Write Your Way Real talk + resources for writers Happy Spring! 🌼 Let's jump right into the final installment in this critique tip trilogy without much ado. Tip #3: Be clear, specific, but open-minded with what you are looking for when asking for feedback. Giving someone a piece of writing — a memoir excerpt, personal essay, chapter of your novel — and just saying “tell me what you think” is NOT the way to get valuable feedback from critique partners or a writers' group. To really maximize...
3 months ago • 7 min read
Write Your Way Real talk + resources for writers Saving Daylight in the Dark Night of the Writer Soul Last week, I shared probably my biggest tip for getting worthwhile writing critique: Find the right people. This week, it's all about you. Quality feedback is only as helpful as you allow it to be. It's only useful if you let yourself take it on, consider it, and then decide how to proceed. You can get have the top writers, readers, agents, editors, and other pros in your genres giving you...
3 months ago • 4 min read
Write Your Way Real talk + resources for writers Writing critique is necessary, and not even totally evil! One of my staunchest positions as a writer and writing coach is that we can’t — and should never try to — create by consensus. But, we also can’t create entirely in a vacuum, because writing is meant to connect. We won’t go from “crappy first draft” all the way to “polished and publishable” all on our own. Whether we call it constructive criticism, writing critique, or just feedback,...
3 months ago • 6 min read
Write Your Way Real talk + resources for writers Tough Love Talk Time 📣 The muse. Lightning strikes of inspiration. The perfect writing mood. An idyllic, leisurely, writerly life full of fanciful conversations and exalting compatriots. Many of us have fallen into the pit of romanticizing these as the building blocks of great writing, the trappings of writers worth reading. I've spent time there, and maybe you have, too. Zero judgment, all the commiseration! But the work is really the thing...
4 months ago • 3 min read
Write Your Way Real talk + resources for writers Happy 2025, writers! “Remember that hope is a good thing, Red, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies. I will be hoping that this letter finds you, and finds you well." -- Stephen King, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption Every year, I pick a theme, a guiding principle, a word to focus on, explore, and live into in all areas of my life (including my writing and coaching work). I don't usually share it widely, but after the...
5 months ago • 4 min read
Write Your Way Real talk + resources for writers June 2024 Happy Summer! If you're wondering where & how so much of 2024 has already gone, well, same. How's the writing going, by the way? If you winced, flinched, or cringed when you read that, you're in great company. That's how we all feel at some point during our book journeys. And the thing is, it can happen at many points on that long, windy road from concept to publication. If you're struggling, I'm here to help. Whether you're stuck on...
about 1 year ago • 2 min read
Write Your Way Real talk + resources for writers March 2024 Hi & Happy Spring! Time for some writing renewal and rebirth? You've opened the right email. Let's get into it... The ways writers order chaos Writing is all about ordering chaos, in multiple — sometimes antithetical — ways. To write, you invite some chaos, request its presence, then command it (or try to). It's like sitting down at your desk and saying to the universe, your mind, the blank page, "I'll have a bunch of chaos. For here...
about 1 year ago • 3 min read
Write Your Way Real talk + resources for writers February 2024 The Blessing/Curse of Social Media Ah, the best/worst thing that's ever happened to writers. 🎭 A haven and foundation for building community with fellow writers. A place to connect with readers as humans. Allegedly, the easiest way to start building an "author platform". A way to feel not-so-alone while pursuing that fabled lonely life of letters. Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your meme. But also a place where real...
over 1 year ago • 3 min read
Write Your Way Real talk + resources for writers January 2024 Is 2024 the year you write your book? New year, same goal? Let's make 2024 the last year you start without a solid draft of your memoir, or still stuck on the next steps with the draft you have. The last year you spend agonizing over when and how you'll get it written. The last year you wonder if you're even doing it right. Let this be year you make it happen, whatever it takes. So what does it take? You already know the basics:...
over 1 year ago • 2 min read
