(Write What You Don’t Know.)

I also didn’t get anywhere with my writing. Yes, I improved, and I had encouraging beta readers, but I could count the number of full requests I received from agents over multiple books on one hand. It started to feel like this dream wasn’t going to come true.

While querying one book, I started another: The One and Only Vivian Stone. As a lifelong lover of old Hollywood, particularly movies like Gone with the Wind and the sitcom I Love Lucy, this was a compelling time to explore. I wrote the book in first-person POV, but the feedback I received from beta readers was that they didn’t particularly like my main character. Despite spending a whole book with her, they felt like they didn’t know or understand her. There wasn’t anything making them want to keep reading because they didn’t care about her. Ouch.

They were right, though. I tried to model my main character’s personality after what I’d read about Lucille Ball—she had to work very hard to be funny and wasn’t like that off-screen; she was also, supposedly, prone to anger and pettiness. I struggled to write a character like this, and my readers picked up on it. There was a wall in my mind between me and Vivian, and I didn’t know how to break through.

In the beginning of the book, Vivian is an actress struggling to break into the film industry. Surrounded by a sea of talent, she would have had to be worried that a nobody like her would never be taken seriously, would never stand apart from the rest. How long would it take to get somewhere? Would she ever? How long before she threw in the towel?

And then, it hit me: This was how I felt about writing, with those exact worries and questions. Only I hadn’t been leaning into it because I’d been too focused on creating a particular kind of character, one I didn’t truly understand. I needed to tear down the wall between us and rebuild the character was from the ground up—using my own emotions. I needed to become vulnerable for the sake of the character.

Is this obvious? In hindsight, it feels like it. But I’d written three books—four if you count this one before my rewrite—without ever really connecting on a deep, emotional level with my characters. Once I shifted my mindset, the writing became cathartic and so much fun.

“Write what you know?” I finally did.

Click to continue.

The responses from readers were completely different from what they’d been the first time. Vivian had become someone readers rooted for, someone they related to.

I tried to be more strategic about querying this story than I’d been with my previous books. First, I scoured every resource I could find about writing query letters, then I wrote and rewrote mine. I sought feedback and kept fine-tuning. Queries were always a mystery to me. I understood what they required, but I couldn’t figure out how to write a compelling hook and show the character’s wants while also picking out the most important plot strands. But after about a hundred attempts (not an exaggeration), I had a letter I felt confident about.

I also looked for opportunities everywhere: I submitted my query and first pages to The Shit No One Tells You About Writing podcast, which ended up getting chosen, giving me valuable feedback. I submitted to a mentorship program called RevPit. All of the mentors rejected me, but I received a lot of encouraging messages. I also posted on Twitter/X for #moodpitch, which isn’t around anymore but involved posting a mood board and an elevator pitch. I’d done these kinds of contests for previous books, without any success, but this time I received interest from about a dozen agents. These were all great, low-stakes ways to test the waters.

If there had been more opportunities, I would have tried them too. Yes, a lot of people apply, and yes, it’s easy to get lost in it all. But there is also the chance that it can go very well. I had already put so much effort into the book, so why stop there?

Finally, I started querying, confident that I’d done all I could do but still worried because an agent liking a pitch is not the same as them liking the whole book. And while I received plenty of rejections, I also received several offers.

As I’m drafting my next project, I wonder if it ever gets easier to “write what you know.” I hope so. There continues to be the question of which parts of myself to bring to the character and a resistance to the reflection needed to figure it out. What I do know is it’s essential, even if it can feel vulnerable.

Check out Melissa O’Connor’s The One and Only Vivian Stone here:

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As writers, we tend to be hard on ourselves. If you feel guilty about your writing habits, you’re not alone! It’s easy to overlook small, but significant steps towards your goals if you’re focused on the negative or on comparing yourself to others. 

Instead, what if you change your mindset to take into account the growth and progress that is happening every day? It’s important to acknowledge all aspects of the writing process—not just word count or a finished manuscript. 

If you want to stop feeling guilty about not writing and cultivate a strong, sustainable creative practice, here are some mindset shifts and actionable ideas.  

Redefine productive writing time. 

Writing involves more than time spent with a keyboard or pen. Mulling over ideas, doing research, talking with colleagues or friends—these are all just as important as the act of putting your thoughts into words.  

Give credit to all the elements that contribute to the final product. Reframing your mindset around what constitutes “writing” can reduce your guilt and increase your satisfaction. 

It’s also important to remember that stepping away from your work can actually improve the quality of your writing. Breaks shouldn’t induce guilt. Instead, treat that “off” time as just as valuable as sitting at your desk writing. You need to recharge to be creative and productive. Plus, some of the best inspiration comes from time away, meeting new people, and traveling.  

Here are some ideas for breaks that contribute to your productivity: 

•  Listen to a podcast or audiobook that relates to your writing topic. 

•  Chat with friends or family about what you’re working on. 

•  Re-read something you wrote a few years ago (or further back!) and reflect on what you notice. How have you changed in your style or perspective? 

•  Leave yourself a voice memo about the ideas, questions, and worries you have about your current project. Relisten to it next week or next month to see what changes. 

Set realistic and actionable goals.  

Failing to meet the goals you set for yourself can have a negative impact on your self-confidence for sure. But are your goals realistic in the first place? It’s important to be real with yourself and realize if your current goals are too ambitious. You might be setting yourself up for failure if your goal is to write 10,000 words each day, rather than the more achievable 1,000. 

Having realistic goals makes it possible to balance easy wins with challenging targets to maintain motivation. For example, you can reverse-engineer large goals into manageable daily tasks. If you want to write a 70,000-word book, and you commit to writing 1,000 words on weekdays and Sundays, you can create a clear timeline to complete the project in about three months.  

That’s much easier to accomplish than trying to complete the project in seven days by writing 10,000 words per day. And guess what? The quality will be better too. But you have to be realistic about what you can actually do.  

There are lots of great accountability and planning resources out there to help you. For example, Written Kitten rewards you with a virtual kitten (or puppy or bunny) for each chunk of writing you do — you can set the word count goal. You can also use the Pomodoro Technique for setting the goal of writing for 25 minutes straight before breaking.  

Assess your time management. 

In order to set realistic goals, it’s essential to know how long things actually take you to accomplish. That’s why timing your writing sessions is important. Once you understand your personal output rate of words per hour, you can use timing data to set achievable goals and avoid unrealistic expectations. 

Aligning your goal-setting with your actual capabilities is a key in establishing a guilt-free writing practice. Plus, you can make more time for your creative projects when you have a clear sense of how long you need.  

Rework your writing space. 

Tapping into your own personal productivity style will make all the difference. Where you write has a big impact on how you feel about your work. Whether you write at the kitchen table or you have a dedicated office, your space matters. Sometimes a change of scenery can help. If that’s not an option, you can rearrange your current work area. Clear the clutter, move your desk, get a new lamp—play around and see what feels right. Giving your writing area a little novelty can break you out of a rut and change your mindset.  

Combat isolation. 

Writing can be an isolating endeavor—and isolation can lead to a lack of accountability and motivation. That’s why it’s so important to join writing groups (or form your own!) Checking in with colleagues can be a reality check and a way to gain perspective. Making a community is a way of being a good literary citizen—and the benefits keep on giving.  

Co-working and creating writing groups to discuss your work can also be helpful in reminding you that there is no universal timeline for writing. Every author progresses differently. And that’s a good thing! We are each unique and bring a special set of experiences and ideas to our writing—so it’s no wonder that every writer is on their own path. 

Chart your progress.  

Keeping visual track of your progress can remind you of how far you’ve come. For example, if you have a word count goal each day, make a calendar and give yourself a big check each time you meet it. Seeing all those checks can help remind you that you have a lot to be proud of! 

The important thing is to show yourself that each small piece of work adds up to something big and meaningful. That can be a huge source of motivation. It also helps banish guilt when you see how much you’ve already accomplished. So, take stock of everything you’ve already done and make the effort to remind yourself that you are capable.  

Have a whole-person perspective. 

It’s easy to focus on all the things you aren’t doing and forget about what’s going right. If you feel down on yourself because you wanted to finish a draft and haven’t gotten to it, it’s important to reflect on why before you succumb to negative self-talk. 

What has been going on in your life that has prevented you from doing the work you want to do? Every writer is not just a writer—we’re also friends, partners, children, parents, neighbors … the list goes on and on! 

Think about yourself as part of a social ecosystem, not just an individual. Who and what has been taking up the time you wanted to spend writing? Maybe you have new responsibilities in your family or at work. Maybe you got into a new hobby that takes more time than you anticipated. It’s OK to prioritize other things, because those things all enrich your writing practice too.  

If guilt is something that you struggle with as a writer, know that you’re not alone. Lots of people feel this way, and it doesn’t mean you won’t create the work you’re dreaming about. 

Changing up your mindset and your routine can have a big difference in what makes you feel guilty and what you recognize as part of your creative process.  

For more productivity tips go to PaulaRizzo.com/listWD. 

Register for Finding Funds for Writers with C. Hope Clark today.

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Writers don’t classify themselves as hot guys—or hot girls—for that matter. However, there is something insightful in the statement from this comedy/drama. If writers don’t journal, if writers don’t do the work, their thoughts will simply fade away.

(What to Do With Your Old Journals.)

I was reminded of this following a book presentation and talk last month. For 45 minutes, I read from my memoir, I’ll Have Some of Yours, discussed a bit of the story arc, and fielded questions from a group of readers and writers, caregivers, and health care industry professionals.

Finally, I was asked the inevitable question by an aspiring member of the audience. “What is your writing process?”

I could have answered with the quote about hot guys who don’t journal. That would have garnered a lot of laughs and few insights.

Going deeper, the intent behind this question ranged from discovering “what time do you get up every morning to write?” or “do you write every day?” to “what’s your approach to editing?” or “how do I make myself sit down and get busy?” Every author talk I’ve attended has tackled this nebulous subject matter. And every time, the writer has cringed while stumbling over an answer. 

Ernest Hemingway required rum in his approach, I believe, but was known to say, “My only regret in life is that I did not drink more wine.” If Ernest couldn’t get it right, choosing rum as part of his process while instead wishing it had been wine (my choice too), what chance do modern-day authors have of coming up with a suitable answer?

Zero chance. Or so I thought. Until I had a Charlie Brown, confronting Lucy Van Pelt as she stood behind her Psychiatric Help/5¢ stand, shouting “That’s it!” sort of moment in front of my audience.

*****

The word process was first used in the 12^th century as a legal term for a contract. I’m a former computer science geek. For me, process signified a program running on a computer, hence the familiarity of processor and multi-processing. In the 90s, business jargon coopted the word for such systems as TQM, Six Sigma methodology, process reengineering, and eventually became synonymous with corporate restructuring. Oftentimes, the idea of a process recalls a series of mechanical or chemical tasks completed to produce or make something.

The word stems from the Latin processus “a going forward, advance, progress.” The idea of a process implied a forceful movement, pressing toward a goal like driving horses through a long pen toward the corral.

The idea of a process in writing, of an advancement forward, gives a slightly wrong impression because the body remains stationary. It’s the hands and mind that move. Essentially, what most writers require to know is how will I free the wild creative in me while seated still?

*****

In my audience, an older woman nodded her head to the process issue hovering over us. Her husband had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. She amassed 180 notes she’d written regarding funny/not funny stories about her husband and his diagnosis, and how they had both thrived and failed. Why hadn’t she “done something with them?”

The woman’s question reminded me of my first book. A memoir of love and loss, the narrative contained a distillation of diaries and emails written by my husband and me to our loved ones who lived 2,000 miles away. The middle gap, the most difficult part of any book to sustain, had been filled in by content from letters I wrote for 100 days to my mother during my husband’s hospitalization.

In my forthcoming book, I documented stories about food, my mother, the family kitchen, and growing up Italian American. Each week, I sat to write these narratives and designated a specific genre in which to compose. One essay, about the Feast of Seven Fishes, was carved into a fishing report style essay. With another, based on cooking ravioli on Christmas Day, I wrote a recipe poem.

My “process” for these books existed in the subterranean recesses of my consciousness until details revealed themselves in ways that might not have happened if my course of action was simply to write the prescribed, write what I know. Or if I had set aside only early morning hours for scribbling or aimed for 1,000 words each session. All of which might have been reasonable advice given from authors to prospective writers.

In my Charlie Brown moment, the room illuminated. What if a thousand flashes of brilliance add up to and define the process? What if lists like Songs I Want Sung at My Funeral, or the names of the 50+ cookies my mother baked every Christmas is the process, or a year’s worth of Instagram posts about stuff found on the early morning streets, is the process?

As I recapped how each of my books came into being, I asked these questions of the universe and the audience, concluding, “What if, inspiration is the process? And our goal is to simply to reckon with it as it comes?”

*****

On How to Be a Better Human podcast, host Chris Duffy interviewed entertainer Lear deBessonet on why we should make spectacles out of our lives. Eventually, they worked their way around to the creative—here comes the word again—process.

Lear said, “The creative process functions like a U,” which begins on a high, with an idea, despite fears or trepidations. “I can imagine what it’s gonna be and how fabulous. I’m excited. And then as you go along the process, you’re essentially making a descent into whatever the lowest point of the U is, which is the point of real despair…I am completely embarrassing myself. I’m going to fail publicly…That part of the creative process, it’s important to say, is always there and you have to work through that.” For the U to trend up again.

“One of the things that’s so transformative about particularly theater and spectacle…is just how connected to others you feel when you find yourself in that pit of that despair together, and then together you climb out of it.”

I’d begun my book talk on a high. When the woman asked her question, my enthusiasm sunk into my gut. I landed in the U, dreading how I might tread toward some answer that would make this thing called writing easier. Had I said, “Do shots of rum every day, or write at 2 a.m.,” I certainly would not have left room for any sort of learning. The woman’s question could have disrupted the flow of the event. Instead, the inquiry turned enlightening, not only to those present, but for me. Together, we climbed the U.

Ernest Hemingway also said, “My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.” Process is indeed made up of many tiny observations or tasks that sometimes include lighting a candle to fend off dark winter mornings or needlessly emptying the nearby garbage can with the empty box of Milk Duds consumed while you were on a “writer’s block” vacation from your screen.

Writers stitch together entire novels out of grocery lists and scribble down what sounds brilliant in the brain but has been reduced to four or five words transcribed on paper. We don’t need a prescribed process, only a bunch of little somethings that work for us. I first attended creative writing classes on Monday nights. Given my current freelance and teaching work, Mondays are strictly writing days. That’s my only process on the first day of the week, to take “time off” from any other work.

Hot guys might never journal, hot girls neither. But hot writers, enthusiastic about their craft, find a way.

Check out Annette Januzzi Wick’s I’ll Have Some of Yours here:

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I am in the first year of my MFA and I am writing, for the first time, for a professional audience. I am writing hard. My style is cramped. I am trying to mold myself into who I think my graduate program wants me to be. I am composing a bunch of complex sentences with maze-like structures, which are almost impossible to read.

(7 Ways Writing Heals Us—Even After Terrible Trauma.)

I am using pretentious language because I think elevated diction will make me a better writer. Concrete, one-syllable words become abstract, flowery words because I think my writing needs to be more complicated. Because I believe only when writing is complicated it is worthy. I edit everything I write to death. I am a people pleaser who is more focused on what others think of me than what I think of myself.

Around this time, I had recognized a relationship between trauma and my own writing process. One that I desperately needed to free myself from. So I started to reflect on my creative practice and gradually shifted my approach.

Step 1: Understand your trauma

They say awareness is the first step. After reflection, I realized that most of my trauma that interfered with my creative expression was not a result of major personal catastrophe, but a product of my socialization in the world.

First, my identity had a huge impact on my creative expression. My gender shaped my relationship to language. In real life, I am constantly cracking jokes—I love to laugh and make others laugh. But, in my writing process, I was afraid to use humor on the page. I was also afraid to write about sex from a female point of view because most of the desire I had seen on the page had been male centered. I was afraid to write about things that were disgusting because I was afraid of what people might think of me. Sex, humor, horror—none of these were creative spaces I saw available to me as a woman. This meant I had a shame-based writing practice, afraid to trespass upon taboo spaces. In other words, I was afraid to be myself.

Second, my years of education had conditioned me to suppress my creativity. Years of being a student in school teaches you, intentionally or unintentionally, that you need to deliver the correct answer. I had been assessed primarily through multiple choice questions from my early years right until high school. The fright of delivering the wrong answer had transferred itself to my artistic process. This made me feel like there was a right and wrong way to write, and that I needed to mold myself into what authority figures wanted me to be.

Lastly, personal traumas in my life resulted a high-strung writing process. This resulted in a specific relationship to language, one based on rigidity and control. As humans, we can try to tame and restrict language to try to counteract the fact that our lives are out of our control. But the truth was: Controlling language was not going to solve my grief, nor did it undo any of the harshness of what happened.

Step 2: Say yes

In the wise words of the beginning of Taylor Swift’s Grammy-winning album Folklore, she says in the lyrics to “The One:”

I’m doing good, I’m on some new shit

Been saying yes instead of no

In her documentary on the making of this album, she talked about how signing with her new record label resulted in greater levels of creative freedom. In short, she was saying yes to herself, creatively, instead of saying no.

I, too, had to learn how to say yes to myself.

What does this mean, exactly? It means never denying or stifling your creative impulses. Let me give you this example: When I was writing, I would often nip my best ideas in the bud. I would say no to myself. Practically, this meant not writing out the word, sentence, or passage I have felt impelled to write.

This used to happen all the time. It was often rationalized by a practical reason of why I should not write the thing I wanted to write: not the right time to use this information; the joke I had in mind was too inappropriate; the character wouldn’t say this; the idea was too crazy or too perverted, and I worried it would weird people out. As it turns out, I was saying no to a lot of my best ideas.

True creativity is deeply irrational, and often in the moment, it does not make sense why a writer might have an impulse to put something down. But by limiting the nonsense from my work, I was depriving my writing of a vital spark it needed.

I had to learn to say yes. I had to learn to let it flow out, however stupid or weird it was, however bad then idea may turn out to be—I had to trust myself to play, roam, and discover. I had to trust that I would find the flaws when I revised, and that I could use the act of writing to indulge all my instincts, good and bad.

In short, I needed to write towards my inner child, and neglect the concerns of an adult mind. My adult mind knew it needed to write a book to get a job. My adult mind was worried about what people might think or say about my hybrid novel, which used sentence fragments to create a unique voice. There were a bunch of fear-driven reasons to say no, both personally and professionally, to the things I wanted to write.

To write well, I needed to speak with my inner child, who had no social conditioning, lacked life experience, and wrote with total ease. To say yes, I needed to become a kid again.

Anne Lamott articulated this well in her well-known craft essay, “Shitty First Drafts,” from her book Bird by Bird. In this essay, she encourages you to give yourself permission to write badly. “The first draft is the child’s draft,” she writes, “where you let it all romp out.”

Allowing your inner child to take part in the writing process is similar to saying yes. It encourages the writer to forget about adult concerns. A child lacks socialization: They have no fear when it comes to expressing themselves.

Step 3: Write towards your fear

In some weird logic of the universe, I realized the very words I needed to express were often the ones I was afraid to write. For example, my book, The Flat Woman, is powered by elements of horror and disgust. But as a young writer, I was scared to write disgusting things on the page, worrying somebody would make a judgement about me.

Mary Shelley published Frankenstein anonymously for a similar reason: She feared her children would be taken away. This points to the vulnerability of female-identifying authors across history who historically lacked the insulation of male privilege.

And as I began to consciously write into my areas of fear, I realized that terror was actually a great barometer of something worthy, interesting, or powerful to say.

So I came to this conclusion: If I was afraid to write something, I should not repress it, I should actually write into that space bigger and harder than anywhere else.

In expressing what we’re afraid to express, our truest selves can emerge. Success as an artist can be defined as an act of self-authenticity. If you get into the practice of articulating your fears, you can train yourself to have a better artistic process, even if the substance of your fears does turns out to be useless.

Step 4. Write with the body

We think of writing as a mental process, but we often forget it is physical one, too. Your hands are the instrument of your creativity, after all, and ultimately, your fingers are the tools a writer uses to express themselves. For me, I had to remember the writing process happens with the body as well as the mind. Focusing on the physical feeling of the keys beneath my fingers helped me let go of control. Lots of style elements can be palpably felt when you type: Rhythm, for instance, is a very physical experience. Paying attention to the rhythms and the texture of the language helped me experience writing as a process of self-hypnosis.

Self-hypnosis allowed my subconscious to dominate my artistic process. Jack Spicer encouraged poets to think of themselves as a radio receiving a signal from outside of them. I found the idea of this helpful: to think about transmitting a source of inspiration from outside of me as opposed to writing from my own mind. So I started to let my hands transmit the inspiration as opposed to writing it. What is the difference between writing and transmission? Transmitting is something we allow to happen with our bodies, whereas writing felt like an activity I controlled with my mind. Transmission with my hands allowed me to receive the radio signal, which is another way to say creative inspiration.

A lot of writers say their best work feels like it comes from somewhere else, somewhere beyond them. This can only happen when we relinquish control and let our fingers dictate where the poem, story, or essay wants to go. Oftentimes, when we let go, our subconscious takes over. Sometimes, the things our subconscious produces are surprising, disturbing, or unusual—but they are usually interesting. Our subconscious has a lot to teach us, if only we let the right one in.

Step 5: Write the thing

It took me about seven years, but I eventually finished my first book, The Flat Woman. This would not have been possible without an intensely disciplined practice. Every morning of the week, I carved out an hour or two to write. In the context of my regular practice, I slowly and gradually made changes to my process. None of these changes came over night, but were the product of a slow, methodical expulsion of bad habits.

To say yes, I had to put in effort and pay attention to what I wanted to say. By becoming aware of the ways in which I restricted myself, I trained myself to give myself permission. I transformed my writing from a rigid practice into a free-flowing hobby. In this state of hyper concentration, hours and days of the week evaporated. Writing, which was once a stressful process, became a really relaxing hobby—a process where I hypnotized myself into forgetting my hobby was also my career.

There were developments in my life that helped: I fell in love and got married. I bought a house and got promoted. Everything that helped make me happier in my personal life helped me have a more grounded and focused relationship to my art.

What started out as a poetry manuscript of approximately 13,000 words, its language preened and pruned to oblivion, became a 27,000-word short novel called The Flat Woman. In the end, it was nearly double its original length. There are probably some who will still say it’s too short, too fragmented, too absurd, but I don’t care.

In the seven years I spent writing it, I learned how to say yes, which is another way to say letting go. When I let go, what finally came out was weird, funny, and unapologetically feminine—all of the things I had been afraid to let myself be in the beginning. 

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(Overcoming the Pressure to Be Flawless.)

I turned the key to a clean, small, perfectly cozy studio—called Tree House—sliding doors to a deck overlooking the creek—the beautiful rush of it, masking any other noise. Delight. Everything I needed was right here—the dreamy writing retreat I had envisioned, funded, and planned. Standing on the deck, looking down at the swollen creek, I could almost taste progress. This was going to be perfect.

After a quick lunch, I settled in to write.

All the writing retreats I’ve done over the last five years, I’ve arrived with several works-in-progress—essays started but unfinished. The plan was always to pick one, reenter it, and if I start flailing, just pick another. By coming armed with drafts, I have options.

I opened the draft of one essay but looking at its three pages made me kind of sick. I had no interest, saw no way back into it. An editor at one magazine had expressed interest, but then she retired; the new editor had passed on the pitch. I needed to reframe it for some other audience/publication but couldn’t see how. I’d be working on an essay that was destined to fail. Why not save myself the time and misery?

I pulled out the other drafts, equally unfinished, and pondered each of these options to similar conclusions: no, no, and no. No motivation; no juice. Every option in my arsenal sucked.

BAM. Utter panic.

Fear, resistance, dread.

After 40 years of this writing life, when I begin a retreat, why must I still descend to a deep, dark hole of anxiety and self-doubt? Though I recognize it, know it well, each time it feels as though THIS time it’s different. THIS time it really is proof of my being washed up. This time, any of the usual explanations or comforts will not fix the problem. Because this time it’s really true: I can’t do this anymore; have nothing to say; have exhausted whatever talent and vision I once had.

This time, on the first evening at my cabin on Oak Creek in Arizona, I decide the reason it’s so real is my age: 67. The well has run dry. The brain is loose, has holes. I’m too old to feel drive or ambition.

Let’s face it, for the last four years, maybe one retreat per year, not one of those drafts has been finished. There’s one about teaching memoir in the college classroom, and one about John Prine, one about a good friend’s recent suicide—and they all stall somewhere—they persist in being incomplete. I look them over, trying to conjure motivation for any of them. I send out pitches, because if Oxford American likes my John Prine idea, my own belief in it will be restored. If the AWP Writers’ Chronicle likes my teaching memoir essay, I’ll be reinvigorated to work on it again. If any mag wants anything of mine, that will be the validation needed to finish it, figure out what it needs, to give it a size and word count, a target audience, a reason for being. 

It’s not that I can’t write and finish an essay on my own steam, my own unflagging belief in a good idea; I can. But I have watched some long-ago finished essays get rejected over and over, one of them going on eight years now. So if I do all this work, will it even see print? Who or what am I doing this for? Is grappling with the subject, making sense of it, reason enough to complete an essay? If it never gets published, is it still good that I wrote it?

As it got later and became clear it was a totally lost day, I wanted to cancel my goodnight call with my husband. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to him; I just didn’t want to talk to him about this. So I sent him a text saying I would call before bed as planned but please don’t ask how the writing went. And I said I know it’s only 8, but bedtime has been moved up. I just want to sleep off a rotten day.

He called right then, and we joked. “Today was just horrible,” I said, “but we’re not going to talk about that.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, “that it wasn’t a good writing day, but we’re not going to talk about that.”

We talked about it without talking about it. He was sweet. He knows he can’t solve my problems for me but just being with me through my self-inflicted turbulence is a comfort. I know his feelings for me are never going to change just because I’m a dope. As a jazz drummer, he has his own weak spots and days he feels washed up. Sometimes during his three hours of practice per day, he’ll be drumming and all of a sudden, he shouts out FUCK. Then he starts the piece over again. Some days he quits early and tells me he just has to stop, and hope for a better tomorrow.

As a creative writing professor for 25 years and a freelance coach and editor for 10 years after that, I have designed and led writing retreats in Prescott, AZ, Acrosanti, The Sierra Ancha Wilderness, Playa Summer Lake in Oregon, Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA, and Paros Island in the Cyclades of Greece. I taught a master class on Writing Retreats for the James River Writers Conference and published a three-part series about this topic.

Having done so many retreats myself over the last 35 years—from self-funded to awarded residencies at Hedgebrook, Ucross, Hambidge, Djerassi, Playa, and Dorland Mountain—I make a point to warn my students and clients of the obstacles they may face. I build knowledge of these and strategies against them, into the design of retreats I mentor. Handouts completed at the start help them identify goals, set a reasonable and balanced itinerary, anticipate obstacles, and prevent freak-out when they hit the first brick wall. 

Alone in their rooms with their thoughts, instead of feeling stupid, lazy, or fraudulent for days on end, they can see these demons approaching, acknowledge them as occupational hazards, and send them on their way. Or that is my hope—that the requisite crisis will be abbreviated and diluted. Instead of losing half the week to feelings of incompetence, maybe they will lose an afternoon or a day. Some such loss is expected.

I used to take college students, creative writing majors, to Forest Service cabins in Arizona’s Sierra Ancha Wilderness for 16 days of writing and reading and unplugging. Not only was there no internet, there was no electricity. (Stoves, fridges, heaters, and lanterns were powered by gas.) We wrote longhand and held read-aloud workshops for feedback. One goal of this writing intensive was to replicate a part of the writer’s life, post college. If you choose to pursue this as a career, I would explain, you will be competing to get residencies at places like Yaddo, MacDowell, Djerassi, and Hedgebrook. And once you land at one of these places, you will have all the time in the world to write and it will scare the bejesus out of you. 

It’s a common refrain among writers: “If only I had more time….” Yet suddenly, there we are with sweet, cozy lodging, the encouragement of having been selected in a competitive process, exquisite views, chef-prepared meals, and hours upon days upon weeks to do nothing but write. The “too busy” excuse has vanished, and it’s terrifying. We want that excuse back.

Because now, when all obstacles have been removed and all manner of support and belief in us has been provided, all that stands in the way of success is the Self—a potent hurdle.

One of my students, several days into immersion in writing and reading and solitude, wrote in his journal: “All this time in my head just makes me want to chop wood.”

I get it. Substitute for “chop wood,” do anything else.

Here, the wood is chopped for me and there are free standing fireplaces in each cabin. The resort provides matches, newspaper, skinny strips of kindling and beautiful split logs. Because of all the recent rain, these fire ingredients were damp.

But before going to bed, I gave it a whirl anyway. (This is akin to trotting out that old, unfinished draft about teaching memoir and trying to force it. Damp. No spark.)

I rolled up the driest of the newspaper pages into little balls and placed them all over the fireplace grate. Then I laid down strips of blonde kindling to make the shape of an asterisk, then bigger kindling on top of that, and then a nice fat log. Held a lit match to the edges of the newsprint and waited. It’s deceiving, because at first the flame is big and bold. I put the protective screen back on to keep sparks from flying into the room, but within five minutes, the kindling and paper have burned up and the log on top is clean and cold.

Come on, I know how to make a fire.

I pulled some dry paper out of my notebook—might as well use it for something—put on shoes and went to the woodshed for more kindling. I assembled all the parts as before and struck the match. For a minute, it was big and I texted a picture to my husband. He texted back: “Good job, Girl Scout.” But it was another five-minute wonder.

Fire making as a diversion is effective. It’s entirely possible to spend two hours and two tiny boxes of matches trying to get a blaze going. And failing.

I have a friend from graduate school who gave up writing. We both had some short stories published; we each eventually had a book out. While I taught full time, she was raising five kids. At some point she just tired of the inherent rejection and decided she was done. I objected, tried to talk her out of it, suggesting she just take a long break from writing, but not divorce it completely. But this friend is a precise, organized, and orderly person and she wanted to lop it off cleanly and deliberately. And she did. And had no regrets.

There were others from my MFA program who gave it up. One woman who had written such funny stories, later gave it up and started a computer programming business with her wife. She took her skills with humor and creating funny characters into an improv comedy workshop, and she had actual FUN. (For me, writing would rarely be classified as fun.)

Another friend from our program—one of the most talented—gave up writing. She had published a collection of short fiction and won awards. A fan of her work, I invited her maybe 20 years ago, to give a reading at the small college where I taught. During the Q&A, a student asked her how she had come to write such a beautiful love story as the one we’d all read before her visit. She said, “Since I couldn’t find a good man in real life, I decided to invent one, and that is how I came to this character and this story.” It was an answer and a strategy I would call up later—what is missing in the world? What would I like to invent? Write the love story you long to read. Etc.

This writer friend is so wise and so talented, inventing characters our world needs, yet she gave it all up. She has a flexible day job, makes decent money, and the work doesn’t tax her mind. She raised a daughter and twin boys. She runs those 50K races on wilderness trails, into the night, in winter. She has taken up the saxophone.

Until this crisis at Tree House, I could not fathom how someone could give up writing.

Maybe I am done with writing. Maybe it is done with me.

Having gone to bed early, plagued by self-doubt, when I woke up, it was so very clear this recurring crisis was what I needed to write about. I was excited and eager to start.

Miraculously, I write. Day Two of my retreat and I’m too busy filling pages to even think about making a fire. Later, after having been productive, I get a stack of damp newspapers, open them all up and carefully separate the pages, laying each one flat on the tile floor to dry. This is Arizona; this should not take long. I restock kindling and logs, laying the new logs on the deck in direct sun.

On Day Three, a nearly finished first draft behind me, I try again to get a fire going. Who knows what I’m doing wrong. Because everything is drier, the logs light long enough to be charred in the middle. But the fire is never a blaze, nothing to marvel at, and certainly no help at heating the tiny Tree House. I turn on the wall heater and make another round of nachos. The broiler is reliably hot.

Most jobs people have over their lifetimes, they eventually retire from. Maybe it’s been a career in medicine or law or tech. People leave these careers behind. What writers do you know of who write up to a certain age—say 60, 65 or 70—and then draw a finish line, say they have done well or well enough, are satisfied and ready to turn to other things they enjoy?

I think writers, as long as their brains continue to work, keep on having something to say, to grapple with, and then share. John McPhee, interviewed on NPR about his most recent book of essays, Tabula Rasa, talked about this. At 93 years old, he had enough new work to add up to a book, but he feared publishing it. He relayed a conversation he had with friend/fellow writer/former student Joel Achenback of the Washington Post: “I’d love to publish some of this,” McPhee said, “but the whole idea is not to finish it, because you want it to keep you alive.” To which Achenback replied: “That’s no problem; just call it Volume I.”

“The whole idea,” McPhee summarized, “is to not die.”

I have no way of knowing how long my brain will work well. But for now, heinous as it makes me feel sometimes, writing isn’t something I’m ready to abandon. I will continue to schedule these writing retreats, and I will likely delude myself into feeling so excited and hopeful! Then, inevitably, will feel like a fraud. Wondering if this, finally, is the end of me and writing.

Had I not planned to go to the cabin at all, I could’ve avoided this crisis. But then I wouldn’t have this essay either.

It is on my last night at Tree House, past two full days of productive writing (dare I say fun?), that I start over with the fire making one last time. I move all the ash from the failed attempts to the sides and back and have dry newspaper and kindling and logs. I build the fire well, just as I have the other days, light the match and it takes. As I’m making my dinner of ramen noodles, I hear popping and cracking behind me and turn around to see that even the log is fully involved. While the going is good, I add two of the five failed logs with their minimally charred middles and they too succumb wholly to the inferno. They pop and sputter. What the hell, I add the other three, and it’s crowded in there, but I want to burn up all the failure.

Now THIS is a fire. The tiny room gets so warm I have to open doors and windows. It is 50 degrees outside, but even with the doors and windows flung wide, the thermostat says 75 and rising. An hour in, the base log fully burned, the others I’ve piled on top of it tumble forward, not onto the floor but close to the screen so that the smoke no longer lines up with the flue, and starts to roll into the room. With the shovel, I push everything back into safe position and lift a log on top of another to give the fire air. Air is its nutrient.

Success. The tumbling log episode is remedied without having set off the smoke alarm and the fire is something to behold. Overkill, yes. But so satisfying to watch every failed log of the previous three days’ attempts ignite and surrender.

Combustion. Ignition. Heat.

Dry kindling is what we need as writers, and the right conditions, a surplus of matches. An idea, a spark. The requisite crisis? Spread it out on the tile floor to dry. Watch yourself fail over and over.

Try again.

Postscript:

Interestingly, as I checked with my friends/writing colleagues to ask permission to include them in this essay, I learned that guess what? They’re all writing again. One of them says she never really stopped; one is working on a novel, but not pressuring herself to finish under any timeline; and one writes for Sierra Club, as a form of environmental activism. And the one who never really stopped, coincidentally, when I caught up with her, had spent her day chopping wood. No lie.

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(7 Mindset Shifts for Writing Your Best Book.)

Sure, those aspects are helpful, perhaps even essential. But I believe manifestation is the missing layer, and that when we learn how to harness it, writing and publishing become easier and more fruitful. Here are my top tips for using manifestation to empower your writing.

1. Get clear on what you want. 

Many books have been written on manifestation, which I will not attempt to reproduce here. But in brief, manifestation is a multistep process that posits that our vibrations influence our reality. It can be summed up as “ask, believe, receive,” or “like attracts like.” 

Underpinning the theory is real science, and how quantum physics relates to manifestation is explored in fascinating detail in, for instance, Joe Dispenza’s excellent books. We are inherently creators of our own reality, and the truth is, you’ve been manifesting all your life, maybe largely unconsciously. But manifesting with intentionality is a powerful practice. And the first step is to get clear on your desires. 

Is your goal to produce a book you are proud of, that lights you up as you write it? Or to attain a top agent or traditional publishing deal, or to hit a certain sales number? The prelude to receiving what you want is getting clear on exactly what that is in the first place.

2. Believe you get to have what you want. 

The second step of manifestation is to believe that your desires are accurate guidance—and that you are worthy of them. This requires you to look at any “funky” beliefs and feelings clogging up your creative pipes. 

The industry is, frankly, rife with lack mindsets about what is possible for creatives, which many writers have absorbed as their unchallenged truth. Step two thus entails uprooting those old beliefs and ruthlessly questioning them. 

You must be willing to see things differently than you ever have before, and even differently from your colleagues, friends, family members, and social media follows. It involves creating new stories and empowering mantras, and feeling the feelings of how it will feel when what you want is yours.

3. Release, be led, and receive. 

The final step is to release all to God, the universe, or whatever higher power you believe in. And to be led to taking inspired action—for example, you may feel called to hire a writing coach, or enroll in a workshop, or query a particular agent. 

Manifesting means owning your part, but once you take the steps that feel aligned, it is time to open your arms to receive, trusting that what you want will come at the perfect time, in the perfect way. This is the hardest step, because it requires a lot of faith. 

A mantra I lean on during this step is: It’s this or something better. And: It’s working, it’s working, it’s working. And finally: Everything is always for my good and working in my favor.

4. Appreciate what is going right. 

Now that you know the basics, here is a technique sure to amplify your results: Appreciate all that you have right here and now. Abraham Hicks, one of my favorite manifestation teachers, suggests “appreciation rampages,” which are just as they sound. 

I love directing appreciation towards my writing, and my rampage lists are replete with, for instance, appreciation of how much joy I am experiencing writing my current book, how fun it is to research a particular story element, and how much I adore working with my amazing agent, editor, and publishing team. Appreciation is potent as it broadcasts your readiness for more things that match this high frequency. 

Of course, my writing life is not always sunshine and rainbows—sometimes a book just doesn’t appear to be working, or I receive a negative review, or I fear if and how a new book will sell. But once I’ve felt those feelings and shifted the beliefs underpinning my fears, I lean into appreciation, to put my focus back on what is going right. Because what we focus on expands.

Check out Jaclyn Goldis’ The Main Character here:

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5. Watch out for common lack beliefs. 

Look out for lack mindsets that proliferate and can be sneaky masqueraders of truth. The creative industry is replete with matter-of-fact statements like Getting a traditional book deal is close to impossible and Writers make no money. Be wary of accepting what anyone else has decided is true for themselves, or even what may objectively be true for a majority of people, as true for you. 

Jealousy, too, is pervasive among creatives and stems from the incorrect perception that another’s success impinges on your own. I’ve certainly felt jealous—I can’t imagine a writer who hasn’t! Jealousy is natural, it’s what you do with it once you notice it that matters. 

One fun exercise is to wish even greater abundance on all the authors you see succeeding. Why? Because the alternative is a sticky vibration that clouds your manifestations, and above all, it feels good to celebrate others and wish for them all the things we want for ourselves. See those who have what you want as confirmation that you can have it, too.

6. Look for evidence that what you want is possible. 

Train yourself to notice an expanded range of what is possible, no matter how rare or unlikely you might imagine some permutations to be. Notice, for instance, the authors writing books you admire and making a good living from doing so. Or even the successful author who writes a fairly clean first draft, dispelling the widely accepted notion that every first draft must be a messy one. 

Notice, too, and celebrate your own successes. Once you’ve written one book, even if it didn’t succeed as you wanted it to, you know you are capable, and you can use that as ammunition to fuel your next foray. This practice helps to create new neural pathways via which you believe in bigger potentialities.

7. When it looks like it’s not going to happen, keep believing. 

Sometimes we want something very badly, but it just isn’t happening. This is not the time to give up, rather it’s the time to double down on your faith. At the crux of real success stories are people who perhaps shouldn’t have achieved what they did based on their backgrounds or circumstances—but in fact did. If you’re ever feeling disappointed, by all means feel it, but then shift out of the funk and stay a match for what you want.

8. Infuse your writing life with joy. 

The truth is, we only ever want something because of how we think it will make us feel when we have it. You’ve long dreamt about writing a book? I’m guessing it’s not because of how lucrative you anticipate it will be, but rather due to the joy you’ll experience through the writing and sharing of it. And the empowering fact is that you can make your writing joyful now. 

Choose a concept that makes you smile every time you dig into it. Pick characters whose inner lives feel intriguing to unpack, and a setting that you are bursting to explore in word form. Write in places that bring you joy; for me it’s my beloved bustling coffee shops where I type away on sun-soaked outdoor patios. Make every part of the writing process as joyful as you can, and then don’t be surprised when the results are joyful, too! 

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(Grammar rules for writers.)

Rather, we’re looking at bigger picture mistakes and mishaps, including the error of using too much exposition, hiding your pitch, or chasing trends. This week’s mistake is writing someone else’s way.

Writing Mistakes Writers Make: Writing Someone Else’s Way

Write for an hour every day. Write 2,000 words a day. Already be thinking of your next story. Already have a draft for a second story written when you’re submitting this manuscript. Perfect your elevator pitch. Make sure it’s marketable. Never start your story with nature. Don’t make it too long. Series’ sell. But write whatever you want!

We often ask authors what advice they have for other writers. We ask because the answers are often diverse and unique to whatever worked for that author, hopefully offering readers an array of examples that essentially add up to one thing: The only wrong way to write is not to write at all.

Which is true. But what I say next comes from personal experience. Sometimes, writers hoard writing advice, and contradicting nuggets of wisdom bump up against each other in our brains, fighting for legitimacy to be the one that helped us finish our stories.

Personally, I have tried on several different pieces of writing advice to varying degrees of success. Often, I find myself cycling through authorial advice when I am at my most frustrated with my story or my process, hoping that another way of thinking will help me see through to the end. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it takes me down a path I ultimately didn’t want to go, and then I feel like I wasted precious time.

What I’ve come to realize is that I have a habit of hearing what published authors have to say as some oracular, prophesied truth because, clearly, it worked for them. And in that, I would alter my writing process—even my writing style—to fit whatever advice they had to offer.

What happened was my writing suffered every time I tried incorporating a new piece of writing advice, because not every piece of writing advice is going to serve my story or how I write. I grew frustrated when something I wrote didn’t feel like me.

The Fix

Writing advice is not a perfect puzzle piece, it’s more akin to growing out of your clothes as a teenager. One day something fits, the next day you need a brand-new wardrobe. My writing changes on its own naturally with every passing year I spend writing. Instead of implementing what worked for other people, I now spend time unpacking my past writing and comparing it to my current writing, seeing where I’ve improved, where I could do better, and what my new goals are. I let my new-self advise my old-self. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t still incorporate writing advice from others, and that isn’t a bad thing. In fact, it’s encouraged. But don’t overwhelm your brain with too much outside writing advice.

Here’s what worked for me. I think of writing advice in two categories: practical and emotional. When I’m stuck on the practical side of writing, the literal sitting-down-and-getting-words-out part of the process, I’ll investigate what some authors have said about their writing process on books that I’ve loved. We recently interviewed Lydia Kiesling for the “Writer’s Digest Presents” podcast on her new book, Mobility, a book I loved and wanted to learn from. In chatting with her, she described the process of intentionally misdirecting readers, something that requires a certain level of subtlety but also something the writer needs to be aware of the entire time. I learned so much from that conversation, and it felt like advice that my specific story and my specific writing style needed.

For the emotional side, I find myself looking for advice on how to get through the arduous process of writing something you want to be proud of. Lately, what I find myself turning to is Brandon Taylor’s advice from the May/June 2023 issue of Writer’s Digest magazine:

“Remember that when you’re writing that first thing, you’re in an incredibly precious time. When you’re writing that book or that early story, write for yourself first and foremost. There’s going to come a time when that won’t be the case anymore, when there are going to be all these people who are involved. So, don’t be in any great hurry to publish or to get it out there into the world. Take your time to hone and craft that first book. Appreciate those early years where you’re writing for yourself because it never is quite the same once you start publishing.”

I think about this all of the time now when I sit down to write—when I start to feel anxious about the end goal being published and that I’m not there yet. In reminding myself that this moment of writing what will hopefully be my first published work is something that won’t happen twice, and that I need to try and enjoy it now.

So, as you’re working on your drafts, eliminate all of the well-intentioned-but-not-for-you writing advice you’ve heard and distill it down to the most relevant and the most necessary. What’s going to help your writing, and what’s going to help your mind? The answer to those questions will change as you keep going on this creative journey, but don’t worry about what hasn’t happened yet.

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What is writing if not a movement of thought, an investigation of negative space, a line of words on the page? Is it that simple? How does one sit down and do it?

The following list details six books on writing. Each is written by a writer known primarily for either their poetry or fiction, which bleeds into the essay form in all sorts of interesting ways. These books not only investigate writing, they are writing.

Italo Calvino’s Six Memos For the Next Millennium

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Based on a series of lectures Calvino was set to deliver at Harvard University before his death in 1985, this posthumously-published collection of essays details six of Italo Calvino’s greatest aesthetic virtues, or “memos,” which include “Lightness,” “Quickness,” “Exactitude,” “Visibility,” “Multiplicity,” and finally, unfinished before his death, “Consistency.”

“Lightness” begins the book extolling the virtues of indirect inquiry, not facing a subject head-on. For Calvino, the ability to grapple with terror, horror, the heaviest of human afflictions, required a soft touch. To move beside it, above it, around it, “to cut off Medusa’s head without being turned to stone,” to fix one’s “gaze upon what can be revealed only by indirect vision, an image caught in a mirror.”

In a sense, Calvino’s discourse finds its way into each of the books on this list. Each attempts to talk about writing without talking about writing. Or more so, they hope to edify the reader without providing a how-to.

Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life

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Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life is a book on writing beloved by writers. In this treatise on the craft, Dillard walks it as she talks it. The movement of her sentences, both in content and composition, reveal the movement of her mind in creation, walking us through her impulses as they happen in real-time. It is a tremendously generous book, as Dillard attempts to hold nothing back, not to obfuscate or dramatize the creative process, but instead to lay it out as simply and plainly as she can, while digressing through humorous and amusing riffs. “Process is nothing,” she writes. “Erase your tracks.”

Fanny Howe’s The Winter Sun: Notes on a Vocation

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Part memoir, part metatext, Howe’s The Winter Sun explores the author’s relationship to the vocation of writing. Weaving reflections on her childhood in post-war Boston alongside literary and philosophical influences—including the writer Jacques Lusseryan—Howe considers the way in which deep interiority, and the writer’s ability to access it, provides a fount of ____ creativity. As much as this is a book about writing, it is also a book about history, activism, devotion to one’s craft and spiritual pursuits. Fragmentary, hybrid, this collection of notes—they are notes ultimately—traces the life of a writer in pursuit of a vocation which, for her, “has no name.”

Margaret Atwood’s Negotiating with the Dead

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Canadian poet and novelist, author of The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood dips into the metatextual form with Negotiating with the Dead. In it, she considers the role that death and mystery play in her creative process—as that force which compels her to write, and leads a reader along. She draws upon her experience as a writer to explore the role of writer in society, the origins of storytelling, and the significance of myth and archetype on the personal level. She posits that “not just some, but all writing of the narrative kind, and perhaps all writing, is motivated, deep down, by a fear of and a fascination with mortality—by a desire to make the risky trip to the Underworld, and to bring something or someone back from the dead.”

Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

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What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is a memoir by Haruki Murakami, the renowned Japanese novelist famous dozens of novels including The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Kafka on the Shore, and 19Q4.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is a rare glimpse into Haruki Murakami’s nonfiction. Reading very much like a personal journal or running log, the book is a companion of sorts as we follow Haruki in his preparation for the 2005 New York City Marathon. Through its mundane and repetitive structure, one is lulled into a somewhat meditative state alongside Murakami, as he details his process in specific and unadorned language.

The effect is a way into understanding his mind, his process, what allows him to run a marathon, write a novel, string one sentence after the next. Like Calvino and like Dillard, he does it at indirect angles. Though the entire book can be read as one long metaphor for living, for writing, nothing about it reads as anything other than literal, simple, one foot in front of the other, day in and day out, in the lead-up to a race. In a way, the book’s genius is in its simplicity, its ability to expose writing as nothing more than a line of words on a page, one after the other.

Annie Dillard’s Living By Fiction

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Dillard’s lesser-known book on writing, Living by Fiction, attempts to think through storytelling by constantly eluding its subject. Dillard reflects not just on the craft of fiction, but on its role in society and on the reader.

As a writer’s writer, Dillard considers fiction less in terms of conventional structures and plots, and more in terms of style and sentence-to-sentence execution. This is no surprise, as Living By Fiction often feels like a sentence-to-sentence experiment, a how-to that runs off the tracks it builds, in the most delightful and edifying way. In a sense, this is part of its meaning, to make rules, then break them.

She considers the works of Beckett, Borges, Calvino, Cortazar, Nabokov, and other masters of the craft. She uses their texts to consider fiction’s aesthetic virtues, and to explore her own tastes and theories about writing. As always, her sentences are crystal clear, simple yet ringing with the truth.

Order a copy of Oh God, The Sun Goes by David Connor today. 

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That’s where a solid beta reader comes in.

The Importance of a Second Opinion

It’s easy to get lost in our own heads when we’re writing. Things make sense to us as the writer because it’s all immediate to us. But just like conversations can be jumbled when the words and feelings inside us are spoken aloud, so can stories.

Beta readers are the people who help work through that jumble on an early draft. Not the zero or first draft—that’s for you to figure out what story you’re telling. Once you’ve done an initial review and revision, a beta reader can provide feedback about whether you’re on the right track. They approach and respond to your work as a reader first, not as a writer.

This early review is important to help you, the writer, gain perspective. It’s an opportunity to see if the plot and emotional points land the way you want them to, whether the story is engaging, and what didn’t make sense.

It’s also a milestone to draw a line under drafting, especially if you’re someone who has rewritten draft after draft and doesn’t know what to do next. External feedback is key!

Before continuing, we should define what a beta reader is not:

• An editor
• A proofreader
• A sensitivity or cultural accuracy reader
• A critique partner (CP)

[Who Are Sensitivity Editors? And How Much Does Sensitivity Reading Pay?]

While some of the people offering those services may also do beta reading, you shouldn’t expect to receive editing or cultural reviews as part of a default beta read. You also shouldn’t necessarily expect targeted tips on how to fix things, like a CP might offer.

A beta reader is also not the last stage in your review process. Depending on your needs and publishing path, you may want to send your work for further review and editing before publication.

Getting Connected

Finding beta readers can be a challenge. Many writers turn to the #WritingCommunity on Twitter or elsewhere to find other writers to beta read their work. They might agree to a swap or other exchange for the time put into the reading and feedback. Beyond finding a beta reader, there may be additional challenges like slow turnaround times, genre mismatches, or the quality of the feedback received.

If you can afford it, one of the ways to add structure to the beta reading process is to pay for it as a service. Platforms like Fiverr can help you find and secure beta reading services, and you can check for things like genres read, feedback given, turnaround time, and reviews. For self-publishers trying to set a regular publishing schedule, this can be a good option to make sure you get quality feedback without missing deadlines.

For those wanting more structure without the upfront costs, the BetaBooks platform offers a mix of free and paid services.

What to Look for in a Beta Reader

Generally, it’s a good idea to look beyond friends and family to ensure more objective feedback. And while everyone is potentially a reader, that doesn’t mean everyone is potentially a good beta reader. Giving feedback requires empathy and a balance between critique and encouragement which will vary by the reader and the writer.

To start, think about how you receive feedback best. Do you need tough love or the compliment sandwich? Are you someone who needs to hear feedback or read it? Understanding this helps you find a beta reader who’s a match for you and sets you up to receive the feedback better.

Next, look for someone who reads (and loves!) the genre you write and who represents your target audience (this might require some market research). If you’re coming from a marginalized background or writing about sensitive topics, you might also consider checking whether a prospective beta reader either has similar experience or has demonstrated open-mindedness and empathy in online spaces.

Finally, be clear up front about needs, expectations, and deadlines.

Getting the Most Out of Beta Feedback

So, how else can you prepare in advance to get the best possible feedback? As with many things in life, it helps to know what you want before getting started.

Think about where you struggle with craft skills (like characterization, dialogue, world-building, setting, plotting, pacing, etc.) and outline a few questions for those. Then think about where you consider yourself strong, and cover some of those as well.

Example questions you might send with your manuscript include:

• Is there any point where they’d quit reading the book? If yes, why?
• Reaction to the characters: Were they believable and fully fleshed-out? Did their motives make sense?
• Plot concerns: Were there any glaring plot holes? Did they end the book with questions that should have been answered earlier?
• Ending: Was it satisfying? If the book is a part of a series, does it make them want to read the next book?

Don’t forget genre-specific questions as well.

Content warnings can also help. Far from giving away the plot, content warnings demonstrate respect for a reader’s time and sensibilities. They also ensure the feedback you receive is focused more on the story as a whole, rather than on a potentially objectionable section that elicits a strong reaction from the reader.

Lastly, prepare yourself mentally. Getting early feedback can be stressful for some.

Processing the Feedback

Once you’ve gotten your feedback, breathe.

The first thing to remember is that most of the time, feedback isn’t personal. Just like the things people say in our daily lives are often a reflection of them, their experiences, and the things they’re dealing with, beta reader feedback can be the same.

It can be especially tough if you’re called out for something harmful or insensitive in your writing—and this can happen despite the best of intentions and effort to learn! In this event, pause to consider where there might be gaps in your knowledge. And if you’re writing about something personal to you, remember that not everyone with similar backgrounds shares the exact same experiences.

Whether good or bad, it’s easy to take feedback to heart. Staying objective is important to improving as a writer. If there’s something that needs work, make a plan to shore it up in this story—and also to develop your skills for the next. If something is called out as great, are you able to reverse-engineer that or find a way to improve it further for future work?

The goal with feedback throughout the writing process is to understand where the vision has fallen short on delivery. It’s up to you as the writer to take or leave what’s offered.

You’ll also need to decide what to do about conflicting feedback if you engage with more than one beta reader. Again, bring it back to your goals. Which piece of feedback is more in line with the goal?

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Sharing your work with beta readers is the first step to sharing it with the world. Understanding what a beta reader is, where to find them, and your goals for engaging with beta readers can help you make the most of the experience. Now, go get some good feedback.

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This is the advice I wish someone had given me when I first started writing 15 years ago. I knew I wanted to write a novel, so I began to hunt down information on the best way to do that. And by “hunt down,” I mean I read blog posts from other authors detailing their process and tried to copy that process exactly.

I’d sit in workshops at conferences, taking furious notes, absorbing “the right way” to write a novel, thinking I could plug my ideas, my words, my characters into someone else’s formula and end up with a completed book.

And I think, to some extent, that’s exactly what I did. It’s great to learn from those who’ve already done it.

But more recently, I began to realize that if you ask 10 authors to explain their process, you’ll get 10 different answers—and that is the beauty of being a novelist.

Because there’s more than one way to write a novel. And every author has the right to find the way that works best for them.

I tend to be a rule follower, always in search of “the best” way to do something. Not just writing, either. I want the best way to get to the grocery store. The best way to plan a vacation. The best way to learn to run a mile. I’m always striving for perfection.

But perfect is the enemy of good.

The “best” can steal your joy—and really, who has time to loathe what they do for a living?

I spent many years writing the novels this way. I loved the books I was writing, but if I’m honest, the process was always a struggle. And then, after nearly a decade of writing according to the way other people were doing it, I hit a wall. I felt stalled out. I was frustrated. Words weren’t coming easily, and I didn’t feel like I was connecting with readers the way I’d hoped.

It might seem counterproductive, but I knew that what I needed wasn’t to force more books into the world. I needed to take a break. An intentional break, away from the characters and worlds and stories that lived in my mind.

I needed a reboot. Return to factory settings. And in some ways, I needed to un-learn a few things. Because while some of the advice I’d stored away, furiously writing in those workshops, served me well. . .some of that advice hindered me.

Because I was trying to create using someone else’s blueprint.

Sometimes the pressure we put on ourselves chokes out our creativity. Holds it in a death grip like a boa constrictor. And I’m the queen of self-inflicted pressure.

But during that intentional break, the pressure began to loosen. And I started to want something different for my writing process.

I didn’t know all of this until after my break ended, and I was at a crossroads. I knew I had a choice: I could lay my writing career down—after all, my husband and I own a performing arts studio and youth theatre that I find incredibly fulfilling—or I could find a way to write something just for fun. Something I would want to read. Something that would make me happy.

I didn’t care if that book won awards. I didn’t care if it was impressive to critics. All I cared about was telling a story I would love to read about characters I wanted to know.

I threw all my thoughts on branding out the window. I wrote in a different tense. I created a character that consumed my thoughts for weeks, a character who almost feels like one of my children. I tapped in to a different side of my voice, maybe my truest voice because I broke all of my own rules.

And you know what? It made me happy.

Which is funny considering that was exactly what my character was searching for.

Happiness isn’t a one size fits all kind of thing, and the same can be said for writing a novel. What makes me happy isn’t going to make another author happy—and that is the beauty of it. The trick is to find the things that make you happy and build your career around that.

Because writing might be work, but it doesn’t have to be laborious. And creativity thrives when you let it out to play.

The Happy Life of Isadora Bentley is a bit of a departure for me. But it’s quite possibly the most special story I’ve ever told. When I think of it, I feel like there’s something precious about it—because it represents an awakening for me as an author.

Order The Happy Life of Isadora Bentley by Courtney Walsh today.

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This book taught me not to take myself so seriously, to stop caring so much about “rules,” to write straight from the heart, and to let myself play.

Because as I’ve gotten older I’ve forgotten the critical importance of “play” when it comes to the creative process.

This book helped me find my happiness. Helped me find my voice. And helped me remember why I started writing in the first place—and it started when I listened to my own heart and quieted all the other voices coming at me, telling me the way.

I don’t know much, but I do know that “the way” is different for everyone—and I vow to stay true to my way from here on out.

It’s the best way to be a happy writer.

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