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From the Journal
Notes, essays, and field reports from the craft desk.
A magazine-style index of long-form writing on language, editorial control, and practical AI use for serious writers.
Back to HomeMay 22, 2026
Compost the Slop and Grow Something New
A craft reflection on first drafts, AI collaboration, and the writer's responsibility to compost weak language into meaningful prose.
May 20, 2026
Go to the Museum Before You Explain the Scene.
Train your eye at the museum: placement, gaze, gesture, object, and absence as scene craft—with seven artwork studies, field exercises, and bounded AI prompts.
May 16, 2026
The Ghost in the Style Machine
If AI can learn a writer's style, what remains of voice? A craft-first argument for defining voice as consequence, not just sound.
May 3, 2026
Twelve Magazines to Keep on the Fiction Writer’s Desk
A fiction writer’s reading shelf: twelve literary magazines and a practical framework for studying contemporary craft without imitation.
April 28, 2026
Disclosure Without Panic.
How to talk about AI use like a professional writer: plainly, proportionally, and without turning your process into a confession booth.
April 26, 2026
Let Huxe Read the Room Before You Enter It.
A writer-focused guide to using Huxe as an audio research and pattern-detection tool without losing craft judgment or creative agency.
April 25, 2026
AI Is Not Your Muse. It Is Your Tuning Fork.
A craft-first guide for poets on using AI as a revision instrument: pattern detection, line-pressure diagnostics, and decision-forcing exercises.
March 15, 2026
20 Plays Writers Should Read for Craft Mastery
An annotated cross-era reading list of 20 plays writers should study to sharpen scene design, dialogue, structure, and dramatic pressure.
March 9, 2026
AI Has a Research Brain.
A writer-focused guide to Deep Research in ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and NotebookLM—including where these tools fail and how to verify what matters.
March 5, 2026
Train It On Your Best Work.
Build a personal style document that calibrates AI feedback to your own voice instead of generic prose norms.
March 3, 2026
Two Readers, One Scene.
Run one scene through a developmental editor and a resistant first reader to separate objective revision problems from strategic craft choices.
March 2, 2026
Reading AI Feedback Like a Writer.
An AI response is not a verdict. Learn a practical system for sorting signal from noise, pushing back well, and revising with clear decisions.
March 1, 2026
The Scene on the Table.
A complete, step-by-step walkthrough of how to take a stuck scene into an AI revision session — from the first brief to the final decision about what to keep.
February 28, 2026
When Your Character Stops Moving.
Every writer hits the wall where a character stops feeling like a person and starts feeling like a function. Five prompts to break them open again and out of cliché.
February 27, 2026
AI Has a Desk, Not a Filing Cabinet.
Every revision session with AI begins from scratch. Understanding the context window helps long-form writers design better, focused editing sessions.
February 26, 2026
Don't Let It Sand You Down.
AI feedback often pushes prose toward the statistical average—here's how to preserve the stylistic fingerprints that make your voice yours.
February 25, 2026
Talk to It Like an Editor.
Prompting and context engineering can turn generic AI feedback into precise, revision-ready editorial insight.
February 24, 2026
The Machine That Guesses — Brilliantly.
An AI doesn't know what it's going to say next—it predicts it. Understanding that one fact changes everything about how you work with these tools.
February 23, 2026
AI Doesn't Read. It Eats.
Before you hand your prose to an AI, there's one thing you need to know about how it actually reads your words.