Ways to Approach Your Writing Life When You Have a Lot, a Little, and a Goldilocks Amount of Writing Time

Life’s seasons change how much time and energy you have for “extras” like writing. With work, caregiving, relationships, chores, and your own health to manage, writing can feel like one more task. Still, small, regular writing sessions can act as a protective boundary, reducing stress and replenishing you.

This post helps you use whatever time you have. First, honestly assess how much writing time you can realistically spare, then apply strategies suited to that amount so your writing survives and thrives amid everything else.

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Writing Sophisticated Dual Narrative [Not Just Because the Market Told You To]

Because dual narratives and frame narratives are frequent tropes, especially in historical and women’s fiction, I edit a decent amount of manuscripts that use them. This can be a fantastic device if the author’s intention in using this structure is either evident on the page or is something they’ve told me they’re working toward.

If the reason is just that it’s a trope of the genre and therefore they have to do it, though? Then, Houston, we may have a problem.

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Writing Challenge: Embodied Metaphor

Reading is largely a disembodied experience, so when we are reminded out of the blue that we have bodies—by the thing doing our disembodying, no less—the result makes our immersion in the work all the stronger.

Take the challenge. Dial up your readers’ emotional investment in your work with embodied language.

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When It Feels Hard to Write

Life can be heavy sometimes, but you can’t beat yourself up about not showing up at the writing desk. In these instances, it’s not a lack of motivation but a lack of resources that’s keeping you from moving forward. If you get mad at yourself for that, it’d be like getting mad at your car for not moving forward if it ran out of gas. This post includes five things you can do when writing doesn’t come easily.

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The Personal to the Universal, and Other Priorities in Contemporary Memoir

Have you browsed the narrative nonfiction shelves lately and thought, “Oh man, I don’t have it in me to read another grief memoir”?

Here are a few thoughts on the memoir market as it stands, a few things you might prioritize inside and out of your own work. A note before we get started: This blog post should be seen as a primer. It contains observations I’ve made in the recent past, while working with memoirists who have attained agent interest, that I feel will help improve memoirists chances of trade publication, but it is certainly not the be all, end all of advice.

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