How to Know When Your Writing is Good or Sucks

by juliehartig | Jul, 2024 | Writing Life and Craft | Process, Practice and Making Stories

Note: Updated January 2026 How do you know if your story is any good? How do you know if you’re writing sucks? These questions haunt me. Constantly. My concerns go beyond imposter syndrome. Given the importance and the responsibility I feel in sharing Hope and...

Bliss, Struggles, and Epiphanies: My Two Years in Writing

by juliehartig | Jun, 2024 | Writing Life and Craft | Process, Practice and Making Stories

Honeymoon Phase: Falling in Love with Writing The first five months of my writing journey were a time of blissful ignorance. I was consumed by the joy of developing a writing habit, sweating out 3000 words per week of my initial book draft, and wholly immersed in the...

How Do You Know When You’re Making Forward Progress

by juliehartig | Feb, 2024 | Writing Life and Craft | Process, Practice and Making Stories

A Tale of Two Teams While working for a mid-sized company, the engineering group took part in a half-day team-building workshop. The organizers divided us into two groups and presented us with a survival challenge. Each group had an hour first to decide if they would...

Fear, Flight, Hope – The Creation of a Short Story

by juliehartig | Jan, 2024 | Writing Life and Craft | Process, Practice and Making Stories

Story synopsis: In a dystopian America, where a radical party and a rising despot have taken over the government, Grace embarks on a perilous journey to escape her homeland before the government seals off its borders. Her path collides with a young girl brought...

Embracing Light, Shadow, and Darkness to Create Interesting Stories

by juliehartig | Nov, 2023 | Writing Life and Craft | Process, Practice and Making Stories

During the Balloon Fiesta, Albuquerque experienced the added treat of a solar eclipse. I found special delight in observing the eclipse through the leaves of a tree, its light and dark shapes interlacing together and continually changing. I always believed beauty...

Book Cover: Inspiration from Van Gogh’s Art and Life

by juliehartig | Oct, 2023 | Writing Life and Craft | Process, Practice and Making Stories

As I prepared to share my first drafts, I felt an overwhelming urge to include a book cover. Maybe it was procrastination, or an attempt to add a professional flourish to compensate for my uncertainty in the writing, but I believe books should be a feast for our eyes....