How to Procrastinate in Writing (the Right Way): Procrastinate Efficiently to Put More Words on the Page Every Day

The best advice for writer’s block is accommodating procrastination in your writing process. Procrastination. In writing, the word alone likely terrifies you. In person, it can be a writer’s greatest enemy, stunting them from producing their work in a timely manner. It can feel debilitating, paralyzing, sometimes even humiliating. It’s likely you’ve come here to [...]

Writers Talking Writing: Creative Writing Advice from Questlove

Last year, I had the pleasure of listening to several audiobooks from some amazing writers, several of who provided excellent creative writing advice. In today’s blog, I want to highlight some of the best creative writing tips and techniques from the book Creative Quest, by the very talented Questlove. Why is Creativity Important? According to Questlove It [...]

Editor’s Pick: Top Books Read in 2023

The SRD Editor's Pick: Top Books Read in 2023 Welcome back for the second year of the SRD Editor’s pick of top books read this year! (Check out the 2022 list here.) As a refresher, I love tracking my audiobook listens and physical book reading via Goodreads (let’s connect!), and I typically get my materials [...]

1 Year with EFA: Editor Training on Sensitivity

July 1 is the first anniversary of SRD Editing Services' membership in the Editorial Freelancers Association. In the past year, editor Cortni Merritt has taken some awesome editor training and webinar sessions provided by the EFA, and we wanted to tell you a bit more about what's going on behind-the-scenes and in-front-of-the-screens at SRD Editing [...]

Tool for Children’s Book Writers (& Parents!): Accelerated Reader Bookfinder

For more than 20 years, the Accelerated Reader (AR) program has been helping kids read children's books they enjoy, at their own pace. Readers of all levels can choose an AR book, read their way through it, then take a computerized quiz to assess their understanding and sometimes earn class credit.  Educators across the US [...]

Creative Writing Tips: How to Watch Movies to Improve Your Storytelling

Sometimes, you just want to watch a movie for the fun of it. Sometimes, you want to watch a movie and learn from it. Specifically, if you want to spend some time enhancing your own creative writing skills by watching movies, I think there are a few ways that can be done. Now of course, movies aren't [...]

Random Writer Tool: 200 Years of Illustrated Women’s Fashion (Historical Fiction)

Random Writer Tools: Fashion in Historical Fiction Writers of historical fiction: rejoice! As a writer, you never know what kind of random tools that you find online will come in handy, and this article from the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art ("the Met") is one such example! A team of researchers painstakingly reviewed fashion [...]

On Being a Lifelong Book Collector

I went book shopping yesterday. I don’t know why I picked up anything. I already had 130 books on my TBR list, three of which were recent arrivals via my boyfriend that I wanted to check out. And I already had six or seven that I have been sitting around various places in the house, […]

How to Outline Your Novel or Nonfiction Book

In my years as a developmental editor, ghostwriter, and book reviewer, I've come across a few tricks to breaking down a good story, and a few tips for assembling one. Maybe you've been told before how to outline your novel or nonfiction book, but hopefully this blog will have some new information for you. In [...]