September 22, 2025 – Edition No. 2
Here’s the deal: writing is hard enough without wading through another “10 Tips to Hack Your Productivity” list written by someone who hasn’t touched a blank page in years. The Cole Mine is different.
Every issue, I’ll hand you two things:
Two Sharp Tools: Apps, hacks, and strategies that actually make writing easier, faster, and better. No snake oil. No guru-speak. Just practical stuff that works.
A Deep Cut: An unfiltered look behind the curtain at ColePress: bonus material, process breakdowns, drafts that didn’t make the cut, and the occasional moment of chaos that somehow turns into progress.
If you like shortcuts, inside scoops, and the occasional pro wrestling reference, you’re in the right place. Strap in…we’re going deep.
2 SHARP TOOLS.
This is where I hand over some of the weapons in my writing arsenal. Think of it as contraband from the Cole Mine: software, hacks, and sneaky shortcuts I actually use to carve through drafts without losing my mind (or my deadline).
Epistrophe: The Secret Sauce for Memorable Lines
Ever read a line that hits like a finishing move and somehow sticks in your head all day? Odds are, epistrophe was doing the heavy lifting.
What is it?
Epistrophe is the repetition of a word or phrase at the end of successive clauses or sentences. It’s the rhetorical cousin of an echo chamber… in a good way.
Here’s why it’s magic:
- It sounds intentional. When you repeat the same ending, it gives your writing rhythm, emphasis, and authority.
- It creates momentum. You build power with every repetition, like revving an engine before you pop the clutch.
- It leaves a mark. Want your reader to remember something? Say it again. Say it at the end. Then say it again.
Examples (and yes, you’ve probably heard these before):
- “Government of the people, by the people, for the people.”
- “…that we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields…”
- “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child.”
How I use it:
When I’m wrapping a section and want it to land, I write three short sentences that end the same way. I don’t overdo it: just enough to give the reader a little goosebump.
Bonus move:
Write your first draft without trying to be clever. On revision, look for a paragraph that rambles. Pull out a key phrase and repeat it for rhythm. You’re not writing an English paper. You’re writing a moment. Make it echo.
PromptMaker GPT: A Thinking Partner that Doesn’t Talk Back
I don’t over rely on artificial intelligence, but I’m not afraid of it either. And sometimes I just don’t know how to get started. It’s not a writer’s block thing… it’s a decision fatigue thing. Enter PromptMaker GPT: a free tool that turns half-formed thoughts into structured prompts that actually generate good starting points.
What it is:
It’s a meta-prompt assistant built on GPT. You tell it what you’re trying to write, and it spits out a powerful custom prompt to use with ChatGPT. Then you plug that into ChatGPT and boom: structured output, instantly.
Why I keep it bookmarked:
It saves time. I don’t waste 20 minutes fiddling with prompt wording when I could be working with a response.
It sharpens focus. It forces me to think about what I really want the output to do. It is great for outlines, summaries, bios, and brainstorms.
How I use it:
When I’m drafting something new (a blog post, speech, email campaign), I go to PromptMaker GPT, tell it what I need (e.g., “outline this blog topic”), then copy the prompt it gives me into ChatGPT.
Bonus move:
Pair it with voice-to-text. Dictate your raw thoughts into your phone, drop them into PromptMaker GPT, and let AI whip up something usable. It’s like having a ghostwriter who never sleeps or questions your genius.
ONE DEEP CUT.
This is where I pull back the curtain and let you peek inside ColePress. Early drafts, abandoned paragraphs, behind-the-scenes chaos, and the strange little rituals that keep the words flowing. If Sharp Tools is the how, Deep Cuts is the why. Think of it as the bonus track you didn’t know you needed.
The Day I Broke Ephemeris
I hit my first real wall about 30,000 words into Ephemeris. At that point, I had actually written what is now Chapters 11 and 12 as the prologue (if you can believe that). I was drafting in strict chronological order… day one, day two, day three of the Collapse. The problem was obvious: reality doesn’t fall apart in neat intervals.
Some systems break right away. Technology goes first, and with it, some chaos. But other things: society itself, governments, even families, they don’t shatter all at once. They rot. They drag. Trying to force that reality into a linear story meant writing enormous time jumps and awkward “backfill” that slowed the momentum to a crawl. The more I fought it, the worse it got.
That’s when I realized: the book itself needed to feel like the world it was depicting. Fragmented. Disoriented. Uncertain.
So I pulled everything out of the prologue and made it one chapter. Then I realized it probably needed to be two chapters: one explaining the science of StarHammer and another exploring the immediate aftermath.
And then came the breakthrough: what if I shoved them deep into the book instead of front-loading them? What if readers had to sit in the aftermath… really live there awhile before being shown what actually happened?
That felt right. So StarHammer found its home in the latter third of the book. From there, I started rearranging everything, not by calendar date, but by tone. By the rhythm of collapse.
Was I scared? Absolutely. Nonlinear storytelling is not easy and and is risky. To try it with your first book? Probably stupid.
I worried readers would be confused, or worse… think I was trying to be “artsy” for the sake of it. And yes, a few of my beta readers did suggest moving those chapters up a bit (which I might end up doing), but all of them told me the overall structure works. It reminded them of Tarantino… shuffling the order not just for shock, but for story.
And for me, it was liberating. Suddenly, I wasn’t chained to the mechanics of systems breakdown. I could explore any moment, any fracture, and drop it wherever it best served the story. Ephemeris is a book about fracture, so the book itself needed to be fractured.
And here’s the fun part: as the series continues, the structure will evolve. Just as the world of Ephemeris slowly rebuilds, the storytelling will become less jagged, less broken. The structure itself will mirror the arc.
And maybe my favorite part? There are clues to piecing the world back together in how you piece the story back together. The act of reading becomes its own kind of survival puzzle. Eat your heart out, Tarantino!
IN THE NEXT DEEP CUT:
Not everything makes it between the covers. In the next issue, I’ll share excusive bonus content: a complete chapter of Ephemeris that was cut before sending to beta readers. It’s a really good chapter that got cut not because of quality or content, but because of its tonal similarities to another chapter.
You won’t want to miss this one!