This is the first post in a series on making the most of writing advice without getting overwhelmed. We’re starting with two principles for putting writing advice into perspective: consider the source and remember that everyone’s process is different.

Image: Burne-Jones, Edward Coley, 1833-1898, Greenwell, Dora, 1821-1882, and Dalziel Brothers. A Young Woman Is Leaning against a Wall Reading a Book as Snowflakes Fall. Wellcome Collection. https://jstor.org/stable/community.24885859.

Cutaway Sketch of 200″ Telescope and Dome. 1938. https://jstor.org/stable/community.30991769.

I love cutaway drawings, especially of buildings. This post is a gallery of public domain cutaway drawings, mostly from Wikimedia Commons, followed by a short list of cutaway books to check out.

What’s more satisfying than a list? A list of lists! What’s more fun than a list of lists? A list of lists of writing rules!

Image: Rorschach, Hermann. Rorschach Inkblot Test, Bern Switzerland, 1942. Science Museum Group Collection. Open: Science Museum Group. Artstor. https://jstor.org/stable/community.38358143.

I can't draw—I have no training and less talent—but I made a mini-zine of some of my drawings, anyway! This post has a free pdf of my zine and a roundup of resources on zines and zine making.

A gallery of fall flower portraits for a winter’s day.

Image: Ann Cooper, 2025, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

A roundup of resources to help creators and users of media of all sorts navigate licensing and copyright issues.

Image: Lachenal and Favre Glass Stereoscopic Photographs Collection. Williams College Visual Resources Center. https://jstor.org/stable/community.16225604.

November! It used to be NaNoWriMo for writers all over the world. For years I told myself that next year, I’d do it, but I never did. The problem wasn’t time; at least, it wasn’t after I left my work as a history professor. It was confidence.

A gallery of images of liminal spaces.

Image: Small, William F., Long, Robert Cary, Jr. and Phillips, William B. (American builder and bricklayer, born ca. 1790). Western State Hospital. 1828. https://jstor.org/stable/community.2059536. CC Attribution.

Welcome, and thanks for being here! This is a burst of firsts: first blog post, first website, first time seriously trying to launch my own business. My goal with this blog is to collect useful resources for writers and talk about what I'm writing and my experience of the writing process.