Don’t let that mustang run away with your story — We’ve all been there: You’re in the thrall of inspiration, fingers whirring away, an idea comes to you, another one, oh man another one about a giant squid in a spaceship with tulips sprouting from its ears — Before you know it, your plot looks worse than a bowl of…

Turn every victory into a stepping stone. — It took me seventeen years as a freelancer to learn what is probably Freelancing 101 for most people. Or maybe it isn’t, which is why I’m laying it out here. Success knocked at my door, and it came smelling of roses. Last year, everything changed for me. Success knocked at…

Trying to stay calm, baby due any moment now — Our baby will be born any day now. The official due date was March 12, although we’ve been anticipating labor for the last three weeks. Germany’s COVID-19 cases spiked around February 27. I have to go shopping today. I’ve been avoiding it for days, but there’s no denying the fridge…

My poor mother — I was five or six years old, holding the Christmas tree lights cable in my hands. “Get back from that Christmas tree, Paulo!” my poor mother yelled, terrified. We had been to this rodeo before. She laughed nervously. “Yes, yes,” she said to my aunt. “He shocked himself just the…

Hidden gems and open secrets — I haven’t been to Lisbon in over a year, and I am melancholic with saudades — a mostly untranslatable Portuguese word encompassing sorrow, nostalgia, and the essence of what it means to be Portuguese. I took a seventeen-day trip there in 2016 and walked my feet off, researching a novel…

Memories of a childhood road, and working through change — I will forever associate the uphill, cobblestoned walk of the Rua dos Pescadores thoroughfare in Costa da Caparica, Portugal, with the rich scent of grilling chouriço, the fresh aroma of creamy Caldo Verde soup, and the whiff of the ocean waiting for me just over the hill’s summit. Leather-skinned street…

Lisbon owes much of its tourism today to her — It reads like a typical chapter of Portuguese history — by which I mean it reads like a melodramatic soap opera replete with intrigue, betrayal, the good guys being duped, and the bad guys walking off with…

Racing down the highway of creativity with no more obstacles on the road. — Between 2013 and 2016 I published over a million words of fiction and wrote over thirty books. I received fan mail, garnered hundreds of five-star ratings and dozens of glowing reviews. I earned some money and was having a ball as a writer. Then it all came crashing down. The…

Reminding myself what it means to be a good father and a good husband — Dear baby girl, I shouldn’t be writing this. I should be writing you an email instead. I’ve been telling you in the last ten mails that I’ll write more often, that I’m taking notes and I’ll catch them all up one of these days. But you’re progressing so fast that…