. Like doubt, fear is not the enemy. It’s the reality of risk. But what does this all mean for your writing life? How can you move forward when doubt has kept you trapped in stagnation for days, weeks, months, or even years on end? Read on, writer. We’re about to dig in.

Has your writing life dwindled to near non-existence? You aren’t alone, writer.

Making time to write is one thing, but you aren’t simply struggling to juggle your calendar. You seem to have fallen out of love with writing altogether. It’s not that you don’t want to write in a big-picture sense. Sharing your stories with the world has always been a dream of yours. You’ve simply lost all desire to manifest those stories in your everyday writing life.

Is this some sort of writer’s block, then? A failure to overcome procrastination? A sign that writing isn’t right for you? Nonsense. It’s time we had a chat about creative passion, writer — and more importantly, how to rediscover it for yourself.

I’ve often said that consistency is key to writing success.

There are other keys, of course: passion, patience, persistence, a willingness to learn. But when it comes to building a life-long writing habit that brings creative fulfillment, consistency is king. Why, then, does is often prove so difficult to get our butts in our chairs and our fingers on the keys?

Today, let’s talk about the phenomenon of resistance and how we can leverage our unique personalities and processes to overcome it!

Frustrated with your productivity as a writer?

Whether you’re struggling to find the time to write or failing to utilize the time you already have, today I’m going to share a few tips to help you level up the hours you spend creating. I won’t say these tips are universal, but I do think you’ll find them helpful. So whether you’re a newbie, an established writer, or a published author, let’s talk about maximizing the time we have to bring our stories to life!

Building a consistent creative practice is key to achieving our writing goals.

But with all the chaos of life, establishing a writing routine is often far from easy. With a scarcity of time, energy, and motivation alike, it’s easy to guilt ourselves for skipping writing sessions or outputting uninspired work. But rather than give into creative blues, how can we build writing routines that leave us feeling free? Let’s break down my top tips in today’s article, writers!

“Real writers write every day.”

Unfortunately, that’s a sentiment you’ll often hear in the writing world, and for a time, I subscribed to it myself. And while I still maintain a daily writing routine, I regret the days I spent telling other writers they should to do the same.

Every writer’s process is unique, and what works for one—or even many—isn’t guaranteed to work for you. And that’s okay! The important thing is to find the writing techniques that work best with your time, your skills, and your stories. Unsure if a daily writing routine would be a good fit for your writing process?

Allow me to share the pros and cons of my own experience with a daily writing routine today!

Every writer has doubts. Fears. Insecurities.

But in a world where we share the very best version of ourselves online, the version we want others to see, it can be difficult to remember that the writers we follow on social media aren't perfect. Not even the bestselling ones.

I'm certainly no exception to this reality. I have a bevy of insecurities that often weigh down my writing life, but I'm tired of letting the pressure to live up to other writers' online highlight reels dictate my confidence in my writing.

Insecurities are normal, and they don't have to keep you from living your very best writing life. That's why I'm sharing my own writing insecurities today! Check them out in the video below or scroll to view them in text.

Back in the summer of 2016, I wrote a very personal article for the blog.

In it, I revealed that I battle depression and shared tips on how to write while living with a mental illness. I never could have imagined how much of an impact that article would have. It's one of the biggest reasons why I want to talk more about writerly self-care on the blog this year!

As writers, our work is so mentally and emotionally draining. It’s not hard to fall into periods of burnout or extreme doubt, which, being so difficult to overcome, can prolong our writing ruts even further and leave us feeling defeated.

This is not a pattern I want you guys to fall into, which is exactly why I want to share ten ways you can learn to care for yourself as a writer today on the blog. Sound like a plan?

Let’s dive in!

Every week, on Wednesdays at 9pm Eastern, I host a Twitter chat called #StorySocial.

I co-founded this chat back in June 2014 with my friend and fellow author Jenny Bravo, and it’s been an amazing way to connect with writers worldwide ever since. The #StorySocial crowd has become a tight-knit group over the years, though we always love having new writers join us (hint, hint!). But I digress...

In all our weeks of chatting, I don't think we've ever had such strong feedback as we did a few weeks ago, when our topic for the night was Writers’ Mission Statements. Several chatters even went so far as to call it their favorite discussion yet. For that reason, I thought it’d be a great idea to cover this topic in full here on the blog. Sound like a plan?