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 last few months of local devastation (Hurricane Helene) and global mayhem — and given how instrumental it is to writers — I'm putting this one out there.

I chose hope not just for its literary significance and romanticism, but also for very practical reasons.

A lot of us think of hope as a four-letter word — either some sing-song Pollyanna bullshit or lazy, deluded religio-spiritual bypassing. Hope seems hokey, especially when the world feels aflame with conflict, strife, and actual fire.

But that's only if we're doing it wrong.

The American Psychological Association posted something eye-opening and deeply affirming about hope last year. You can read the whole article here, but I'll excerpt two key points that guide me below:

Hope says, "things are crappy now, but they won't stay that way because I can and will un-crap them."

And that's the crux of it, isn't it? Nothing we want, nothing worth having, is really achieved without action. Or, in the absence of hope. We believe in better, then strive to make it happen.

It can be that simple (ahem...I'm not saying "easy").

Hope is Vital to Writing

Writing is both an act of hope and an undertaking that requires hope to sustain it.

To write is to hope. Writing is not passive. You don't sit at the keyboard or with your notebook open, wait, and wish the words onto the page in the perfect order. You don't look back at pivotal moments, stare at the screen, and get a memoir down by will alone.

You get it down messy, then you fix it up.

You also don't keep going if you don't have hope that it's worthwhile. Hope your book will be good. Hope it will be published. Hope readers find, love, and share it. Hope it matters, means something, changes something, fulfills something.

And the work to make it so.

You do it, and you do it some more, and slowly you do it better and better. Hope blossoms as you take consistent action, as you see your ideas fleshing out.

It's a beautiful self-sustaining cycle. (Still not saying it's easy.)

A big part of my responsibility as a writing coach is to help you hope more and take the small actions that simultaneously reinforce hope, and get you closer to your goal of a finished book.

You're stuck now, but that's not the whole story. You're unsure of the direction, the next steps, or the first step.

But I promise you won't stay that way, if you go at it with hope and action.

1-on-1 writing support, just for you

Let me help you navigate your roadblocks and stay consistently forward-moving, as you lovingly labor on your manuscript. Choose my tailored 10-session Write Your Book Your Way program, or get a quick shot of clarity, direction, and an action plan during a single, half-day Immersed in Intention session. To talk through what you need and how I can help, book a free no-strings-attached Discovery Call.

Yet, a resource word

One of the easiest ways to start shifting toward and embodying hope in your writing is to tack the word "yet" onto how you think and talk about your goals. Hope doesn't ask you to erase or ignore the fact that you don't have an agent or a finished manuscript or maybe even a solid outline.

It just asks you to trust that you will, then move to do it.

So when the inner critic or the self-doubt start whispering about all the things you haven't done or don't have, try adding the word "yet" to remind yourself you're working on it.

I don't have an agent yet. I don't have a polished draft of my memoir yet.

I don't yet know the exact direction this collection is taking. I haven't figured out how to tell this part of the story, yet. This character isn't coming in clearly yet.

It's not good enough, yet.

I'm on it, so I'll get there, is the implication.

Give it a try next time *that* voice starts talking shit, distracting, and down-dragging, instead of encouraging or motivating you.

MWBC's Next Read

The Memoir Writers' Book Club is back this month, with a book that does double duty as memoir and essential writing craft book: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King.

🗓 We'll meet January 30th, at 7:00pm EST, over Zoom. Save your spot.

Destination: Inspiration 🛬

I'm wrapping this with another hopeful quote I love, from another legendary writer.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

-- Emily Dickinson (full poem here)

Until next time, write on!

Cornelia ✍🏼 ✨