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Original image via RUN 4 FFWPU

First, we need to define terms. We talk about goals in every aspect of our lives—business, education, personal growth, hobbies, health, fitness, etc. We call them milestones, benchmarks, projections, objectives, and targets. If we make them at the beginning of a year, we call them resolutions, and nobody really expects us to stick to them. But what are they really?

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Social media. We hate it, but as writers, we have an excuse: “It’s part of the gig!”

For us, it’s NECESSARY! All the hate, the stupid arguments, all the politics, all the getting angry at celebrities we don’t even really know for doing things we don’t understand...it’s all part of the game, right?

Somehow, we’re all just trapped in this fucking dystopian nightmare where writing down stories also involves shit like Snapchat filters and TikTok stardom?

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Science is a tool writers use to make their characters trustworthy and their stories believable. Science fills in the gaps. Science ties our world to new, fictional worlds.

Science is an overused tool in fiction.

What Faith Is

Here's the briefest version I could come up with to show the difference between the use of faith and science in fiction:

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If you’ve been following this column and my teachings, then you know I talk a lot about Freytag as a guiding force in my work. That’s one structure, one path forward, and it works for me. You know—the narrative hook, the inciting incident, exposition, increasing tension, internal and external conflict, leading to a climax, resolution (with change), and denouement.

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Trello is an online organizational tool for individuals, teams, and businesses. There is a free version and then a paid version with lots of bells and whistles. The free version has everything I need for now. There are a number of tutorial videos you can find on YouTube about general features and applications for team projects in a corporate setting. I’m going to focus on how I use Trello for myself as an author.

Getting started is as easy as going to Trello.com and signing up. But how do you use it?