Frank M. Anderson's Writing

Tag: Writing Tips

  • Big news incoming.

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    Things have been brewing quickly in the mad scientist’s lab of my brain, and the results are almost ready to escape into the world. How soon? Weeks, not months. Here’s what’s going on. Trying to Be Good Trying to Be Good is a small, quiet book.It isn’t a memoir in the traditional sense, and it…

  • Wolf Wounds Update #4 — Building the Full Outline

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    Today I want to walk through the exact process I used to turn Wolf Wounds from a loose idea into a full structural outline. It started, as most of my books do, with a call-and-response session between me and the AI — a creative volley where I push, it pushes back, and together we find…

  • Wolf Wounds — Update 3

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    How I Actually Build a Story With AI (The Real Process)** Dec 6, 2025 Every book teaches me something different, and Wolf Wounds is teaching me how to trust the process more than the hype. I’m not trying to “make content.” I’m trying to build something honest that feels alive. So this update isn’t about…

  • From Salinger to Patterson: The Strange Arc of a Writer’s Success

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    What does a writer owe the reader—and what does success do to that promise? A writer once told me he wouldn’t write a single word unless he was certain it would be published one day. I thought he was mad. Not because I didn’t understand the hunger. I did. But because to me, writing was…

  • Yes, You’ll Be Okay. But It’s Going to Suck.

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    On writing, connection, and the uneasy truth no one wants to say out loud. There’s a temptation to romanticize the past—to imagine that being a writer in the days of Poe or Dickens carried some noble simplicity. Fewer voices, clearer paths, iconic serials in local papers, and time to brood over candlelight with quill in…

  • Evolution of an Idea: The AI Process I Use

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    📚 Designing the Cover of Empire, Nevada Creating the cover for Empire, Nevada was its own journey — just like the story inside. I didn’t want something generic. I wanted the cover to feel like the book — lonely, strange, nostalgic, and a little haunted. It started with a rough concept: a desert town vanishing…

  • How to Try to Write a Novel

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    No, this isn’t a blog post on the ins and outs of writing a novel and publishing it. This is, however, a post on preparing yourself to attempt writing a novel and setting yourself up with a story you can actually write about until completing. I will post more on the process of writing and…