N.L. LaFoille

I'm reading Ryan Holiday's The Obstacle is The Way . (And of course applying it to my own life as I send out queries to literary agents in hopes of getting my novel published.) It's not as engaging as his book  Ego is the Enemy , which literally made me cry, but still thought-provoking. It speaks of the obstacles, the roadblocks, the problems we all face when we have a goal we're striving toward. The tagline: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph. Some people have overcome seemingly insurmountable odds to achieve extraordinary feats, such as General Grant in the Civil War and of course Thomas Edison testing six thousand filaments to invent the light bulb. We're not shooting for such grand heights as reuniting the United States of America (even if it needs it right now) but we all have obstacles and goals too. My goal is to make a living as an author. The self-published route to that hasn't been panning out, so I've returned to the traditional...

We love fiction; it transports us to exciting worlds with exciting people, whether we’re taking an epic journey across another universe or navigating a family crisis. I’m a voracious fiction reader. I write fiction, I adore fanfiction; any kind of fiction, count me in. But if I’m being honest, the most beneficial reading I do is non-fiction. In my naïve egotistical years, I used to make a lemon face when talking about non-fiction; it always brought to mind a washed-out navy blue cover with Papyrus font and a Shutterstock image that would be dry as a day-old cracker to slog through. What do I want to read non-fiction for? I live in the real world every day and it sucks; take me to Middle Earth. I didn’t understand then. Non-fiction makes me a better writer. Non-fiction is research, it’s expanding your boundaries and horizons. I recently read a book on bodybuilding. I have no particular interest in bodybuilding; I’m 120 pounds with rocks in my pockets, but in the future if...