"All first drafts are horrible" is a pacifying thought. If read from a certain angle, it almost looks like the first draft **should** be horrible. Maybe this thought started the idea that one should write the first draft quickly and carelessly. "You can always rewrite it later."
They don't build houses this way, do they?

#OnWriting #WritingCommunity #fiction

Recommended Reading List: March 2026

Technically, the first thing I finished reading was Anton Chekov’s The Seagull for my theatre history class. I’d read both the play and the short story the first time I was in college 100,000 years ago, and didn’t like them then. I decided to give the dang thing a chance again. Still didn’t like it, […]…
https://kriswrites.com/2026/04/04/recommended-reading-list-march-2026/

#freenonfiction #OnWriting #Plays #RecommendedReading #AllyCarter

Have you noticed that regardless of how good a draft looks, if it brews for at least 24 hours, you'll find parts to improve?
And the process has no endpoint. It seems like the trick is to let it brew for some time, but to still mark it as finished after a few iterations.

#OnWriting #AmWriting #ContentArchitecture #draft #editing #writing

Cover Art

On my Patreon page, I’ve been putting up free posts about the new and improved cover art that we’re doing at WMG. You can find a number of posts, but I thought I’d share this one with you here. (I’ll be sharing the occasional Patreon post throughout 2026 and maybe beyond.) You can sign up […]…
https://kriswrites.com/2026/03/08/business-musings-cover-art/

#BusinessMusings #freenonfiction #OnWriting #ScienceFiction #SpaceOpera

Get A Small Mountain of Science Fiction…

…in the brand-new Kickstarter that just launched. It features my bestselling novel, Alien Influences, which The New York Times calls “a well conceived, well executed novel,” my award-winning novella, Broken Windchimes, and a brand-new collection of my science fiction stories, called Strange People, Stranger Places. In addition, you can get all 28 Diving books in ebook format or more […]…
https://kriswrites.com/2026/03/03/get-a-small-mountain-of-science-fiction/

#DivingIntoTheWreck #NewReleases #OnWriting #ScienceFiction #SpaceOpera

On Writing with Laura Hilliger

Last week I did my first “On Writing” chat of 2026 with gym teacher/blogger Laura Hilliger. Laura and I have been circling each other on the web for a long while, and her fun Reclaim Open submission “My Website is a Junk Drawer” had a really wonderful conceit about how she imagines her online presence. I spent some time reading through Laura’s site, and you should too. She has an incisive and […]

https://bavatuesdays.com/on-writing-with-laura-hilliger/

#bavatuesdays