It can be a frustrating experience to have a bad release. Completely understand that. And the urge to deconstruct what we did wrong after is super normal. No judgment there. That is helpful to a point. I just want to add a specific perspective about releasing right now that I think is important to note.…
Subscription fatigue. (On a call with a bunch of creators and we’re talking about this.) I feel like we don’t talk enough about the way consumers are fatigued right now. We’re gonna talk about this more in the upcoming months, but sometimes it helps to have a word for what it is that we’re feeling.…
I have been baseline-happy the last two weeks. But not spikey-happy, like “I just had a cookie and I feel artificially pushed up by sugar” happy. Peaceful happy. Like, I can just lay back and enjoy. No effort required to enjoy. It doesn’t mean I haven’t felt a huge range of emotion. The days we’re…
If you’ve lost joy in writing… Of course, solidarity. Most of us who are professional writers go through that at some point. So you are not alone. First, of course, we do have to acknowledge it. That ole GI Joe saying… knowing is half the battle. That’s our whole vibe around here. So, acknowledge, solidarity,…
For some of us, we will have instant chemistry in our author career. Things will “just work.” Chemistry is instant. (In the “colloquial” way we use “chemistry” as meaning, “it’s just working” or “it just feels right.”) Alchemy is a process. (In that it’s transformational, and has to happen by transmuting things from their current…
In the hard weeks, and when we face the most difficult truths about ourselves or about humanity or about life, we have more needs. Change and loss are painful and complicated, and in the midst of global uncertainty, even more so. My practices have become even more important to me, the last week. My self-care…
I wish it would happen to me vs. I want to do it. There is an active difference in outcomes between those two statements. And as someone who has said both of them before, about different things, let me encourage you: you aren’t “one” or “the other” type of person in this scenario. Everyone will…
When I go to 11 about something, do I know how to get what I need and want? This is not to say we shouldn’t go to 11. This is to say, when we do, how do we take best advantage of that 11-feeling. Many of us want to take action right then, when we’re…
We do a behavioral-continuum activity in our writing workshops where I put up a slide that has two opposite behaviors on it, and ask the writers to go to one side of the room if they are the one extreme, and the other side of the room if they are the other extreme. “Write best…
In fictional stories, characters are always oblivious to what’s really controlling and motivating them. To a point where, when a character has too much self-awareness, we often say, “feels like author intrusion” because we all know that moment of epiphany when the protagonist realizes What’s Really Going On Here ™. If you’re a writer, you’ve…