• Blog

    A (Not So Happy) Hiatus

    Happy Writer is going on hiatus for the next little while. There won’t be a new post tomorrow, and I’ve unscheduled the posts that were coming up for the next week. As you might know, I live in Southwest Florida, which is currently in the path of Hurricane Irma. We’ve evacuated from Fort Myers, where the hurricane is potentially making landfall, but were only able to get up to my sister’s house in Sarasota — still in the hurricane’s path. Irma should be weaker by the time she reaches us up here, and my sister is at a good elevation. We should be fine.

    Just in case, though, I thought I would put this blog on a hiatus, since I will probably lose power and wouldn’t be able to respond to comments or promote tomorrow’s post.

    Happy thoughts, guys. I’ll update as soon as the storm has passed.

  • For Writers

    5 Things Harry Potter Taught Me About Writing

    We all have those books that make us write better. The books we turn to when our creativity tank is running on fumes. The books that make us want to write. The books that made us feel like writing was possible.

    I wanted to share five writing lessons I’ve learned from one of my favorite book series, Harry Potter. JKR’s fantasy series is lusciously liberal with description and teeming over with amazing characters; it’s no wonder that this is a book series that readers return to time and time again. Can writers learn something from JKR’s crafting of the Wizarding World? What are some of the elements of Harry Potter that make it so inherently, and insatiably, readable?