Crimes Against Fiction Blog

my thoughts on how Ai will affect the fiction market

We’ve all been hearing a lot lately about how AI will either change our entire way of life or, in the worst-case scenario, how it might wipe out the human race entirely. So what does this mean for us as fiction writers?

ARTISTIC FAILURE: MY THOUGHTS ON GEORGE R.R. MARTIN

I finally came up with a mental trick that motivated me to keep writing—and not just to keep writing. I doubled my output, finished multiple unfinished series, and launched several more. What was this mental hack, you ask? George RR Martin.

forgive & forget? I think not.

Don’t ever tell someone or even encourage them to forgive the wrongs of the past. That could be the worst thing they could do.

where judaism and I part ways

I met my children’s father and we got married in the orthodox Jewish community. We lived the orthodox life for many years. So what went wrong?

how I started writing

Do not ever let anyone tell you that you can't make a living as an artist. I am living proof that you can.

I'm a woman. How do I write Male POV?

In fiction as in life, so much depends on empathizing with another person, putting ourselves in their position, and understanding the world and the situation from their point of view.

how do I write so much

I'm not a freak of nature. I just have a unique combination of job skills that allow me to write more in a week than most people write in a year. How do I do it?

my advice to writers

So you want to become a professional author/writer. How do you do it?

Fiction done right: ShotCaller: A Masterpiece of modern cinematic storytelling

A murderous, sadistic psychopath doesn’t become an anti-hero simply by being the main point-of-view character in the storyline. A true anti-hero is someone who does everything wrong in the eyes of society and still comes off as heroic.

Discipline Isn't a Thing

If you rely on discipline or willpower to accomplish anything, you are going to fail.

The most arrogant writer who has ever lived

It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

What makes a character heroic?

Both men and women struggle to contain strong emotions and to continue to function in spite of overwhelming circumstances that cause strong emotions. Both men and women struggle between the desire to ask for help and the desire to appear strong enough not to need to ask for help.

Read Morn

the right & wrong way to create characters

A normal person is someone you don't know very well. How does creating fictional characters differ from meeting someone in real life? Short answer: it doesn't.

revisiting ai in the fiction market

Ask yourself one question. Why do you need to use AI at all?

how to make your reader hate your characters

Every character is a portrait of the writer. Characters give us a clear window into exactly what is going on inside the writer's heads and it isn’t pretty.

you control everything in life

May God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Everything in life is cumulative

Everything we do in life has consequences, either good or bad. Nothing we do happens in a vacuum.

All relationships are transactional

We should make our relationships more transactional, not less so.

The selfish gene isn't a thing

No man is an island. Another person’s suffering injures and detracts from me. This is why we get such a massive boost to our mental health when we help others.

The state of E-publishing today

A lot of people nowadays think the rise of e-publishing is destroying the publishing industry. I don’t agree—and today I’m going to tell you why.

Critique of Jocko Willink's Extreme Ownership

It’s foolish—even pathological—to hold ourselves responsible for things we can’t control.

why skynet will never take over the world

We are one power outage away from AI being a total non-issue

How to Say No

This trick works every time.

Things that don't belong in a Book

This is one of the biggest problems we see in the fiction world.

The importance of routines

Remove as much uncertainty, doubt, and insecurity from your life as possible.

The Cycle of Improvement & Decay

None of us wants to stay trapped in a same pattern of self-destructive negativity for the rest of our lives—so how do we get out of it?

What men and women really want

There’s a wider flame war raging between men and women where neither side feels that the other is providing what each one truly needs.

Faith Isn't a Thing

You cannot tell someone who doesn’t believe in God that they have to have faith in order to believe in God. This is a circular argument.

Suicide is the Coward's Way

I’m the surviving daughter of a father who committed suicide. I’ve also spent many years suicidally depressed, so trust me, I know what I’m talking about.