Is Substack the best platform for writers? Is it right for you? In this interview, publishing expert Jane Friedman explores Substack's social media-like features, blogging-like functionality, podcast-host possibilities...and its implications for writers. From using Substack "Notes" to community cross-promotion, it's an ecosystem worth understanding. Substack is more than just newsletters—it's a blog, social media, podcast host, and email marketing tool all-in-one platform. Perfect for beginners, but should we trust it with all of our content? Learn the pros and cons of Substack on our latest episode of the "Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach" podcast after skimming the show notes and summary below. But first... Meet Jane Friedman: Jane Friedman has 25 years of experience in book publishing, with expertise in business strategy for authors and publishers. She’s the co-founder and editor of The Hot Sheet, a paid newsletter about the book publishing industry with over 2,500 subscribers, and has previously worked for Writer’s Digest and the Virginia Quarterly Review. In 2023, Jane was awarded Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World. Jane's website, janefriedman.com, offers a wealth of resources for authors. She writes many of the articles herself and also features guest writers who are experts in various aspects of writing and publishing. You may have followed some of the many links I've shared in my own newsletter, as Jane's content and curation of expert input consistently provides top-notch education and encouragement for writers across genres. Jane’s most recent book is The Business of Being a Writer (sponsored post/affiliate link to Amazon) (University of Chicago Press), which received a starred review from Library Journal. And a new edition is to be released in Spring 2025. Jane is everywhere. She’s been in The New York Times, The Atlantic, CNN, Wired, BBC, The Guardian, CBC, The Washington Post, Fox News, USA Today, and NPR. And now she’s here on the "Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach" podcast, discussing Substack for writers. https://youtu.be/JP2EuDDDGRI Mentioned in the show (it's a lot!): Read Jane’s thorough and thoughtful analysis of Substack from March 2024:  https://janefriedman.com/substack-is-both-great-and-terrible-for-authors/ Sign up for Jane's free newsletter, Electric Speed, or see if The Hot Sheet, her paid newsletter for publishing professionals, is right for you. Leigh Stein (switched from offering a free MailChimp newsletter to offering a paid Substack): the website signup page: https://www.leighstein.com/newsletter | direct link to “Attention Economy” substack: https://leighstein.substack.com/  Ann mentions paying for George Saunders’ “Story Club” substack: https://georgesaunders.substack.com/  And paying for Jeannette Ouellette’s “Writing in the Dark” substack: https://writinginthedark.substack.com/  Article in The Verge about the Substack controversy about Nazis using the platform: https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/8/24030756/substack-nazi-newsletter-content-moderation Alternatives to Substack include Beehiiv https://www.beehiiv.com/ and Ghost. https://ghost.org/  All the Substack newsletters Jane subscribes to here: https://substack.com/@janefriedman/reads  Courtney Maum’s “Before and After the Book Deal” https://courtneymaum.substack.com/  Elle Griffin’s “Elysian Press” (Jane warned that her decision to unsubscribe from all substacks and only use the app means she’s encouraging others to do the same and will lose all of her own subscribers): https://www.elysian.press/  Dr. Jen Gunter’s “The Vajenda”:  https://vajenda.substack.com/  Peter Schoppert’s “AI and Copyright” substack: https://aicopyright.substack.com/  Benedict Evans’ tech analysis newsletter on his own solution (possibly MailChimp with Memberful, a WordPress plugin to manage the subscription version): https://www.ben-evans.com/newsletter 

“A writer — and, I believe, generally all persons — must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource," writer Jorge Luis Borges said in an interview, when asked about his blindness. "All things have been given to us for a purpose," he continued, "and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.”1 You may be familiar with Kate Bowler’s book Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved, and you might think it would push back against the wording of this sentiment. Everything That Happens Can Shape Your Writing But I take the quote’s overall message to mean we can work with whatever happens, good or bad. In fact, that’s kind of what Kate Bowler has done. Her misfortunes shaped her art. This summer brought our family celebrations, gatherings, challenges, and losses. And they came so fast, I couldn’t find time to document them all. For now, they’re jumbled in my mind and heart. Reflecting on Highs and Lows The Borges quote encourages me to revisit the summer’s ups and downs when life starts to slow...to take my time as I capture the details (and emotions) of the chaos that whizzed past. Will you join me? As you reflect on the past few months—the moments you couldn’t control, the raw material of your life—consider how you can work with all that transpired. Were there adventures? Celebrations? Humiliations? Misfortunes? Embarrassments? From these "resources," we, as writers, shape: stories that resonate ideas that stick opinions that stir discussions advice that steers decisions revelations that open others to new perspectives We, as word artists, can transform all that happens to us into art. Transform Experience into Creative Expression As you reflect on the past few months—the moments you couldn’t control, the raw material of your life—consider how you can work with it. Explore your journal notes, expand on fleeting thoughts, and, with your creative flair, discover the meaning and purpose within those experiences. Whether they become part of a poem, essay, book, or blog post, see their purpose. "Remember," writes Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird. "that you own what happened to you."2 Every event, episode, and experience contributes to your becoming who you are as a creative human. Every hardship, misfortune, humiliation, joy, success, and celebration is a resource waiting to be shaped into art. A Prompt to Capture Life’s “Raw Material” Use this prompt to tap into the raw material of your life: Something significant that happened to me is ______________________. This is what happened: ________________________. Use vivid language and specific details as you recall the facts. What did you see, hear, or notice? Here's how it shaped and changed me: _____________________. How did this experience shift your perspective, behavior, or beliefs? What did you learn about yourself or the world? This is how I connect it with how it made me feel, deep down: _________________. What emotions did it stir? Did those feelings evolve over time? Here's how I can use the experience in my creative life: __________________________. Could it inspire a story, poem, or essay? What universal themes does it touch on? Your Creative Prerogative The details may stay in your personal journal while the experience finds its way into your body of work in more subtle ways. Your experience and insights may simply inform your work, your style, your ideas without being your work. Or you may write it "slant," relying on metaphor to hint at its impact. It's your creative prerogative to shape it as you wish. Because the experience shapes you, but you shape it, as well. Resources What Lies Beneath the Surface of Your Life?

Dear Writer, It’s easy to freeze up when we’re writing for the faceless masses or the random reader who happens upon our words. What do we say to all those people? How can we speak with heart to a total stranger? Next thing you know, we second-guess our ideas, our prose, our very selves. We fade to beige without saying what we really think, without being specific, without our signature wit and whimsy.  What would that random person who doesn’t even know me think if I crack a joke? We lose our creativity, our passion, our joy. We freeze. We get stuck.  We’re afraid to stand out, so we play it safe. We write dull, ordinary prose that could be penned by anyone at all, even ChatGPT. Unlock Your Creative Voice: Write a Letter to Your Reader One way to unlock creativity is to write a letter—a letter to your reader. And not just any nameless, faceless reader but a specific person you actually know. Dear Anthony… Dear Paula… Dear Lissa… When you think of the kind of person you’re trying to reach with your words, does Lissa fit? Good.  Now, write her a letter about a question or struggle that she herself has voiced.  Weave in ideas that can help.  Encourage her with a vulnerable story. Add a little pizzazz that only you can include—after all, she knows you. She’ll grin at your joke and “get” your allusion. When you’re done, you can send her the note, if you want. Or you can cross out Lissa’s name and replace it with the type of person you write for: Dear Weary Homeschool Mom… Dear New Gardener… Dear Journaler… If that feels awkward to publish, cross off the salutation altogether.  Dear Anthony… Dear Paula… Dear Lissa… I’ll bet you can find a great hook in your opening lines, and the letter-writing trick disarmed you enough to write fresh and real and personable. Writing a Letter to Your Reader Frees Your Natural Voice From the writer’s perspective, writing a letter to your reader can remove that feeling of writing to the faceless masses and instead invite an easy tone and thoughts that convey empathy and intimacy. J. Willis Westlake, author of an 1800s book about letter-writing, says: In other [writing] productions there is the restraint induced by the feeling that a thousand eyes are peering over the writer’s shoulder and scrutinizing every word; while letters are written when the mind is as it were in dressing-gown and slippers — free, natural, active, perfectly at home, and with all the fountains of fancy, wit, and sentiment in full play.1 By tricking your mind into donning its dressing-gown and slippers, you can achieve that “free, natural, active, perfectly at home” tone, style, and voice. Your readers will love reading your “fancy, wit, and sentiment in full play.” Genuine Letters Contain Our Most Interesting Content And it’s not just our style, tone, and voice that letters unleash; it’s also the content itself. Westlake continues, “Though written, as all genuine letters are, for the private eye of one or two familiar friends, and without any thought of their publication, they nevertheless often form the most interesting and imperishable of an author’s productions.”2 In other words, these letters contain our “most interesting and imperishable” ideas. So why not write them as letters first? Discover Epistolary Writing This letter-writing format is labeled “epistolary” writing. And the epistolary approach is used more widely in published work than you might be thinking. For example, advice columns. Advice Columns Advice columns like the classic “Dear Abby” and more recent “Dear Sugar” dished out empathetic responses that addressed specific needs that were sent in from readers. The writer connected directly with the recipient who asked the initial question and with every reader who “listened in.” Epistolary Nonfiction Books Then there are nonfiction epistolary books,

[Ep 174] In last week’s interview, Patrice Gopo described the stories that bubbled up inside her—personal stories about topics she cared deeply about as she grappled with her identity and where she fit in society. Patrice grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, as a black American daughter of Jamaican immigrants. She wanted to explore that, to make sense of it all. How? Through writing. She turned to the essay to figure out her life, to delve into her experiences—to discover self and live a more meaningful life We, too, can delve into our experiences, diving beneath the surface to discover ourselves and live more meaningful lives. Elizabeth Lesser writes in Broken Open: If we don’t listen to the voice of the soul, it sings a stranger tune. If we don’t go looking for what lies beneath the surface of our lives, the soul comes looking for us. I haven’t read Lesser’s book, but that line urging us to look for what lies beneath the surface of our lives? We can use writing to do just that: to look for what lies beneath and listen to the voice of the soul. Capture Ideas It starts with an image, perhaps, or an interaction that bubbles up—a scene or memory. Pay attention to each one. Capture in detail this scene or image. You can do this on the spot or during a writing session later. Add sensory details. Try to recreate it objectively. That helps to examine and explore the meaning in it. If you don’t have time to write at that instant, jot down in a notebook a key word or phrase that can serve as a reminder or prompt. When you settle in to write it out in more detail, you’ll have many to choose from. Anne Lamott captures these snatches on 3x5 cards she carries in her pocket. Patrice uses a simple composition notebook tucked in her bag. I use Evernote or Google Keep. Ask Why? When you write—when you start to dive in and look beneath the surface—be curious about yourself, about that scene or image or snatch of dialogue. Why am I remembering that moment my dad grazed his leg with the chainsaw? Why does the sensation of flying back and forth in the swing keep coming back to me? Why does that glass doorknob make me tear up? Patrice says that when we're trying to understand what's happening in our lives or in the world—when we delve deeply into an incident to see its significance and why it matters—that’s meaning-making on the page. The incident could be big or small. As an example, Patrice said she noted in her journal that a couple of weeks ago her husband brought her a chocolate bar. It occurred to her he's been bringing her chocolate bars throughout their entire marriage. Why? Why are these chocolate bar moments over the years coming to mind? Why does he bring them? It seems small, but it’s rising to the surface. She’s listening to the voice of her soul. She pulled out her composition book and started writing some of the other scenes and memories, all because she was struck by that recurring image of a chocolate bar. She doesn’t know the answer yet; the meaning is unclear. For now, she’s exploring it. We can do that, too. We can write scenes and reflect. Let’s let curiosity and a sense of discovery lead us. Stay open as you listen to the voice of the soul; look for what lies beneath the surface of your life. You Don’t Need an Outline or Plan Thanks to our early academic training in the essay form, it’s tempting to set out with a thesis and outline our way into understanding, theme, and meaning. Resist...at least, at first. Anne Lamott, in a podcast interview for "Books of Your Life with Elizabeth," says not to worry about outlines. There’s that old saying that you can’t get lost if you don’t have a destination. People are always saying, “Don’t you have an outline?” And I say, “No, I don’t know what I’m doing. How would I be able to do an outline? I’ll find out what I’m doing by doing the writing.” Start writing without knowing what you’re doing or where you’re going.

At Breathe Christian Writers Conference, held October 12 and 13, 2018, I interviewed three authors who served on the speaking team. We discussed all things writing, like their writing challenges, their writing process, and their advice for writers. All for you. I’m sharing these conversations with you, mixing them in with my standard short solo episodes. You heard from Shawn Smucker in episode 171. Today, I bring you the second interview: a conversation with Patrice Gopo. We discussed her work as an essayist and meaning-making on the page. She gives us an inside look at her writing process, including several techniques she’s used study the craft of writing as well as the importance of feedback. I begin by reading her bio as we sat down to talk, so you’ll get the official info at the start. Today, enjoy getting to know and learn from Patrice Gopo (and check out multiple resources below). Patrice Gopo’s essays have appeared in a variety of literary journals and other publications, including Gulf Coast, Full Grown People, Creative Nonfiction, and online in The New York Times and The Washington Post. She is the recipient of a North Carolina Arts Council Literature Fellowship, and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is the author of All the Colors We Will See, an essay collection about race, immigration, and belonging. Her book is a Fall 2018 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. Resources: Patrice's Writing Resources: to help you develop as a writer - recommended classes, conferences, coaches and editors, craft books, and community Sign up for her newsletter and receive an essay from the book along with the discussion guide: https://www.patricegopo.com/subscribe/ Patrice's website: patricegopo.com Patrice on Twitter: @patricegopo Patrice on Instagram: @patricegopo Patrice on Facebook: @patricegopowrites All the Colors We Will See, by Patrice Gopo [affiliate link, which means I will receive a small compensation at no charge to you if you click through to check it out and purchase] All the Places We Call Home, Patrice's debut children's book (releases June 2022) [affiliate link] Ann's Patreon account All podcast episodes You can subscribe to this podcast using your podcast player or find it through Apple podcasts, Stitcher, or Spotify. Have you grabbed the free mini-course? Make Your Sentences Sing: 7 Sentence Openers to Add Music to Your Prose Go to annkroeker.com/sentenceopeners to learn more and to enroll for free. If it looks interesting, you can dive right in.

As you know from my interview with Shawn Smucker, he’s a novelist with ambitious goals—on track to write ten books in ten years. He's written three of his own books—two novels and a memoir. His fourth will be released in 2019. To make a living, he works as a cowriter and ghostwriter. Several years ago he was hit with the realization that he could live his whole life writing books for others and never write his own. With that, he made the switch to writing his own things first every day. It might just be for an hour, but if he commits to writing his own projects first, he knows it's going to happen. Shawn’s wakeup call can serve as our own, calling for us to prioritize our own writing. If we don’t, other things will swallow our time and energy and we’ll have nothing left. But when we do prioritize our writing—when we put our own work first—we start to achieve our writing goals and build our body of work. We can bring our best, most creative selves to our own projects by prioritizing in four different ways. 1. Write Your Own Things First Every Day Shawn prioritizes his own writing by literally doing it first—waking up early to commit a few minutes or a few hours to his work-in-progress. His secret is to follow a routine. Morning Routines Shawn’s routine has been to get up early, but instead of diving directly into the work-for-hire, he sits down and writes for an hour or so on his personal projects. We can set up a routine, too: Get up early and write for 20 minutes or an hour on our own projects before proceeding with the rest of the day—ensuring that our work progresses. Famous Writers’ Morning Routines We’ll be in good company with this commitment to rising early to get to the work. In an interview for The Paris Review in 1958, Ernest Hemingway said: When I am working on a book or a story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and warm as you write. The Telegraph reported that several famous authors rose early to write, including WH Auden, Beethoven, and Victor Hugo. They all liked to wake at 6am. Kurt Vonnegut and Maya Angelou rose even earlier. "Murakami, Voltaire and John Milton all set their alarms at 4am.” So did Barbara Kingsolver. James Clear shared an excerpt of her explaining about the years when her kids were young. Back then, she said she rose early. “Too early,” in fact. Four o’clock is standard. My morning begins with trying not to get up before the sun rises. But when I do, it’s because my head is too full of words, and I just need to get to my desk and start dumping them into a file. I always wake with sentences pouring into my head. So getting to my desk every day feels like a long emergency. One way to prioritize your writing, then, is to give it the first hours of every day, rising early to do so. Get up, get to your desk, and start dumping those words out of your head. If it feels like a emergency, maybe that’s because it is. 2. Carve Out Time to Binge Write Maybe early mornings and routines don’t work for you, at least not right now while you’re dealing with a broken arm or while you’re serving as a caregiver for aging parents. When every day seems disrupted by the next demand or emergency, routines may seem unattainable and you may need more sleep to get through the day. Binge Writing to Make Progress Try a different way to prioritize your work: by carving out a chunk of time to binge write. Bec Evans, cofounder of Prolifiko, “the world’s digital coach,” concedes that binge writing overall is "less productive, leads to fewer ideas, more procrastination and even depression.” But they surveyed writers on how they go about their work, and 36 percent of writers said "they wrote nothing for weeks, then had an intense period of writing. That’s the reality of their lives—bingeing is the only way they find time to write,

At a writing conference held October 12 and 13, 2018, I interviewed three authors who served on the speaking team. We discussed all things writing, like their writing challenges, their writing process, and their advice for writers. All for you! I’m going to share these conversations with you, mixing them in with my standard short solo episodes; in other words, you won’t be getting all three interviews in a row. But you’ll know an interview from a solo show because I’ll include “interview” in the subject line—that way you can set aside a longer chunk of time to listen. Today, I bring you the first of the three: a conversation with Shawn Smucker. We discussed his work as a cowriter, ghostwriter, and novelist, and our discussion took place just before release day for his nonfiction book Once We Were Strangers. Shawn Smucker is the author of the novels Light from Distant Stars, The Day the Angels Fell and The Edge of Over There, as well as the memoir, Once We Were Strangers. He lives with his wife and six children in the city of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. You can find him online at www.shawnsmucker.com. Resources: Light from Distant Stars, Shawn’s 2019 novel Building a Life Out of Words, Shawn's free e-book chronicling his first year trying to make a living cowriting Shawn's website: shawnsmucker.com Shawn on Twitter: @shawnsmucker Shawn on Instagram: @shawnsmucker The Day the Angels Fell [affiliate link, which means I will receive a small compensation at no charge to you if you click through to check it out and purchase] The Edge of Over There [affiliate link] Once, We Were Strangers [affiliate link] Favorite books Shawn has re-read to analyze and learn (all affiliate links): All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr [paperback] Home, by Marilynne Robinson [Kindle ebook] Housekeeping, by Marilynne Robinson [paperback] Lila, by Marilynne Robinson [Kindle ebook] Gilead, Marilynne Robinson [Kindle ebook] A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving [paperback] Ann's Patreon account All podcast episodes * * * You can subscribe to this podcast using your podcast player or find it through Apple podcasts, Stitcher, or Spotify. Have you grabbed the free mini-course? Make Your Sentences Sing: 7 Sentence Openers to Add Music to Your Prose Go to annkroeker.com/sentenceopeners to learn more and to enroll for free. If it looks interesting, you can dive right in.

Last time, we talked about the 6+1 Traits. When you take time to evaluate your work in each one, you can begin to identify areas of strength and weakness. Over time you can boost the weaker areas and become a better writer. In the months ahead, I'll continue to explore ways we can improve our craft using these traits to organize each recommendation, but for now, I'm wrapping up this part of the series to bring you something new. I'll tell you all about it at the end of this post. Writing tips, tricks, and tweaks offer immediate results, so here are four more tips to help you be a better writer. 1. Ban "the" at the Start of a Sentence My brother, who teaches writing at a university, reminded me of this tip: Never use "the" at the beginning of a sentence. While this may seem extreme—even ridiculous—what it does is force you to find new ways to vary your sentence openers. “The” is a useful word in the English language, but let’s face it: launching a sentence with "the" doesn’t offer much oomph. I could soften the tip and say, “Rarely begin a sentence with ‘the,’” but if you make it a rule—if you never start a sentence with “the”—you’ll force yourself to reach for creative alternatives. Almost any other word will hook the reader better than "the." So do it; or, rather, don’t do it. Don’t start sentences with “the.” See if you don’t write with a livelier style. 2. Vary Sentence Constructions The first tip leads to the next: vary sentence constructions. If you signed up for the free mini-course "Make Your Sentences Sing: 7 Sentence Openers to Add Music to Your Prose," you’ll have one set of options you can use to mix up your sentence constructions. If every sentence began the same way, we'd be bored after only a few paragraphs. So mix up the way you construct your sentences. When you stop using “the” at the beginning of your sentences, you’ll turn to the myriad options available to you. But think, too, of the whole sentence and how one flows to the next. Your sentences can vary not just with how you begin them, but throughout. At the editing stage, take time to craft your sentences with care and then read them aloud. Listen for mood and tone and style—does it match what you’re trying to convey? Listen for pace—does one naturally lead to the next to keep you reading or do they lag and sag? Listen for musicality—do your sentences sing? 3. Vary Sentence Length As we play with our sentences, we'll want to switch up not only the type of sentences we use but also their length. Don’t fret about these sentence-level changes while writing your draft, but as you edit, listening for the effect of your writing from paragraph to paragraph, you’ll hear your sentences work together to form the complete thought or beat. Sometimes when we churn out a draft, we fall into a steady output that spits out sentences of similar length. When you have several medium-length sentences in a row, the piece may struggle to hold a reader's attention. A longer sentence in there somewhere—created by combining two medium-length sentences—may be an easy solution to try. Add punch every once in a while by inserting a super short sentence—even one with only two or three words. That’ll grab the reader's attention better than an exclamation point. Tell the story or explain the logic, then drop in a short one. Try it. You’ll start to see how it breaks up a paragraph and gives the eye a place to stop a moment and think. 4. Be Natural Remember how our English teachers banned contractions and the use of the first-person singular? Well, live free from those restrictions, my friend. In most situations, you’ll sound best when you use a natural, conversational tone and style. Use Contractions One easy way to sound more natural is to use those contractions we were told to leave out of our written communication. Unless you write for academic journals, lose the formality. You will becomes "you'll.

[Ep 169] I’m glad to be back after an unexpected and lengthy break when I needed to care for a relative during a complicated emergency. I’m sorry I didn’t have a way to let you know in the midst of it, but it looks like things are slowing down and stabilizing. I’m back in business—able to encourage and support you and your writing again. Before my break, we were discussing how to be a better writer. I focused on small, quick wins to help you improve your writing right away with tips and tweaks. If you implement them, you will see a difference in your writing right away. But I realized I want you to see how all writing advice fits into the bigger picture of how we arrive at great writing, so I wanted to share with you the 6+1 Traits. Boost all seven traits, and you will be a better writer. 6 + 1 Traits of Great Writing The 6+1 Traits, developed by Education Northwest and promoted by the National Education Association, provides K-12 educators a way to teach and evaluate student writing. I used these categories with high school students and found that whatever their projects—essays, term papers, and creative writing projects like poetry and short stories—the seven traits gave me a way to instruct and provide input. And the traits gave them a way to think through how to make any given piece clear and strong. Not Just for Kids: Use the 6+1 Traits for Your Own Projects While it may be geared for training young writers, the categories are useful for all ages and all levels of writing experience. Whether you're writing a blog post, a social media update, or a book—fiction or nonfiction—the 6+1 Traits serve as useful reminders and guides for all stages of the writing process, from idea and developmental stages down to the final proofread. I love that they don’t focus disproportionately on conventions—usage, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar. It includes that as one of the traits, but only one of the key characteristics of writing. By exploring each trait instead of fixating on one or two, we don’t neglect areas that need attention. In fact, examining all the traits, we identify strengths and weakness not only in a given project but also in ourselves as a writer. They help us move toward excellence. The Traits What are the traits? Ideas Organization Word Choice Sentence Fluency Voice Conventions The “+ 1” trait is Appearance. Appearance is optional because it doesn’t relate to the writing itself—it’s about how we present our writing. Ideas Ideas form the core of our writing. When developing your project and later when you’re editing, start with the idea. To be crystal clear on it, express the big idea succinctly—in a sentence—and then read your piece in light of the idea. In nonfiction, is your writing clear and focused on that idea or are you veering off into the weeds? Do your main points and examples offer convincing support? If your idea isn’t clear to you, your idea won't come across clearly to the reader. In fiction, ensure your short story or novel idea is strong and clear: Does your plot work? Your character arc? How about theme? When you clarify and solidify your idea, you can turn to the second trait: Organization. Organization You can start thinking organizationally about how to present your idea starting with the title and subtitle (or headline, depending on what you’re writing). And then your introduction with a thesis. Will you create subheadings to chunk your ideas and present them logically? In fiction, you organize the piece starting with the title, subtitle, and the opening scene and the hook. You move through, scene by scene, organizing your story in a way that best fits, whether chronologically or using flashbacks. You decide how to structure and which POV will you take. As you experiment with organizational options, you’ll have to decide which choices best order the ideas or plot so the reader tracks with the piece all the way to the...

In a recent release of Revisionist History, Malcolm Gladwell introduces his podcast listeners to Dr. Bernadine Healy. In this episode, he asks Johanna Schneider, who worked with Dr. Healy at the National Institutes of Health, to describe her to listeners. Schneider said several things, including this: "She had a wooden sign on her desk that said, ‘Strong verbs, short sentences.’ And that was Bernie.” Using that wooden sign’s message as a callback, Gladwell seemed to say that Dr. Healy's value of strong verbs and short sentences conveyed formidable strength, in person and on paper. A force to be reckoned with, Dr. Healy communicated with precision and clarity. “Strong verbs, short sentences” reminds me of the advice we hear so often: Write tight. “If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.” ~ George Orwell. “Writing improves in direct ratio to the things we can keep out of it that shouldn’t be there.” ~ William Zinsser “Omit needless words.” ~ William Strunk Jr. I thought about stopping right there. I mean, “Strong verbs, short sentences”? Strunk nailed it. Omit Needless Words In an increasingly impatient world accustomed to texts, tweets, and sound bytes, this classic advice feels timely and, like it or not, necessary. Readers are impatient. We can’t waste their time. As we embrace this new cultural tendency toward sentence fragments and textspeak, we can write so tight we squeeze out nuance, texture, and meaning. If we interpret “Omit needless words” to mean “Write in the sparest style possible, like Hemingway,” we may be missing the point. The Elements of Style elaborates on its own concise, unambiguous, three-word sentence, “Omit needless words” when it says this: Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell. (The Elements of Style) Let every word tell. Make every word count. Include Necessary Words Instead of hacking away at our work, reducing it to a series of short sentences that hammer away at the reader’s ear, we study our work to determine the necessary elements. Sometimes, we need more words for clarity. Our culture often points to Ernest Hemingway as the master of strong verbs and short sentences, elevating him to the master of concise, clear writing—so much so, someone created an app called The Hemingway Editor. From its help page, it claims the app "makes your writing bold and clear...Almost any bit of writing could use some cutting. Less is more, etc…. So, the Hemingway Editor will highlight (in yellow and red) where your writing is too dense. Try removing needless words or splitting the sentence into two. Your readers will thank you.” Using the Automated Readability Index, the Hemingway Editor evaluates the “grade level” of your writing style when you paste a portion into the app, which you can do online for free. Turns out Hemingway didn’t write like Hemingway, at least not the way we’ve oversimplified his style, reducing it to strong verbs and short, declarative sentences. Hemingway Fails I plucked The Sun Also Rises from my shelf. Listen to this sentence: He was married five years, had three children, lost most of the fifty thousand dollars his father left him, the balance of the estate having gone to his mother, hardened into a rather unattractive mound under domestic unhappiness with a rich wife; and just when he had made up his mind to leave his wife she left him and went off with a miniature-painter. (4) That’s one sentence—just one. Penned by Hemingway himself. For fun (and I’m not the first to try this), I pasted it into the Hemingway Editor online. This sentence received a poor score.

Last week I talked about the mindset that believes growth is possible—that you are neither stuck at your current level nor have you arrived at mastery. With that mindset, you can begin to evolve and improve. Today I recommend three simple writing tweaks that will keep your readers interested and engaged. 1. Use Active, Vivid Verbs Propel your story or idea forward with active, vivid verbs. Don’t fret about your word choices as you write your draft, but in the editing stage, especially, look for places you can swap a flat, lifeless verb for one that keeps the reader alert and engaged. A few examples of flat, lifeless verbs: “is" and other forms of “to be” (am, are, was, were, be, being, been, will be, and so on) “go” or “went" “have” or “had" “made" "do" When you identify words like these that slow down your work, you open up new opportunities to improve. Start fishing for verbs that energize your writing and dream up new ways of expressing an idea or scene. Let’s say a writer describes a troubling situation in her kitchen. She writes, “The Instant Pot made such weird sounds, I worried I’d missed a step with the lid position or the settings.” By simply choosing a more vivid verb than “made” ("The Instant Pot made such weird sounds…”), creativity kicks in and the whole scene picks up. Like this: “The Instant Pot fizzed and spit as the silver peg jiggled and wobbled. Did I miss a detail in the instruction book? Should I turn the lid one notch tighter or pick a setting lower than ‘ultra'?" The scene expanded and changed in tone. By playing with the verbs, the sentence came alive. This simple tweak can produce stronger writing in all genres. Turn to active, vivid verbs whenever possible and play around with options. 2. In General, Avoid “There was” Consider this common sentence structure: "There was a jogger who outran a terrier that nipped at her heels." Because "There was" includes a form of "to be," I could have lumped this suggestion under the discussion of flat, lifeless verbs. Instead, I want to address this on its own. >> “There was” Fills in for Unknown Subject Sometimes we use “there are” when we aren’t sure who or what the actor or subject is. Newspapers rely on this when reporting on a situation with limited information. “Last night there was a robbery at the gas station on the corner of 5th and Main.” Perhaps the reporter turned to “there was" because police hadn’t said anything about the perpetrator. If so, the reporter didn’t have enough information to write, “Two men wearing clown masks robbed the gas station on the corner of 5th and Main.” To make the deadline for the morning paper, the reporter gave readers what he had so they are aware a robbery allegedly took place on the corner of 5th and Main. >> “There was” Can Hide an Identity A writer might rely on “there was,” “there are,” or “there is” to avoid casting blame. For example, a mom might write in an email, “I’m going to miss the meeting. There was a flood in our house from an overflowing toilet.” She chose “there was” on purpose to avoid pointing fingers at the particular child who flushed an entire roll of toilet paper and clogged the toilet to overflowing. Sometimes identity doesn't matter. "There was a pine cone jammed in the gutter." No need to blame the squirrel or the wind when the focus of a scene is the pine cone itself. As you can see, this construction comes in handy from time to time. But in general, avoid using it—especially because it can so easily be rearranged to create a more engaging alternative. >> Alternatives to “There was” I can rearrange the example and play with variations. "There was a jogger who outran a terrier that nipped at her heels" can quite simply become, “A jogger outran a terrier that nipped at her heels.” Launching with "A jogger" instead of “There was” animates the scene compared with the original, which feels like a bystander is pointing over “there” or a witness is describing what she saw (“The...

Last week, we started to explore a fear that haunts many writers, which is the fear that they aren’t good enough. Or they think they aren’t enough. I hope you've explored the root of this fear and other fears that hold you back as a writer. I hope you're ready to move past the fears. Instead of worrying, wondering, or fearing you aren’t good enough to write, you’re going to do something about it. You’re going to be a better writer. For the next few weeks, we’re going to introduce, review, and practice some things we can do to improve, so that we’re getting better all the time. Ernest Hemingway said, “We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.” In other words, we'll always be growing and changing as writers. When we have a beginner's mindset—when we see ourselves as an apprentice—we can continue to learn. Even those who feel confident in their writing skills can discover room for growth. We are all apprentices capable of becoming better writers. Believe You Can Change It sounds so simple, but any writer can get trapped in the belief they are stuck where they are in a kind of personal stasis—they assume their writing skills and ability are finite and unchangeable. The beginner’s fixed mindset This fixed mindset can haunt the insecure writer who feels he is trapped in mediocrity, unable to evolve and improve. He believes he'll never be good enough to submit his work to a journal or agent. He believes he wasn’t born with that gift of writing, so there’s only so far he can go. He settles into the space he feels he’s allowed to occupy and sort of gives up. The experienced writer’s fixed mindset The thing is, this static mentality—this fixed mindset—can also plague the more experienced writer who’s found some degree of success. He settles into a comfort zone, seeing that he can consistently turn out material at about the same level of quality and readers continue to respond with enthusiasm. Why change? Why grow? "Why fix what ain't broke?" he thinks. So he writes without stretching himself, satisfied with how his writing life has unfolded and where it’s taken him. He sees no need to grow beyond this. Both writers, stuck I'm glad for those who have reached goals and arrived at some level of success. Congratulations. But I confess...I hope to encourage those writers to believe they, too, can get even better and write even more challenging and captivating projects, whatever they may be. So wherever you find yourself on this spectrum, I’m going to try to change your mind and your mindset. If you feel you weren’t born with the writing gene and you believe have no hope of improving, I’m telling you, it’s time to learn about—and even test—the growth mindset. If you’ve built publishing credits and produced an impressive portfolio of work—if you’ve sold books and hit bestseller lists—you, too, can improve. You’ve been received well, but you can be an even better writer. Because we all can. None of us is stuck or static. Embrace the Growth Mindset If you’ve been told only some people are natural born writers who emerged into the world with some kind of supernatural artistic gifts, that’s a fixed mindset, and the fixed mindset causes us to slam a door that was actually standing wide open to us. This belief is supported by plenty of outliers we can point to—people for whom writing does seem easy, whose work astounds. But writing skills can be learned and writers—even so-called natural-born writers, if they exist—are not locked into one level of greatness. None of us needs to feel stuck, yet many of us cling to the fixed mindset. “Oh, that’s not for me. I'm not a great writer. I can’t do that.” Everything Is "Figureoutable" The growth mindset reflects reality. Someone with a growth mindset says everything is "figureoutable." Marie Forleo uses this word—this phrase—in her videos and attributes it to her mother. It’s a fun and freeing attitude toward life and work.

A few times I brought my high school English papers to my dad for him to look over. Trained as a newspaper editor, he’d reach into his desk drawer and pull out either a red pen or a soft black pencil he used at work. Sometimes he’d mark it on the fly while I was standing there, narrating his reasoning as the pencil left ominous black marks on the paper. Other times I’d leave it with him and return to find entire paragraphs X’d out, words and phrases circled or deleted, giant question marks in the margins, and arrows pointing out problems here, there, and everywhere. If I still had a copy of those drafts, I know now—as an adult—that his corrections significantly improved my work. As a teen, though, I didn’t see it that way. Corrections felt like criticism, and I walked away dejected. I wasn’t good enough. What’s your story? Have you endured an interaction where someone gave you the impression or outright told you that when it comes to writing, you aren’t good enough? Did a parent, teacher, or editor offer criticism that caused you to question your writing hopes and dreams? More recently, has anyone asked you to write something you’ve never attempted before and you thought, “I’m not good enough to write that?” Have you signed up for a writing course only to realize your classmates seem far more experienced and knowledgeable—each time you turn in a project, their harsh comments cause your heart to crumble like one of those buildings that implodes and collapses into rubble? Have you started work on a writing project feeling bold and brilliant—maybe you got some positive remarks from a few people—and then you’re suddenly hit with imposter syndrome, and you think: “I’m not good enough to do this!”? You’re not alone. Many writers fear they aren’t good enough, and some never get a project off the ground because the fear takes over. It shuts down their creativity and keeps them from finishing. If they manage to finish, they’re too afraid to share it with the world. Fears Upon Fears The fear of not being good enough is often tangled up with other struggles and fears so that we have fears upon fears: fear of judgment fear of criticism fear of rejection fear of failure imposter syndrome people pleasing personalities perfectionism self-doubt insecurity anxiety We're complex people and some of us are a bundle of neuroses. Understanding ourselves can give us insight into our writing roadblocks. As we identify our fears, we take a step toward overcoming them. Write the story behind your fears That’s my first suggestion: write about it. Write the story behind your fears. Not for publication; rather, write about it in a private journal, for your own benefit. If you feel you aren't good enough to write, ask yourself why you believe that. Write out scenes from your past where that message came through. Recall the scowls and frowns, those jabs and insults, those question marks and arrows and X’d out paragraphs that you carried with you into adulthood. Root out the experiences that have formed your unchanging, stifling belief. Sort out the complexities. When fears cause us to stop Whether comparing themselves to other writers or feeling haunted by criticism from their past, writers can struggle with crippling fear that they are not good enough. Sometimes it manifests as self-doubt that nips at every word they tap out on the keyboard. Sometimes it manifests as perfectionism that expects such shimmering prose that the writer gives up, feeling incapable of producing such high-level work. The fear of not being good enough can stir up insecurity in any writer, especially those plagued with paralyzing perfectionism. Facing all those fears, they stop writing altogether. Is that you? Tell yourself a different story Well, my friend, it’s time for your story to end differently. We’re changing things up. I’m introducing a plot twist.

Let’s look at the pros and cons of using writing prompts to decide if we’re fostering creativity or frittering away time. I remember the pleasure of writing about ladybugs for my high school freshman English class based on the prompt written on the board.1 And then there was the book I found a year or so at the library: Write to Discover Yourself. The author suggested we “portrait” the important people in our lives.2 I wrote pages and pages about my dad based on that prompt. Prompts continued to play a big role in my creative writing journey when college professors supplied our class with poetry prompts. Those prompts did exactly what they were designed for: they sparked creativity, teased out long-buried memories, and helped me spin creative storylines I would never have imagined on my own. Prompts have so effectively opened me up, I decided to gather a collection for others to use called 52 Creative Writing Prompts, to help get pens moving and ideas flowing.  Do Prompts Distract or Delight? But am I doing a disservice? Are prompts mere distractions, diverting writers from purposeful, goal-oriented writing? Some argue we need to stop using prompts and only write toward public-facing projects. Why waste time on writing prompts that fill notebooks and journal pages, when we’re struggling to find time for the writing we claim we want to do? Why write in response to a random prompt instead of composing the essay we want to submit, the book we want to draft, the article we want to pitch? Let’s peek at arguments for both sides, the pros and cons of prompts, to see if we need to embrace or abandon them in our creative writing life.  Pros of Creative Writing Prompts: On the plus side we have benefits of creative writing prompts, such as how they: 1. Spark Fresh Ideas Creative writing prompts inspire writers who struggle to generate any ideas at all by giving them an energizing starting point. Prompts also spark fresh ideas in writers who tend to return again and again to topics they’ve written about before. Prompts press writers to explore subject matter outside their comfort zone, breathing new life into their rotating collection of pet topics and pillar content.  2. Overcome Writer's Block Prompts offer a lifeline to writers grappling with writer's block—they invite a “stuck” writer to write freely for ten, 15, or 20 minutes without those words needing a destination or purpose other than to get the ink flowing. 3. Provide Low-Stakes Practice Writing prompts intended as practice serve as low-stakes exercises, encouraging writers to play and experiment without the pressure of immediate evaluation by editors or readers. Prompts allow writers to refine their craft and explore techniques in the safety of their writing notebooks and journals. In time they may develop a more captivating style. 4. Prepare for Assignments Freelancers who’ve been assigned a topic for a magazine or essayists who have entered themed writing contests benefit from writing from prompts. It’ll prepare them for assignments based on narrow parameters.  5. Offer a Writing Warm-up When writers tap out a few words in response to a prompt before diving into their long-form/high-stakes project, they can enjoy a brief warm-up that loosens them up. 6. Enhance Honesty and Depth With prompts, writers delve into deeper personal experiences, memories, emotions, and themes without fear of judgment, leading to more honest and profound writing. 7. Lead to Personal Growth and Healing When intentionally selecting prompts that invite reflection—maybe even under the direction of a therapist—writers can experience transformation through personal growth and healing. It’s no surprise that when we spend time in personal writing such as journaling, we grow and mature as people, which in turn makes us better writers. Cons of Creative Writing Prompts: To be fair,

Over the past week I followed several women on Instagram as they traveled to London for a literary-themed trip. One woman on the trip, Bri McKoy, posted a photo of a letter preserved under glass at St John’s College Library. The letter, written by Jane Austen’s father, was sent to a publisher, describing a book about the same length as a popular novel of the time. He wondered if they might be interested in taking a look at it. https://www.instagram.com/p/Bl_dpmkAeXt/ The publisher rejected the book, sight unseen, with the short reply "declined by Return of Post.” Famous Books Initially Rejected Here’s part of Bri's Instagram caption: Everybody, listen up! What you are looking at is a REJECTION for Jane Austen’s book PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. Her dad sent a letter to a publishing house not only asking them to publish her manuscript but also telling them he would pay for everything. Still, they rejected it. They rejected it by sending his letter back to him. Can we sit with this for a moment? Someone. Rejected. P & P. We know of many stories like this. Lithub pulled together a list of books initially rejected by publishers. The list included Madeleine L’Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, with 26 rejections from publishers, and Kathryn Stockett's The Help which endured 60 rejections from agents. The website Bookstr pulled together a list of 10 books rejected multiple times, including Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, which was rejected 12 times; William Golding's Lord of the Flies, rejected 20 times; and Carrie by Stephen King, rejected 28 times. In her Instagram update, Bri pointed out how easy it is for us to have the luxury of knowing the whole story. “Listen,” she writes, “we know how that story ends….But what if we don’t know how the refusals handed to us end? What if we are sitting in our own unknown.” Writers in Their Own Unknown Websites like Bookstr don’t pull together a top ten list of writers who got rejection letters who still are unpublished. There’s no triumph there. There’s just the rejection. They’re sitting in their own unknown, so we don’t find inspiration in them. St. John’s College Library doesn’t preserve under glass a rejection letter for a book that's still sitting on someone's hard drive, only read by a few beta readers and the writer’s mom. The rejection letter is under glass because the book was rejected AND THEN was published and became the much-loved novel Pride and Prejudice. Stephen King’s book Carrie made the list because it was rejected 28 times AND THEN it was picked up by a publisher and became a blockbuster commercial success and was made into a movie. Same with The Help. It was rejected, AND THEN. Many of us haven’t reached the AND THEN. We know the end of those other stories, but we don’t know the end of ours. Worse, if we get the rejection, it feels like END OF STORY. That’s why we’re afraid. Take Heart: This Is Not The End I’m here to say it is not the end. Bri encourages her readers to take heart. “Rejection is not an executioner. Rejection is a guide.” Then she goes through several possibilities. This rejection could guide us to keep going or to pause. To take a slight left turn even though we were certain we were to go right. The idea could be too big or too small. Then she says, “Remember you are living out a full story, not a highlight reel. Let rejection inform you, not destroy you.” I join Bri in saying “take heart.” Take heart, because a rejection is not THE END. It’s not. So don’t let the fear of rejection keep you from doing the work. When Fear of Rejection Stops Us Before We Even Begin You may be afraid of a formal rejection by a magazine, an agent, or a book publisher where you submit your project. That fear may be holding you back from even sending it. Don’t let it. Don’t be afraid to try. Query the agent. If they ask to see the manuscript, submit your work. Sign up for Submittable and send off your essays and s...

I love that today’s theme comes from a newsletter subscriber who responded when I asked for ideas to address on the podcast or in articles. So this is a real writer with a real struggle—a reality for many writers. This person wants to know: How to write when you work full time? That’s a tough one. It’s hard to have any kind of hobby or side hustle when you work full-time. When you put in the hours at work and come home exhausted, how can you possibly devote your depleted brain and energy to a creative project? Don’t Ignore the Ache I stayed home to raise our four children and we chose to home educate, so while I didn’t work full-time in a traditional sense, I had my hands full most hours of the day. Writing was extremely challenging during those years. My dream was to have an entire day at my disposal, no interruptions, no diapers to change, no activities to organize. But that wasn’t the overall lifestyle we’d chosen. I thought if I couldn’t have the day to write—and if, in fact, my reality felt like I had NO time to write—why bother? But I couldn’t ignore the ache. I ached to write. Some days I felt hopeless. Some days I felt sorry for myself and didn’t bother even trying. Most days I wanted that all-or-nothing writing life. So a lot of days I didn’t write. After all, I didn’t feel like I had the energy; or if I started, I’d only be interrupted. Why try? But that ache wore on. Address the Ache I couldn’t go on like that. I had to address the ache. I suspect that’s where a lot of writers are—maybe the person who sent in this idea for a podcast. You’re feeling the ache, that soul-ulcer chewing away at your creative impulse. You’re losing hope. How do you write when you work full time? Assuming you can’t quit, I hope you’re feeling something else rise up in you—something louder and stronger than the ache. Voice It It’s a voice, a determination within. A resolve. You have something inside of you that must be voiced. A barbaric yawp you’re ready to sound over the roofs of the world. I. Must. Write. That’s it. You must write. Yes, there’s writing in you, ready for the page. You can’t wait any longer. There’s a writer in you, ready to yawp, and you know it. You can’t wait for the perfect conditions. You can’t wait until you inherit some distant relative’s fortune so you can quit your job. No more waiting. You must sound your yawp over the roofs of the world. You must write. Today. Look for slivers of time and the occasional chunk of time here or there. Settle for less than the dream of a cabin in the woods. Whatever you can, grab it and write a few lines. Where Will You Write? Let me tell you a story. Joseph Michael developed a Scrivener training course while he was working full time at another job. Scrivener is writing software, also an app, that many authors use because with it, you can manage longer, larger, more complex projects more easily than you can using Word or Google docs. But Scrivener is a little confusing to most newbies; at least it was for me. So I grabbed his training course years ago when it was on sale and started watching, hoping to avoid bumbling around, losing important pieces of projects. I felt frustrated because I didn’t understand the system, so I walked through his short training lectures and made sense of Scrivener. Years later, because of the success of his Scrivener course, Joseph Michael came out with some additional training on how to build courses—a course about courses. I didn’t buy the course about courses, but I signed up for a free introductory webinar, where he told how he recorded that early version of the Scrivener course. He said he’d drive to work. On his lunch break, he’d head to the parking garage and record some of the Scrivener lessons—right there in the front seat of his car, wedged behind the steering wheel. In short sessions, hidden away in the parking garage of his workplace, he grabbed the only free time he had to himself and, over time, created the course.

Last week I told my email subscribers I'd love for future content to be inspired by the very issues that trip them up or hold them back. Today I’m going to spotlight one of the first responses: What do you do with the initial ideas once you’ve got them? This writer continued by saying they're great about coming up with a brief synopsis and sometimes even an outline but then they get stuck. "I never know where to begin! What’s the best way to start any story?” Story Ideas Are Gold—Store Them in a System First let me address at a practical level what to do with those initial ideas. Not every writer generates a lot of motivating, marketable ideas, so if you have more than one, you're sitting on a creative gold mine. Take good care of your ideas and you’ll always have options. Store any and all ideas in a safe place—ideally in a system designed for easy access, one that supports your project’s progress. Your Writing Pipeline I suggest setting up a Writing Pipeline, which I’ve explained in another article. Allow me to mention briefly that my Writing Pipeline consists of different folders set up in Evernote marked: Ideas Drafts Final edits Shipped Archive I have two more folders in the same stack that aren’t part of the actual pipeline but feed the pipeline, and those are: Notes & Quotes Research While Evernote has worked well for me, your Writing Pipeline folders could just as easily be set up in Trello, Google Docs, or any project management app or system you use. But the point is to be sure you have a place to capture, store, retrieve, and develop your ideas. Initial Idea Development Let’s say an idea comes to you one morning. You capture it in an Idea folder where you’ve stored several other ideas. Later that evening you review your ideas and decide to develop that one. An idea needs time to grow and develop. You may want to map out a plot or flesh out a concept. You might make lists, draw mind maps, jot the main ideas or plot points onto Post-It notes, and assemble all that into a working outline. This is where the writer who posed that question finds him or herself. If we’re at the same stage, we’re staring at files filled with at least a few ideas in early stages of development—with a synopsis and maybe an outline. What now? Pick Your Favorite Story Idea It’s time to pick one of those ideas and write. Not long ago I waded along the edge of a body of water. Scattered across the hot sand were not shells but stones. I picked up a few and gazed at them, admiring the lines that cut across one, the soft red hue of another, and the smooth feel of a flat gray stone against my fingertips. I showed my selection of stones to a friend. “I love stones!” she exclaimed. Then she headed out to the water’s edge to find her own choice handful. Others in our group did the same. Next thing you know, we were running up to each other, showing off our favorites, admiring the beauty. Out of all the stones piled along the edge of the water, we’d all identified our own small selection that pleased us. In the same way I was drawn to one of those stones more than another—and who knows why?—I sift through my Ideas file now and then, and find myself drawn to one of my ideas more than others. The same can happen to you. You’ll read through ideas and for whatever reason, your mind will ignite just a little more when thinking through one idea than it does for another. And don’t choose one idea over another just because it’s further along. Why invest creative effort on a project that’s developed but void of energy? If an idea is drawing your interest—if it feels right to you—pick it. Choose the one that grabs you; the one that captivates and fascinates you enough to sustain your interest. If you need to plan or plot it out, sit down and write out a synopsis or map out some chapters as your first step, while you’re feeling jazzed about it. Write And then…start writing.

When I was in college, I bought a small recorder. A Sony, I think. You’re wondering the year? Well, let’s just say I bought packs of cassette tapes for this gadget. My goal was to record the lectures so I could play them back as I walked or biked across campus, listening to the material a second or third time. I took notes during the lecture, but if I re-listened to them on the go, I only needed to skim my notes to perform well on quizzes and tests. Ideal Input for Auditory Learners Many years later someone suggested I might be an "auditory learner." Though I love to read and I enjoy visuals, their label sounds about right. Auditory learners like me tune their radios to talk shows, borrow from the library CDs of The Great Courses, download audiobooks, and subscribe to podcasts. Recorded content isn’t for everyone—podcasts may not “stick” with visual and kinesthetic learners, after all—but for me and many other auditory learners, they're ideal. The stories, ideas, encouragement and teaching delivered via podcastsprovide valuable input without the need to crack open a book or stare at a screen. Podcasts Offer Flexibility Through podcasts, in particular, I can learn while jogging, walking, weeding, folding clothes, or driving down the road. If I’m sick in bed, I can press play to passively take in ideas. Through podcasts I keep up-to-date with technology, I follow industry trends, and as much as I love audio, I am, of course, an avid reader, so I tend to take in most words from the page or screen and don’t always know how to pronounce them. When I listen to a podcast, people's voices become familiar, new words roll off my tongue with greater ease, and names of industry insiders become easy to pronounce—with the added bonus that ongoing exposure to the hosts' ideas and laughter makes them feel like old friends. So maybe I'm preaching to the choir, and maybe you're already one hundred percent sold on the power of podcasts to deliver just what you need to boost energy and inspiration—even replacing conferences to some extent—but I’ll say it anyway: If we subscribe to podcasts, we can learn on the go and supercharge our writing. Depending on the podcast, the content might even contribute to personal growth and professional development. All for free. Find Your Friends I find podcasts through recommendations from people I already listen to or read. I’ll skim the lists and stop on the titles or subject matter that sounds interesting. I’ll search for the show, sample an episode or two, and then decide whether or not to subscribe. Sometimes those shows send me down yet another rabbit hole. If I enjoy the guest on an interview-based show, for example, and find out the guest has her own show, I'll give that a listen. And so I meander, finding more and more podcasts to stimulate my mind and bring me up to speed on best practices and industry twists and turns. Shows to Sample In my podcast player, I subscribe to shows that seem like they’ll consistently produce appealing, useful, encouraging material—and a few that are unpredictable. Those surprise me with a perspective completely different from mine. Sometimes I keep listening; sometimes I unsubscribe. I invite you to sample a few I've enjoyed. This is not an exhaustive list, of course, and you might not click with them. If none feels like a good fit, I do hope at least one of the shows leads you to someone else who ends up becoming your next favorite podcast. Nine Writing-Related Podcasts to Try Here are nine writing-related podcasts to consider. I’ll include descriptions from their notes, to help you know the direction of that show. Novel Marketing Podcast A show for novelists who don't love book promotion but still want to become bestselling authors, hosted by Author Media CEO Thomas Umstattd Jr, and bestselling author and marketing guru James L Rubart. While their ideas are focused primarily on novelists,

My dad started smoking when he was a teenager and smoked like a chimney all the way through college and into adulthood. He worked in the newsroom of a major metropolitan newsroom, where smoking cigarettes and cigars was the norm—almost expected. Isn’t that the stereotype from the movies? Well, in the 1960s, when my mom realized she was pregnant with my brother, Dad quit smoking. Cold turkey. The overnight switch must have been strange for his colleagues at the paper, with their coworker showing up to work the next day no longer shrouded in smoke. Overnight, unannounced, he changed a huge part of how others perceived him. He never smoked again. Rebranding Cold Turkey Can Be a Shock If you would make a sudden decision like that, it’s great for your health, but a bit of a shock when it comes to rebranding. Yet, people do it. I’ll bet we’ve all seen people suddenly stop writing with barely an announcement. They essentially shut down their blogs and social media accounts and walk away from whatever they’ve built. A clean break. No ambiguity. One hundred percent certainty. Then they begin with a new project, a new focus, a new tone. They end one thing so they can start the next thing. They move on to new ideas, new projects, new topics. The Type of Person to Rebrand Cold Turkey They may be the type to rip off the Band-Aid all at once. Or they leap into the cold pool without even pausing at the edge of the diving board—one bounce and splash! Perhaps they leave up one blog post or article explaining their reasoning and that leaves their readers without any question or confusion as to what happened. It can tell people where to find them as they launch the new space for the new brand. That way it may be sudden, but it’s spelled out. Reasons People Rebrand Cold Turkey It happens. People rebrand for lots of reasons. Maybe they grew weary of the subject matter. They got tired of the storyline. They felt drawn to something new. They ran out of energy or ideas. They changed in core ways and wanted their brand to match. For whatever reasons, they decided it was time to move on. Cold Turkey Rebranding Benefits Rebranding in a sudden way certainly offers some benefits. Clarity A cold turkey switcheroo can throw faithful readers for a loop, but at least they have no question what’s happening. It’s clearly out with the old, in with the new. Readers See If New Content Feels Relevant If you rebrand cold turkey instead of choosing a slow transition, your long-time readers, while perhaps surprised, even baffled, at first, will see right away whether the new brand is relevant to them. Writer Can Focus Right Away on the New Another benefit of a sudden switchover is that the writer gains immediate freedom to focus completely on the new brand. He doesn’t have to drag it out over days, weeks, or months. If he’s excited about the new possibilities of the new look, feel, and content, he can get started right away building that. Cold Turkey Rebranding Disadvantages Rebranding in a sudden way may result in negative repercussions. Upset Readers An unpleasant possibility is that readers who felt they had no time to prepare or say goodbye leave with a bitter taste in their mouths. You can explain your reasoning sympathetically, trying to see it from their perspective. And you can explain your reasoning clearly, trying to help them see your perspective. But you can’t control how they’ll feel or respond. Hopefully they see your logic and understand your decision and direction. Even if they stop following your work, I hope they wish you the best. Writer Loses Momentum Another challenge of rebranding cold turkey is that it takes time to build the new audience of new readers if you haven’t already gathered them in creative ways prior to the rebranding. In that in-between time, if the writer loses readers, he may also lose momentum.

If you’ve concluded you really need to leave behind who you are and the writer you’ve been, and transition to a completely new look, feel, tone, and type of writing, you’re going to rebrand yourself. You have options for how to go about it. Ways to Rebrand: Trial Run We’ve already discussed starting with a trial run, which often leads to integrating the new brand with the existing brand. During the trial run, you have time to experiment before fully committing yourself—in fact, you could still back out and return to your existing brand if you don’t like how it sounds and feels, and you can’t imagine this focus for the next few years. Ways to Rebrand: Integrate But at some point, let’s say you decide to move forward and follow through. When you decide to keep the old and add in the new, that’s a way to rebrand by integration. Instead of completely changing, you actually absorb and expand. Ways to Rebrand: Slow Transition Now we’re diving into total change—the true pivot. When you leave it all behind, you can do it right away—suddenly—or you can transition over time. When you take your time rebranding, I think of that as a slow transition. If you’re the type to pull a Band-Aid off in millimeter increments, stretching out the process over several minutes of tiny tugs instead of ripping it off all at once, this might be a good fit for you. It might also be for you if you know your readers hate surprises—and you hate pulling the rug out from under them. Time to Adjust The slow transition eases your readers into this new you. And it gives them time to adjust to the idea that you’re changing—that eventually you’ll discontinue their favorite articles, posts, and tweets (or whatever) that you’re known for. They get a taste of what’s coming before the full shift takes place. With the slow transition, readers have time to prepare, to find other writers offering similar content or styles, to adjust to the idea of life without your signature words and tone. As you slowly shift from the old brand to the new—when it’s clear what’s happening—you might even recommend to your readers other writers and authors who are similar to you and your style. Personal Rebranding: First, Integrate, Then... I’ve mentioned before that my website content was much less focused in the past. I wrote random stories about family and faith and eventually food. When I added food, those articles integrated with the existing brand, so readers never really felt a shocking jolt. I continued with that kind of content for years on my personal website. In addition, I served on the editorial team of two online organizations. I taught composition and creative writing and coached speech once a week to high school students. I led writing workshops. I wrote another book. I became a writing coach. A friend and mentor nudged me to focus my website on that and that alone. If I did that, it meant my core me—my core brand—would have to change. It meant I’d have to rebrand. I was nervous. I hate making people upset. And I definitely hate pulling the rug out from under someone. Shifting to Slow Transition So I did it in stages, in a slow transition. My tagline “Ann Kroeker, Writer” shifted first to “Ann Kroeker: Writing Coach, Editor, Friend.” About a year later, I dropped “Editor” and “Friend,” which my son thought was hysterical because it implied I wasn’t a friend anymore. My brand became, simply: Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach. It was a slow process, but I rebranded. Rebranding Aftermath: Readers Decide to Stay, Linger, or Leave And all those readers who followed me because I posted recipes on Friday witnessed the slow change. Instead of waking up one Friday and finding me basically gone—suddenly become a writing coach—wondering what in the world happened, they could see the content shifting. I even said as much at one point—I let them know I was stepping into my role of writing coach not just on the side but online.

You’re going for it. You decided you’re going to rebrand yourself. How will you go about it? We already discussed one option: the trial run. Rebrand Yourself: Integrate Today we’ll see if choosing to integrate will work best. When you rebrand yourself in this way, it’s almost a continuation of your trial run in that you integrate the new brand with the existing brand. Instead of completely changing, you actually absorb the new and expand the old. If you like the brand you’ve built and you love the people who read your work, this may be the best approach for you, because you don’t have to completely abandon what you’ve built or turn away from the people who know, like, and trust you. New + Old This isn’t a true pivot in that readers will still recognize your brand. When you rebrand in this way, they’ll get new content—possibly in a new tone—alongside the old. It’s like a merger takes place. If you’re the type to set more places at the table for a dinner party and try new recipes every time, maybe this is how you can rebrand. Cook up new content and invite new people to sit at your table. My Integration Last time you heard about my food integration—how I launched Food on Fridays and added it to the lineup of articles I published at my website. Existing readers thought it was fine and some of them loved it. Then I gained more readers, which was fun. To top it off, the Friday feature provided my website with much needed rhythm and focus. So after my experimental phase, which lasted about a month or two, I kept it. I integrated Food on Fridays with all the other content I created. In fact, this new content served as a highlight of the week that many readers looked forward to more than any other stories I might publish. I would have abandoned it after the trial run if readers hated it, because I wasn’t completely married to the idea, but it turned out to be a good move, a good experiment, a great addition. I avoided jolting faithful fans and longtime readers and I added new ones by integrating content that didn’t clash with the existing brand. Rebrand Tone and Attitude But it’s not just content that inspires a rebranding effort. I’ve seen some online professionals shift from an edgier tone to one that sounds more professional. They don’t dress dramatically different if you compare old video footage of them with more recent clips, but I noticed a few have dropped their bravado. In some instances, when I first encountered these brands, they were perfectly comfortable dropping the F bomb. Later, as they rebranded, they reduced and in some cases completely eliminated it. Now, I don’t know their reasons, and I don’t feel I should point them out by name, but I do wonder if they lost any original readers who liked that edge of the original brand’s tone and attitude. At the same time, I wonder if, with the rebranding, they gained new fans who might not have felt comfortable learning from the previous persona? Whatever the outcome, I witnessed their brand shift from one “feel” to another, even though their content remained basically the same. They train and teach in the same field, so the rebranding was less about what they wanted to talk about and more about how they’d talk about it. They integrated a different approach when it came to their tone. Set Up Your Rebranding Experiment If you’re itching to rebrand in any way, whether content or tone, and you haven’t set up a trial run yet, do it now. Decide on a simple experiment to test out new content with your existing readers. Your readers like what you’ve been doing. That’s why they keep coming back for more. Try new content with them a few times in creative ways without stopping what they love. Write a blog post on a new topic and publish it. Gauge their response. Do they love it, hate it, ignore it? Slip in the new “feel”—add some humor and sassy bits if you’re trying to jazz it up, or soften your sharp critique if you want to tone it...

You’re going for it. You decided you’re going to rebrand yourself. How will you go about it? You have options. One is what I’ll call “Trial Run.” Next time, we’ll talk about “Integration.” Then “Slow Transition” followed by “Cold Turkey.” Only the second two represent a true pivot—a total change in direction, where you’re moving on and not going back. Today let’s talk “Trial Run.” One way to find out if a total change is in order, is to give the new content a trial run. Publish New Content on Website Try dedicating one day a week or once a month to writing and publishing new content in the new voice on your existing website and other spaces while maintaining the old content. Gauge reader response. How responsive are they and is it positive or negative? See how you feel, too—decide if you like creating and sharing it as much as you thought you would. Ways to Measure Reader Response Back when I wrote about family and faith, I felt inspired to write regularly about food. This was in the early days of food blogging. In fact, a lot of the biggest names had not even launched their websites yet; food photography was far less formal or fancy than it is now, so it seemed like a reasonable idea. I started a Friday feature focused on food and added one of those link-up tools bloggers use so others could write about food at their own websites and link their articles to mine. Evidence Through Linkup and Comments The response to my trial run confirmed a strong interest. Other bloggers loved linking up posts that had something to do with food and thanked me in the comments for creating it. Usually their posts included a recipe, but I didn’t insist. When I launched Food on Fridays, I didn’t know if I would continue—it was an experiment. But the number of enthusiastic bloggers joining the linkup and the cheery comments from readers encouraged me to continue. I kept that up for years, posting about food every Friday, even when I was on vacation. Evidence Through Social Media Shares Also, when Pinterest became a thing, some of my recipes were pinned and shared numerous times. That, too, provided useful data further solidifying my decision to change up my existing brand a bit and add in food. It didn’t clash with my content and it brought in new readers. Evidence Through Correspondence Depending on what kind of experiment you’ll be conducting, people may hesitate leaving a public comment under that article. Those who feel they know you well may send you an email, instead. Some may offer a thought on a social media platform, when you share a link to your article there. All of this can help you decide if this is the direction you want to go. Publish New Content on Social Media You can distance the experiment from your existing content by sharing nuggets in a new style or tone on a social media platform. Write about the new topic or in the new genre and publish it on Facebook—in fact, maybe you push it out on your personal profile instead of your professional page. See how your friends respond without committing your primary website to hosting that content right away. It’s a low-risk approach that still gives you helpful input as you consider rebranding. I’ve seen friends post about cultural or political concerns in these spaces before they publish similar content on their blog. They get a chance to express their concerns and see if they want to completely switch. I’ve seen writers post in a different tone, as well, to see how friends respond with likes or comments. Pitch Other Publishers You can also pitch other publishers in hopes they will feature your new passion in another space altogether, like a magazine with a narrow niche that aligns with your new brand. They’ll already have a built-in audience interested in the kinds of ideas or tone you’re leaning toward. See if those readers love your contribution. That can give you hope you’ll find new readers if you lose your existing base in the switch.

In the last episode, I finally attempted to define an author brand. Before that, we talked about staying consistent with the core you—the brand you’ve developed, the tone you take, the voice your readers have come to enjoy. The episode before that, we discussed setting aside a place to play online—perhaps on a social media platform—so you can let your hair down and play with new topics or new approaches to your writing. While you’re playing, you may find a new love, a new passion, a new you. Even though you understand you have a core you, the process of playing led you to realize you’d like to change focus and shift to new subject matter or new genres using a new tone or voice. And by gum, you’re gonna redesign the whole website to match. Despite gaining a following and discovering readers who like what you have to say and how you say it, you decide you want to pivot—to rebrand. You Can Use Your Platform First, let me say you certainly can write whatever you want to write. And if you’ve built up a substantial readership and have a good number of fully engaged followers, you may feel compelled to use your platform to talk about something important to you. That’s the privilege of having a platform. You can use your influence to impact the people who are listening to you, even if it means writing off topic once or twice and publishing content that’s off brand. Think Twice Before You Pivot But if you’re feeling the itch to make a global shift, a true pivot where you change dramatically and permanently to speak and write differently from now, you might think twice. You’ve been writing about food, let’s say, and now you want to focus on travel. Or you’ve been writing about family and now you want to switch to politics. Your novels are selling well, and now you want to publish nonfiction. I’m not stopping you from rebranding. But before you make that decision, consider some questions. What's Behind the Shift? If you've worked hard to develop a platform and got results—you gained a following—why the change? What’s behind this shift? I’ll toss out some questions to help you think about what's behind it: Are you tired of the topic? Bored by the subject matter? Do you find this new passion has completely captured your heart and mind to the exclusion of your original focus? Do you love a billion different things and hate being pinned down and pigeon-holed? Are you gravitating to shiny new possibilities? Does this new idea seem fresh and exciting compared with what you’re currently known for? Is the desire to change rooted in avoidance—that is, are you avoiding doing work related to this audience and this project and this commitment? Are you afraid of success? Do you worry your words will be taken the wrong way by your growing audience? Now that you’re more visible and prominent, are you wondering if people will grow tired of you? Are you afraid you’ll run out of things to say? Do you sense a deep discomfort in your spirit, like you need to abandon something that feels wrong? Do you sense a deep stirring, like a call to step into some new vision? Are you yourself changing and you want your writing brand to match the person you’re becoming? See if you can diagnose the motivation and then decide if you want to change. You may rethink things, or you may conclude it’s time. Just know that it’s a big decision with ramifications. So do think twice before flipping the switch. After all, you developed your existing brand because you believed in it. Aspects of it must still feel true and right and good. Remember Your Readers And your friends, followers, and fans—your readers—are turning to you for a reason. They know, like, and trust your brand. They love how you write and what you say. They enjoy the stories you tell and the tone in which you tell them. Before you rush to rebrand yourself, think of those readers. Whether you have three, 93, or 10,003 readers,

I guess I got ahead of myself. I’ve been talking about author branding, but I didn’t describe or define it. And in this world of author branding, you may be wondering, “Uh...what’s an ‘author brand’?” Sorry to leave you full of questions. Like: Is it the logo you design and the colors you choose for your website? Is it the font you use for your name? Is it the banner image you use on Facebook or the photo that shows up in Gravatar? Is it the art on your book cover? Is an author brand more about voice and style? Is it tied to the subject matter you’re known for? The topics you tackle? Is your brand revealed in the way you manage your Instagram feed and select images for your blog? Maybe all this talk of “brand” sickens you. “Seriously?” you’re thinking, “Brands are for jeans and perfume and hotdogs, not writers!” Thinking of yourself as a brand feels slick, commercial, and product-y. “Brand” sounds like marketing manipulation or sales-speak. “I’m a Writer, Not a Brand!” “I’m not a brand!” you’re shouting. “I’m a person! A writer! An artist!” And of course if you’re shouting that, you’re right—absolutely right. We are not neon signs to flick on and flash in a window or a color palette and typography design hoping to entice interest. We are people—people who love words. We tell stories. We pour out our hearts and hold out hope to the world. We’re essayists, memoirists, novelists, poets. We are artists. (But I Would Love Readers to Read My Work) And yet, if we seek publication, we’re trying to draw interest. If we’re doing more than write in a journal, we must be hoping to find readers for our articles, our poetry, our short stories, our books. If we write for the public, we want to impact people. If we’re honest, we’d love readers to read our work, wouldn’t we? Readers Default to “Brands" And readers face a lot of choices. When a person shells out money for a book or sinks time into reading an article, she wants to be pretty sure it’s worth it. So she’s choosy. Sure, she’ll read someone new, especially on a friend’s recommendation, but she tends to gravitate to the writers she has come to know, like, and trust. She turns to those writers who turn out content that consistently addresses her need or lifts her up or makes her think or laugh or sigh. She reads the writers she knows will help meet her need. She probably doesn’t think of it this way, but she turns to author brands. A Brand Is a Promise So that’s a way to think of brands and writers. How can we become that trusted writer who consistently addresses a reader’s needs or lifts her up or makes her think or laugh or sigh? How can we offer an unspoken, informal promise of sorts, that when a reader finds us and reads our words, he will get to know us and we’ll deliver content in the same general vein. If, for example, I don’t use four-letter words in my content then suddenly spew a stream of them unexpectedly, I broke my “promise,” so to speak, and went off brand. I blindsided my readers who had come to trust my tone and turn up my podcast or read aloud my articles within earshot of their conservative grandmother or grade school kids. A Brand Accumulates, Forms, and Strengthens Over Time Whether intentional or random, everything we write and send out—from social media updates to podcast episodes—is leaving people with an impression about who we are and what we’re like. Over time, one blog post, magazine article, short story, or poem at a time, you’re becoming known for something. Over time, you gain visibility. And over time, your brand is forming and strengthening into something. A group or groups of people are beginning to recognize you. You can see how it does involve a lot of different elements, including our subject matter, our tone, and, yes, even the colors on our website, our author photo, the cover art on our book covers, and the style of our logo.

Children gaze at a vast blank wall and see opportunity—inspired, they grab a permanent marker and scrawl across the surface in loopy circles and jaggedy lines without hesitation.  Why, then, do we adults stare at the blank page—not unlike a blank wall—and freeze up? Instead of scribbling out ideas that fill the white screen, we writers often come up empty, the blank page producing a blank mind. We get too far ahead of ourselves, thinking about readers before we’ve written a single word, afraid of what they’ll think. Or we second-guess our ideas or skills. We worry about that and more, and next thing you know…we stop writing and stare at that blinding white abyss, paralyzed. The blank page need not intimidate or cripple us. Why? Because with the ideas below, you can fill that great expanse with words so that it’s never really blank when you open it. Try one of them the next time you open a document and feel fear trickling down to your fingertips. I hope they’ll free you up long before you freeze and you’ll replace fear with joy by effortlessly filling the page with words. 1. Templates Create templates for your content, whether it's a newsletter, blog post, or podcast. By inserting the structural elements you tend to use each time, you approach the page with a sense of familiarity. Templates serve as a framework to jumpstart your writing process, making the page feel less daunting. 2. Outlines Embrace the power of outlines. The classic 5-paragraph essay structure you learned long ago—with an introduction, three main points, and conclusion—is a reliable starting point for informative articles. For more creative pieces, try narrative outlines with a three-act structure (even if it’s short) or a beginning, middle, end approach. Outlines help you organize your thoughts and create a roadmap for your writing, banishing the fear of the blank page. See the links below for ready-made outlines you can use to add structure to your document. 3. Record Yourself & Transcribe Take a walk and record your thoughts about the topic you want to write about. Then, get a transcription made of that recording and paste it in—you’ve eliminated the blank page altogether. It's as if you're simply editing and expanding on (and refining) your existing thoughts, which is far less intimidating than starting from scratch with nothing but a blank page and blinking cursor. 4. Record a Conversation & Transcribe Meet with a friend on a virtual platform like Zoom, click the record button, and explain your idea. As your friend engages with questions, you’ll be able to clarify and delve deeper. This approach captures your natural voice as you share what you’ve been researching and thinking about. Thank your friend, download the audio, and then use a program like Happy Scribe or Rev.com’s AI transcription service to transcribe the conversation. You’ll end up with a working draft for your writing project. TIP: more and more free AI transcription services are cropping up, so be sure to search for the latest options and you might not even have to pay.  5. Pull from Your Journal If you've been jotting down ideas, thoughts, or snippets of writing in a journal or a similar document, don't let them go to waste. Pull something from there and paste it into your current document to kickstart your writing. Things like Morning Pages, Dream Journals, and freewriting can be sources of inspiration. 6. List Bullet Points Before you even have a minute to think about the blank page, start writing your ideas in the form of bullet points—they don’t have to be complete thoughts or sentences. No more blank page! And you’ll have prompts you can use to draft your content. You can expand on each bullet point to develop your ideas further, gradually filling the blank page with meaningful content. Move them around until you find the ideal flow and structure. Problem solved. 7. AI Writing Apps

Last time we talked about having a playground. A place to relax and try new things. A place where you can experiment and be a little messy until you figure out how you want to use that space. Consistent at Your Core At the same time, be consistent at your core. Not that you look exactly the same everywhere you go. I mean, that’s not even realistic. Think about it in practical terms: Sometimes you’ll be speaking at a conference and dressed in a professional outfit while other times you’ll be doing a live video feed while walking your dog. It’s appropriate and expected to literally look different and to exude a different tone in one space versus another. But somehow I should have no question I’m listening to the same person. Everywhere I encounter you—online, at a conference, or in line at Starbucks—I should sense that you are essentially the same. Whether you’re dressed in your best suit for a photo shoot or sitting around a campfire roasting marshmallows with friends, be the same core you. Consistent with Content Maintain consistency in content, too, to avoid blindsiding readers. That doesn’t mean you write the exact same subject using different examples over and over. That would get boring. And tedious. Instead, write under the broader themes you’re known to explore. If you’re a lifestyle blogger, you might have a few subtopics you write about: travel, photography, food. And let’s say you write about those things with a frugality focus: money-saving travel tips, how to get the most out of your DSLR, meal planning on a budget. Readers love your articles. You’re saving them money and you’re a little bit sassy when introducing a product or destination. They follow you for updates. If you suddenly start writing about politics in a cynical tone, your audience will wonder what’s going on. You don’t sound like you and you’re not delivering them subject matter they’ve expected from you. Now, you’re free to write whatever you want, and you may choose to leverage your platform for a higher purpose. Why Do Readers Come to You? Just keep your audience in mind...your readers. Why do they come to you? If you’re the frugal travel blogger and suddenly you start spotlighting luxury hotels that cost $600 a night, and you toss French phrases around as if you’re wearing a beret and drinking champagne, readers who have appreciated your tips for backpacking across Europe and choosing the best hostel will feel like your content isn’t for them any longer. But let’s say you won a luxury trip where your hotels would have cost $600 a night. Your readers might enjoy seeing frugal you marveling at resort living. You could position the luxury outing as Budget Traveler Stumbles into Wonderland. Writing Coach or Arborist? If someone comes to my website or listens to my podcast week after week expecting something related to writing encouragement, instruction, or inspiration, they’d feel confused if I suddenly offer a clinic on tree trimming. I might be an amateur arborist perfectly capable of leading a clinic on tree trimming, but my readers would be scratching their heads. “That’s weird. I come to Ann for writing input, not tree trimming advice.” If, however, a big part of my brand is sharing stories from my personal life, perhaps my readers already knew I’m an amateur arborist, so if a comment showed up on social media about my recent neighborhood tree trimming seminar, it wouldn’t be a total shock. (I’m not an amateur arborist, for the record, so don’t ask me for tips. But I do make excellent steel cut oats, and if you ever want to know my secret, the instructions do still live on this website.) No Big Surprises Readers who encounter your words on a page or your images on Instagram or your remarks in a tweet or your interview on a podcast should not be shocked by a huge surprise that is incongruent with who you are and what you stand for. Your message should be relatively consistent.

If you scroll through my Instagram feed, it won’t take long before you’ll see quotes on pictures, quotes with colored backgrounds, sourced images and my own snapshots all jumbled together. It’s not pretty. You’ll see travel pictures and book after book lying on a marble table, which is one of two or three decent backdrops in my home. The captions vary. Some are long, some are short. Sometimes I write stories to go with the image; other times, I simply add a little quote or brief explanation. Then there are the Stories. My Instagram Stories aren’t overly planned out and I don’t add a lot of embellishment. I just talk for 15 seconds and then send it off. There’s no rhyme or reason to any of my Instagram content. There’s no grand plan. It’s sporadic. It’s an experiment. It’s a playground. On Twitter, I have a more thoughtful approach. I have a philosophy of sorts going over there...a purposeful flow of content I’m tweeting out. Same with Facebook—it’s fairly easy to figure out what I’m doing there. And I follow a straightforward schedule with predictable content on my website and podcast. But Instagram is where I mess around and try things out. One day I may commit to a smarter approach that matches my overall brand, but I think it’s important while building an author platform to reserve a place to play. While Building a Platform, We Need a Place to Play In an era when writers must take personal branding and platform-building seriously to be considered by traditional publishers, we must be smart about establishing our online presence. We set up our digital home base—our website. Then we secure “satellite offices,” if you will, on social media platforms. We show up as the author of a guest post on someone’s website or find ourselves interviewed on a podcast. We stay on topic. We strengthen our brand. We build an audience that appreciates our message and our voice. In the midst of those efforts, I like to set aside one space where I can be more natural, casual, and real—where I can test story ideas and experiment with my voice a bit. If your brand exudes a natural, casual, real vibe everywhere, cool! You live with more freedom than some writers, you lucky duck. Some writers, given their topic, convey a more put-together feel on social media and write in a professional tone as part of their brand in order to reach their primary audience. They need a place to let their hair down, and the good news is that these days, readers enjoy seeing even put-together professionals in their natural environment. Writers—They're Just Like Us! Have you seen the “Stars—They’re Just Like Us” section of US Weekly magazine? “There’s Kerry Washington buying lettuce at Whole Foods! She’s just like us.” “How fun to see Zac Efron walking his dog! He’s just like us.” “Wow, Cindy Crawford pumps her own gas—she’s just like us.” “How about that—Ann Kroeker reads entertainment magazines! She’s just like us!” Uh, a quick disclaimer: My mom gave me a gift subscription to US Weekly and Taste of Home back in 2012, so for the record, I didn’t seek it out myself and the subscription ran out several years ago. And I don’t flip through it at the grocery store checkout stand. (Well, at least not that often.) But if I did, that would be one of the features I’d flip to. Because I think it’s fun to see the movie or music stars I usually see dressed up and walking the red carpet spotted in normal places in ordinary clothing, shuffling around in flip flops slurping an Orange Julius, just like us. You're Someone's Star Maybe we writers working on building our platforms aren’t big stars—at least, not yet. But someone is already looking up to you. Some reader has arrived at an article you wrote for an online magazine or for your own website and thought, “Wow, I never thought about it that way before.” Or, “I could never write like her. She’s amazing.” Even if your style isn’t dressy or formal,

As a writer, you know how amazing it feels to get positive feedback on something you've shared with the world, whether a blog post, article, poem, or even a short social media update. And if you're an author trying to get a book into the hands of readers, you appreciate each and every person who buys your book and reads your book. You’re moved and humbled by readers who tell others about your book, or give your book as a gift, or leave a positive review, or show up at your book launch and book signings. You're probably already doing a lot of that for other writers. But I know that when my life gets busy, the pile of books I mean to read and review sits untouched while I scramble to finish my own projects. I fail to send off a timely note to encourage a friend who's just released her book. I delay recommending it on Goodreads. Help Writers Find New Readers I forget, that, like each and every one of us, I can help a writer push into new groups of people—my groups of people—to find readers he might not be able to connect with on his own. No matter how many followers we have on any platform, no matter how many subscribers we have on our email distribution lists, we can make a difference in another writer's life by helping share their projects with the people who know us. Collecting Ideas That Truly Help After attending a writing festival in April, I left inspired to do more—to be a better literary citizen. I poked around online, gathered ideas from people who have been on launch teams, and asked other authors who have benefited from the support of readers: What did those readers do? And what truly helped? I collected this input to make a list of action steps I can take to support and serve fellow writers. Then I converted it to a checklist so I can do at least one of these things each week. Busy Readers Can Encourage Writers I'm sharing it with you not to generate any guilt or put any pressure on you...only to share what I've collected and offer a reminder that it doesn't take much to make a difference. Most of these ideas would take no more than five minutes, especially if we were in that space anyway. If we're poking around on Goodreads, for example, it wouldn't take much to recommend a book to someone we think would enjoy it. If we're in a library doing research, we could take a couple of minutes to fill in a request that they acquire a friend's book. I assembled this list for myself, but I hope the ideas leave you inspired to join me in spreading goodwill and good words for our fellow writers everywhere we go. 20 Generous (and Easy!) Ways to Encourage a Writer Today I’ll share the ideas with additional thoughts right here and now in more detail. If one stands out to you—take note and take action (get your copy of the whole collection using the form below): Sign up for a writer's newsletter (and read it!). If something they send strikes a chord, hit reply and let them know. Buy books. Stop by a brick and mortar store if you can—many of us encourage support of independent bookstores whenever possible. But don’t limit yourself. Buy the book anywhere, new, and it’ll boost sales. If a store doesn’t have it in stock, ask them to order a copy. You’ll get the copy you want, and the book will get on their radar. Preorder a book that's about to be released, which helps in many ways, such as showing the publisher sales numbers in advance and maybe even pushing the book to rank high in some bestseller algorithms. Feature a writer on your website. Interview or write about someone on your blog. Link to the writer’s website to send traffic her way and introduce her to your own readers. If this writer is also an author, send people to places her books are for sale. Rate and review on Amazon. Write an honest, positive review (many stars are helpful, too). Keep in mind a thorough, thoughtful review helps potential readers decide if the book is right for them,

This coming Sunday in the United States we celebrate Mother’s Day. Eight years ago, I wrote a tribute to my writer-mom, reflecting on they way she modeled how to live the tension of being the mom she wanted to be while also being the writer she wanted to be. This tribute included family stories and my own memories and fun photos that helped me remember. To honor her publicly, I published it on my website, though I could have written it as a gift and presented it privately. Write Your Tribute It’s not too late for you to write a tribute—a set of memories that celebrate and honor a mother in your life. This mother can be your biological or adopted mother or a grandmother. This mother might be your wife. Maybe your children are grown and you have a daughter or daughter-in-law who has herself become a mother. This mother can be a friend or a mother-figure—sometimes a Sunday school teacher, guidance counselor, aunt, or neighbor will fill that role for someone. Pick a mother you’d like to elevate, celebrate, and honor. Decide if you want to share it publicly and/or privately, then come up with a structure to write this tribute. Resources to Support and Inspire Your Process I’d like to suggest two resources that might help you, both of which—in full disclosure—are written or collected by friends of mine. The Mother Letters The first is The Mother Letters: Sharing the Laughter, Joy, Struggles, and Hope. This collection of short essays in the form of letters was compiled by Amber C. Haines and her husband, Seth Haines, who reached out to friends Amber knew online and in person asking them to send letters addressed to “Dear Mother.” Seth's plan was to collect them and present them all together as a surprise Christmas gift. So many letters poured in, Seth could barely manage all of them. But he did. He assembled and presented them to her that Christmas morning and Amber received a gift that spoke to her mama-life, as the letters, one after another after another, confessed, as she herself wrote, “how little any of us know and how precious it is to be right where we are and who we are” (The Mother Letters, 14). The letters were from mothers to a mother; tributes to motherhood itself, encouragement for a mother; they celebrated motherhood and the power of the letter form. Years later, Seth and Amber realized her Christmas gift held wisdom that could help many others, so they decided to pull a selection of the letters into a gift book. And that became The Mother Letters. I mention it not only because it’s a lovely book and—full disclosure again—I confess I have a short essay included in the book. But I also mention it because the letter form is an excellent way to write a tribute. Consider writing your tribute as a letter. Pack it with memories and spotlight the strengths this mother in your life is known for—strengths she may need to hear spoken back to her. Everything That Makes You Mom The other resource that can help you collect memories, compose your thoughts, and structure your project is Everything That Makes Your Mom: A Bouquet of Memories, by Laura Lynn Brown. In this book, Laura offers prompts to draw out memories, often focusing on a topic or theme or time of year or type of memory. She includes brief vignettes—memories of her own mother—to serve as inspiration. She follows the vignette with questions which, as she writes in the introduction, “help to exercise your own memory muscles.” And this gift book leaves space to write out your memories directly on the pages, so that the book itself can be given to the mother you are honoring, if you wish. Write Your Tribute Today At the time of this writing, there’s still time for you to write your tribute for Mother’s Day. But if you’re reading it later, write a tribute anyway. What mom wouldn’t love to be celebrated in this way on Mother’s Day or any day...memory by memory, by someone she loves who remembers her laughter, joy,

About 20 minutes before the my dad’s calling and funeral service were scheduled to begin, we were milling around, chatting with various family members, organizing papers for the service. Throughout the week, my brother and I searched for photos and significant mementoes to display or add to a slide show. Scrapbook Recollections During that search, my brother unearthed a scrapbook I created decades ago. He brought it to the funeral home, since it spotlighted a lot of Dad’s family members and memories. I’d forgotten all about it, but apparently I’d interviewed Dad as I showed him items like an old clock or a painting. I also pulled out his old photo album filled with images of his family members. Most of them were old, old photos dating back to the early 1900s. Maybe I made this for a college class or for a birthday gift, but whatever the reason, I recorded him talking as he described the item, the original owner, and told stories about the people in the album. Then I transcribed everything and put it together in this scrapbook. I handed it to my nephew. “Did your dad show you this?” He took the scrapbook and shook his head no. “Well,” I said, “these are stories I had Grandpa tell me about people and stuff. You’ll recognize the clock and some of the artwork. You might enjoy it. It’s your family, after all.” Uncle Ed Before long, my kids and their cousins were all leaning over the album, reading the stories and looking at each item. I was standing nearby when I heard them all laugh about one of their grandpa’s recollections. “What’s funny?” I asked. “It’s this ‘Uncle Ed.’” My nephew pointed to an old photo. “Grandpa went on and on about other family members—this lady was a nurse in the Army and this guy was a captain and was really important. Then all he had to say about Uncle Ed was...” My nephew leaned down and I could see the slim strip of paper I’d printed out and mounted below the photo of a man. “‘Uncle Ed didn’t do much with his life.’” He looked up. “That’s it. That’s all he has to say about Uncle Ed.” Everyone laughed yet again. “Poor Uncle Ed!” I said. “Surely he did something with his life?” Reducing a Life to One Line My brother had joined the conversation by now. “You know,” he said, “when you get one generation past the death of someone, your whole life does seem to get reduced to just a few stories.” My brother would deliver the eulogy that day. He said it was hard to know what to highlight about Dad out of all his stories and all his interests. My brother continued, “When you get a couple of generations removed, like Uncle Ed is to us, sometimes all that’s left is one single line.” Oh boy. If I’m remembered for just one line, I hope it isn’t, “Ann didn’t do much with her life.” Writers Leave Behind More Than a Line I’ll remind you of one advantage we have as writers: we can leave behind more than one line. We can leave behind books and stories and essays and poems and journals. Simply by writing—by building a body of work, especially nonfiction but fiction, too—we control the narrative we leave behind to some extent. At the very least, we offer a collection of source documents, if someone ever wants to dig in and learn more. One-Line Legacy - A Summary of Your Life But at our funerals one day, someone will have to summarize our lives as my brother had to summarize Dad's. In episode 149, I urged you to write your own obituary or eulogy, reflecting on a life you’d like to live. That obituary is a summary of a life, not a biography, but it can be long and fairly detailed. This time, we’re going to summarize even tighter: What one line would you like to be remembered for? If we get to the end of our life, and a generation or two removed, and some great-great-grandnephew points to your picture in an album, what one story would that be? Assuming you could control what’s remembered, what would you want the cousins leaning in to read?

When my dad died in March, our family worked together to write the obituary. Each of us thought back on his life to decide the right stories to tell, the best details to share. What career highlights or life accomplishments should we bring up? What was he known for? How could we best capture his personality? Obituary Eventually we landed on a version of the obituary to publish in the local newspapers, to be read by family and friends and maybe a few strangers. People who didn’t know him got a glimpse of who he was. People who did know him wrote us lovely notes along the lines of, “Yes! That’s the man I remember!” or “I didn’t know that about him.” Eulogy For the funeral service, my brother wrote a eulogy. Eulogies are more personable than obituaries, as they tend to be presented through the lens of the speaker and reflect that relationship, though the eulogy might be delivered by a pastor who interviews people and pulls together their stories into one cohesive piece. To Summarize a Life Thinking back on a person and trying to summarize a life—that’s quite an undertaking. Sobering, too, for the person doing the thinking, writing, and summarizing. As I wrote reflections about my dad for the service, I began to wonder about my own life. Maybe funerals bring that out in all of us who attend. We think about our lives today, our lives in the future. What is a life? What is...my life? What would I want to be known for? What would someone include in my obituary? What accomplishments would they point to from my youth all the way through my retirement years? How would someone summarize my life? What values would they remark on? What passions or hobbies? How would they describe my personality? What would they say was my legacy—what did I leave behind in the world? Creative Writing Assignment Creative writing teachers often make this assignment: to write your own obituary or eulogy. But you don’t write it as if you’re going to die tomorrow. Don’t worry at all about when or how you might die. That’s not part of this reflection. Instead, focus on how you will live. Project yourself into the future and try to imagine how you will have lived. Just talking about it creates a verb tense challenge—following through with the assignment is a bit of a mind bender. You project yourself into the future and reflect back on your life as if you’ve already lived it. What life do you want to have lived? By writing your own obituary, you figure out the life you’ve lived thus far, and the life you want to live from this point forward. It’s a useful exercise for creative writing and...for life. Viktor Frankl's Daily Exercise, Expanded Viktor Frankl offer a daily exercise that Donald Miller summarized in a blog post. Frankl “taught his patients to treat each day as though they were living it a second time, only this time around to not make the same mistakes.” It’s a mind trick. Miller points out it calls us to “evaluate the decisions we will make that day before we make them, and as such, avoid regret.” In other words, you live the day the way you intended to live it. In a similar way, we can expand Frankl’s mind trick and look ahead at our entire life as though we are living it a second time, avoiding mistakes and making choices and decisions so that when we get to the end, we lived the life we intended to live. Best Case Scenarios This is not an exercise in playing out the future based on where we are at this moment, describing a depressing path assuming nothing changes. Don’t play out worst-case scenarios. This is an opportunity to form the life we want to live, dreaming of possibilities if we continue good habits or change bad ones and start living differently today. In doing so, we may avoid regret and build a life portfolio of sorts—so that someone can look back at this life we lived and built, and highlight something we hope is worth highlighting.

On a recent road trip, I loaded the “up next” feature of my podcast player with every episode that sounded intriguing. One episode would play after another without my having to touch it. Hours of Filling the Mind As I rolled down the freeway, I listened to hours and hours of podcasts, filling my mind with interviews, ideas, tips, and strategies related to writing and publishing, creativity and productivity, social media and marketing. That continuous input felt like taking back-to-back sessions at a conference or classes at college. Hungry to learn, I gorged on the steady diet of nourishing information. Hours of Stilling the Mind When I arrived at my destination, I turned off the podcast player. Silence. My brain grew still. That’s naturally what happened at the end of my long journey. But of course that’s exactly what I needed next. After filling my mind, I needed to still my mind. I needed to build in space and time to process and ponder the content I had taken in. I needed time to decide which ideas I could “own” for myself and integrate into my life and work. How could I test them out without some degree of stillness? Hours of Input Need Hours of Silence My outing was my Grand Gesture, if you recall from the last episode. I was near a beach. I made a commitment to walk every day, at least an hour. Sometimes two. As I walked, all that input from hours of listening and learning tumbled around in my mind, mixing with whatever I’d dropped in there over the years. Waves spilled against sand and lulled me into a relaxed state of trust in the directions my mind meandered. Freed from overthinking and overanalyzing, I solved a few sticky issues and casually outlined a few projects. I gained excitement and vision for the year ahead. Fill + Still = Breakthroughs While I have a lifetime of input floating around inside me, I believe in the importance of continuing to fill myself with more. I’m a lifelong learner, I guess. I want to keep my mind sharp. But I also see the value—the necessity—of following the filling with a stilling my mind, giving it space to make connections and arrive at breakthroughs. We have those a-ha moments while walking, showering, folding laundry, washing dishes. When we aren’t actively problem-solving, our minds are still enough to wander, think, make connections. This is a valuable state for a writer in need of breakthrough for a sticking point in a project. Effortless Breakthrough After a period of filling the mind, take time to quiet the noise. Turn down the volume, whether literal or figurative. Give the brain some down time. In the stillness of those quieter, less mentally demanding times, we figure it out: I just realized how my heroine will escape the trap! Ah! I know the third stanza in the poem—I can hear it in my head. For that essay, I’ll allude to a line in a play and write a section on how it resonates with our society. Our rested state allows us to arrive at clarity and vision. Filling and Stilling, We Write Unique With your insight, you can put the idea together in a way that only you can. That’s why you and I could both write about the same topic or respond to the same prompt and your final product would be completely different from mine. Not only are our styles different, but we’ve filled our minds with different content. You read this book while I read that. You came across a quote in your travels and I found one in a letter my mom wrote to her best friend when she was in college. You pored over medical research, while I had a conversation at a party thrown by a friend. We have it all inside, ready to increase the clarity and quality of our writing. Know When (and How) to Fill One time I came across a quote attributed to Anne Lamott: “Sometimes you’re not blocked; you’re empty.” When you feel empty, dry, lacking inspiration, spend some time filling your mind. Read great books Listen to great books

About a month ago, I escaped the frigid late-winter temperatures of the American Midwest and headed out on a big road trip. By myself. To write. (And to walk on the beach.) ’Twas a big investment of time and resources. ’Twas a grand gesture. Grand Gestures for Deep Work Some big writing projects I wanted to dig into continually sank to the bottom of the jumbly piles of obligations and domestic duties. I’d try to set aside time for the ideas, the words, the keyboard, but they struggled to gain traction when I could only dedicate a few minutes here and there. I decided to find focus—and sunshine—elsewhere. This approach to plunging into deep work by making major investments of time, money, or space, are what Cal Newport calls “Grand Gestures.” Rowling’s Grand Gesture In his book Deep Work, Newport offers a few examples of people who have made grand gestures, including J.K. Rowling. When she was working on the final book in the Harry Potter series, she faced everyday interruptions that broke the creative concentration needed to pull together all the threads of the story and finish strong. So she decided to step away from home, where the doorbell would ring and the dogs would bark. She checked into a room in the five star Balmoral Hotel at $1,000 a night. Newport notes that she didn’t intend to continue writing there more than a night, but she accomplished so much, she kept going back and ended up finishing the book there. The Boost in Importance Newport explains: The concept is simple: By leveraging a radical change to your normal environment, coupled perhaps with a significant investment of effort or money, all dedicated toward supporting a deep work task, you increase the perceived importance of the task. This boost in importance reduces your mind’s instinct to procrastinate and delivers an injection of motivation and energy. (122-123) Let me assure you I wasn’t staying in anything close to the Balmoral Hotel for my Grand Gesture, but it was certainly a radical change from my normal environment and required a significant investment of effort. My tasks did indeed take on greater importance, and I sat on the balcony with my laptop and tapped out the ideas and words that got my projects either significantly under way or completed. And I walked on the beach. In the sun. Less “Grand” Gestures Are Still Grand Now, there have been eras of my life where an outing that radical simply would not have been possible. Just out of college, I didn’t have nearly enough money for such an adventure. When my kids were little, no way could I have taken off that many days and driven that far away. Truly, it would have been nothing but a dream—a dream deferred. Back then, though, I made smaller grand gestures. That sounds like an oxymoron, but though they were small, they felt grand. I would escape to the library on a Saturday and stay all day, tapping out chapters in a book or articles for magazines, stepping out only to eat a little lunch I packed. Or in good weather, I might head to a local park and work at a picnic table, enjoying the atmosphere, penning poetry or a blog post. Sure, I’d love to have escaped to a more inspiring locale, but I settled for a less grand alternative—it got me away from my distracting dining room table. With some creativity, I still managed to gain focus and get ‘er done. It’s Worth It The goal, I believe, is to find ways to convince yourself that this project you’re working on is worth it. It’s worth the time. It’s worth the effort. Even a less dramatic “grand” gesture tells the brain to stop procrastinating and do the work. Creative Grand Gestures One of my clients drove her RV to a beautiful campground and stayed the weekend to finish three chapters in her book. She nailed it. All three chapters, complete. My friend and coauthor Charity Singleton Craig booked a room for several days at a state park lodge to complete some of her projects. She got it all done.

The past two weeks, I shared with you parts one and two of my writing life beginnings. I reflected back on when, where, and how I began to dream of writing, pursue writing, and latch on to the writing identity. I included some of the people involved in the process—people who encouraged me and people who created a challenge for me, even when they didn’t mean to. And I did my best to convey some of those memories and reflections through scenes. Your Writing Life Beginnings Now it’s your turn. I encourage you to think back to your writing life beginnings. When did you first find yourself drawn to writing? When did you first imagine being a writer? What held you back? Who held you back? What happened next? Do you remember a moment, an interaction, a scene from your life that formed you and your view of yourself as a writer, for better or for worse? What happened to reinforce or change that perception? When did you first tiptoe in—or, heck, when did you dive full force into—the writing life? Preserve Your Story Take time to remember. Write it down. Preserve it. And when you face discouragement—when you question your purpose or your identity as a writer—you’ll have this pivotal story to look back on: your story of your writing life beginnings. Beginnings You’ll remember the moments you pushed through and the people who shaped you. You’ll feel strengthened to recall the first words you shared with the world or the first pieces that were published. Maybe your story will begin all the way back in grade school and the first picture book you read over and over and hid under your pillow hoping the story would drift into your dreams at night. Maybe you’ll recreate the day someone read a poem you wrote on blue construction paper and decorated with glitter—you’ll describe how their eyes lit up and they looked down at you, the young hopeful, sensitive poet, and they said, “That’s so beautiful.” And you knew. In that moment, you knew this is what you wanted in life: to be a poet. Maybe you’ll describe the time your words were brushed aside. You slammed shut your notebook and snapped your pencil in two. Your swore you would never write another story. Two decades passed before you ventured back into the world of words, and you’ll share about your first writing attempt after that bitter episode years earlier—you’ll recall a sentence you wrote on the back of an envelope, while you rode a bus on the commute into the city. You’ll remember each word of that sentence, and how you shoved the envelope in your pocket, flushed with hope, and finally felt free to write again. When you capture those moments, you’ll realize this writing dream—this drive to put pen to paper—is no surprise, not really. You’ll grin when you understand that your love of literature traces back…wayyyy back. When the Going Gets Tough It’s worth it to invest a few minutes in preserving this part of your history. It’s worth it, because you can return to it when the going gets tough. And the going will get tough. Writing is hard. Editing is hard. Publishing is hard—sometimes brutal. You’ll have bad days, when you question it all and want to give up. Go back to this. Go back to your writing life beginnings. Write it down. Read it. Remember. Remember how you wanted it—fought for it—and resolved to make words integral to your life. Then go back to the keyboard or the notebook or whatever you write with, and begin again. Because when you remember your writing roots, you’ll know in your gut or your heart or your spirit, that this is who you are. A writer. Resources: My Writing Life: Beginnings, Pt 1 My Writing Life: Beginnings, Pt 2 All podcast episodes * * * You can subscribe with iTunes. If you subscribe, rate, and leave a review, you'll help others discover this content and grow as a writer. You should be able to search for and find “Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach” in any podcast player.

Note: This was originally published both at my website and at Tweetspeak Poetry back in 2013. I signed up for an American Literature class. The instructor didn’t ask about my brother, and I understood what I read, like The Mill on the Floss and Their Eyes Were Watching God. I formed opinions—my very own—and wrote response papers that earned A’s and positive remarks from the professor. My journalism course, however, turned me off. Plus, I couldn’t shake that memory of standing at the doorway to fetch the photo of the boy who had been shot. I didn’t want that life, so I abandoned journalism and switched to social work. The professor discouraged students from becoming social workers unless they were absolutely sure. I wasn’t sure. So I switched majors again when I took a folklore class, because I loved the idea of capturing stories. But someone pointed out the limited career opportunities available to folklore majors, so I started to look for an alternative. English Major Then I took another English Literature class. Maybe I was reading Kafka’s Metamorphosis or Joyce’s The Dubliners, but I realized I loved literature when I understood the language. Stories, words, ideas, themes. That’s what I wanted to dive into with my remaining time in college. I don’t know what I’ll do with it, I thought, but this is who I am: an English major. Toward the close of a semester, I walked with my boyfriend toward the campus bookstore, wondering aloud about my future. “What do you really want to be?” he asked. I blurted out, “A writer.” “A writer? That’s fantastic! How about communications?” “No, it’s too much like journalism and I hated journalism. I want to write creative things for magazines or books. I would love that.” “Take a creative writing class.” “Creative writing?” “Sure! You’d write fiction and poetry.” “But I don’t write poetry.” I remembered the sonnets in Dr. Weber’s Shakespeare class. “I don’t understand poetry.” “It’s okay. If you take creative writing classes, you’ll learn to write.” Creative Writing So I signed up for Introduction to Creative Writing. I read Writing Down the Bones and learned about free-writing. I filled notebooks with countless words, pen on paper without lifting it for ten minutes, hoping to turn up memories and ideas to work with. We started with fiction and I wrote a story entitled “Fences” that no one liked—not even me. Then we read and discussed poems, mostly contemporary. Some rhymed, but most didn’t. I understood some of them, but not all. Nobody seemed to mind, though I began to second-guess my right to be in the room with other students who grasped the meaning quickly and sounded intellectual. We began to write our own poems. “Write what you know, ” the instructor advised. “Write from your own memories. Write about your childhood.” So I wrote about dropping hay onto the heads of the cows as they leaned into the manger to eat. I wrote about my brother and his friends warning me that the devil lived in the window well. I wrote about sitting alone in the wooden pew watching the adults take communion at the Methodist church. I wrote about dancing in the barn loft as the afternoon sun streaked through the lone window facing west. And I wrote about my grandmother’s calico cat. None of my poems rhymed. Poetry Every semester I signed up for another creative writing class. For one assignment, I wrote a poem inspired by a piece of art. I chose an Andrew Wyeth print my boyfriend’s mom gave me of a little boy sitting in a field. I invented a scene where the boy had run away, and the week I read it aloud, the instructor, who wore long peasant skirts and Birkenstocks, highlighted the last lines, reading them again, slowly. On my way across campus that afternoon, I pulled it out and read the last lines again to myself. A few weeks later, I read aloud a poem I’d written about potatoes, and that same instructor leaned against the desk and listened. When I was done,

When I was visiting my grandmother one summer afternoon, she pulled out a letter I sent her. "This is good," she said. "Really?" She pointed at the paragraphs and said the ideas were well organized, my writing flowed well, and I included lots of details. "It was interesting to read," she said. Then she looked up at me and smiled. "Maybe we have another writer in the family?” Did I gasp? Her words certainly sent a jolt through me. Did she know how badly I wanted to write? Could she have known how much I yearned to be a writer? Surely the thought of me as a writer seemed far-fetched to her. After all, my mother was a seasoned editor and columnist, endowed with innate writing talents—Grandma saw her earn accolades in college and as a career journalist. My father was an editor at a prominent metropolitan newspaper, shaping stories, crafting headlines, and curating front-page content. Even my brother, a skilled wordsmith, showed promise as a creative writer, eventually becoming an award-winning copywriter for ad campaigns. And then there was me—Grandma knew her granddaughter was a sprinter on the track team, a clarinetist in the band, and a dedicated student earning good grades. Yet, no one, myself included, saw me as a writer...well, I helped put the school newspaper together, but I was hardly an ace reporter. Yet here she was, encouraging me to write, cheering me on. During that brief exchange when pointing out the strengths of my letter, Grandma kindled a spark of hope within me. External Validation Bolsters Us While external validation shouldn't dictate our writing journey, it bolsters us when we face the inevitable resistance that hits us from within and without. Her words reverberated in my head (and my heart) for years, counteracting doubts that crept in, giving me courage to push past obstacles and move toward a future with words. Around that time, my best friend in high school praised the short story I wrote: "The Medallion of Kilimanjaro." Her sincere reaction made me believe I could tell a captivating story. A few years later, my college boyfriend nudged me to enroll in creative writing at our university—his vote of confidence aligned with Grandma's earlier endorsement, solidifying my self-perception as a writer. In one of those creative writing classes, a poetry professor urged me to submit my work to the undergraduate journal. Armed with her belief in my potential, I sent in three. The outcome exceeded my expectations—each of the three submissions was accepted for publication, and one poem secured a prize. I could continue to list even more people who added to that chorus of encouragement, bolstering my confidence. Editors, friends, team leaders, mentors. With their voices cheering me on, I took risks. With their affirmations in my head and heart, I pursued a writing career—I built a writing life. Who Cheered You on as a Writer? Who cheered you on throughout your writing journey? Who pointed out your potential and steered you toward a life of words?Whose voices gave you confidence? Was it a mentor, teacher, peer, editor, friend, or coach? If they never voiced their thoughts, would you have given up? Make a list of the people who offered you encouragement to pursue this path. If possible, track some of them down and thank them. Perhaps you could mail them a letter? After that...cheer on another writer. Encourage them as they face obstacles on the path to achieving their writing goals. When you do, you'll be one of the powerful voices adding to the chorus of those who give them confidence to stick with it—to pursue writing and build a writing life. Resources: My Writing Life Beginnings, Pt 1 My Writing Life Beginnings, Pt 2 Writers: Never, Never, Never Give Up 5 Writing Strengths

Note: This was originally published both at my website and at Tweetspeak Poetry back in 2013. My mom, a journalist, was talking with a friend. She beamed at my brother. “Charlie, he’s the writer of the family. And Annie? She’s…” Here, I felt my mom hesitate. Then, “Annie’s the athlete.” My brother excelled in everything involving words—from composing song lyrics and essays to dominating Scrabble games and inserting witty comments into conversations at just the right moment. I played softball and ran track. And I rode my yellow Schwinn ten-speed down country roads stretching between corn and soybean fields, past herds of Black Angus cattle and silos filled with grain. The labels fit, though deep down, secretly, I wanted to be a writer, too. Journal Three years after Charlie graduated high school, I sat in Miss Thompson’s Senior English class. Miss Thompson told us we would keep a journal chronicling our senior year, creating at least five entries per week. We were to do more than write, however. We were to add our personal touch. Whether we complemented our written words with pasted-in photographs, news clippings and ticket stubs or accented them with watercolor backgrounds and meticulous calligraphy, the key to A-level work was creative expression. She held up three examples of some of the best she’d ever seen—journals from past students whose work she adored. One was Charlie’s. I recognized it immediately, having gazed at it many times while he worked on it during his senior year. She passed them around for students to flip through. When Charlie’s came to me, I opened it, noting his handwriting—a combination of big printed letters and rounded cursive. The content mingled light humor and occasional sarcasm with spot-on descriptions of people and situations. For one page, he cut letters from newspapers to compose an amusing ransom note. I studied the pages, wishing I could copy his techniques. Then I passed it to the person behind me. At the end of my senior year, Miss Thompson didn’t ask to keep my journal. Copy Person I ran track in spring that year, as I had since junior high, training for sprints and the long jump, reinforcing my status as the family athlete. After graduation, I worked during the summer as a copy person, running errands for editors at the newspaper where my dad worked. I hated working in the city. I hated working into the night. I hated the sense of urgency and stress necessary to put out a daily paper. One time I had to drive the company car to fetch a photograph from a family whose son had been shot. I knocked on the door. They barely opened it. I introduced myself and said I was from the newspaper. They reached through the narrow opening and handed me his picture. I told them we would return it and flipped it around to be sure their address was printed on the back. It was. I don’t think they said one word. I said I was very sorry and thanked them for the photo. They nodded and shut the door. I hated invading their grief. College That fall, I started school at a Big Ten University. Not nearly good enough to compete on their elite sports teams, I lost my label. No more was I an athlete, though I did pedal my yellow Schwinn ten-speed across campus, weaving around students who were walking to class. A couple of weeks into my freshman year, I showed up at a tall building where bored grad students served as advisors, looking over undergrad schedules to ensure that our class selections met each major’s requirements. We lined up single-file down a long hallway, waiting our turn. My randomly assigned college advisor asked about my major. Since I had no idea what to study, my mom and dad suggested journalism. I didn’t have any other ideas, so I’d been claiming to be a journalism major on all my school documents and blurted it out to the advisor. He wrote it down, scribbled on some paperwork, approved my class load, and sent me on my way. Survey of Shakespeare

Last time we talked about getting that first pancake out of the way so you can make more pancakes. We can be so afraid of that wobbly-edged first pancake that we don’t even start, but when we overcome that fear and pour out that first blob of batter, we’ll start to get the hang of it, flipping more and more until we have a big round stack to serve others. And that’s why we’re writing, isn’t it? To serve whole stacks of our words to others? There are other reasons to write, including personal reasons, like keeping a private journal to explore our inner lives. That practice can lead to a healthier psyche, increased gratitude, and improved health. But those of us who are writing for publication of some kind—even if only on social media—have some desire to serve an audience. To have readers. We want to inform, persuade, encourage, or entertain, right? Keep Flipping Pancakes So here’s the deal. You’ve got to keep flipping pancakes. Every Saturday morning, you have to pull out the griddle, stir up the batter, and make more. And you know I’m using this as an analogy, of course, though by all means, make actual pancakes any time you wish. If you make any for me, I’ll take gluten-free, dairy-free with real maple syrup, please. But back to our writing. Once you write the first poem or the first essay or the first book or the first Instagram post—or the next poem or the next essay or the next book or the next Instagram post—keep going. Pick a sustainable pace and keep writing, keep editing, keep finishing, keep shipping them out however they're shipped. If it means you need to click publish in WordPress so your article goes live once a week, do it. If it means you make the finishing touches on your essay and send it out via Submittable, send it. Be consistent. When you’re consistent—when you keep showing up—you reap layers of benefits. Be Consistent for Readers First, you show your audience you’re serious about this. You’re in it for the long haul. You'll still evolve—it doesn’t mean you’ll produce exactly the same content for decades. But you are saying, “Hey, I’m not a one-hit wonder." Consistency tells the world, “This who I am. This is my personality, my tone, my approach, my worldview. And you can turn to me for X.” Then write X, whether that’s political satire or romance novels. It can be driven by topic, like frugal shopping or high-end travel, or it can be driven by platforms, like podcasts and vlogging. Show up and prove to the world this is what you offer. By writing and shipping consistently, you’re saying, “I'm going to show up with content that persuades you, encourages you, makes you laugh, or solves your problem. You can turn to me for that. You can count on me. I’ll be here. I’ll walk alongside you, reader." Now, plenty of readers will pop over to your blog or your Facebook page and just take away one little morsel of information and never visit you again. That’s okay. But you will have faithful readers. Those are the people you’re showing up for. Whether it’s two, twenty, two hundred, or two hundred thousand, keep showing up for them. Be Consistent for Yourself Interestingly, showing up for others ends up being a gift to yourself. When you write for others, you reinforce not only for them but also for yourself: this is who I am, and this is what I offer and want to keep offering. When you stick with your commitment to show up consistently, you prove to yourself you can do this. You can follow through. You can make pancake after pancake. You get small win after small win, and those add up to become their own big win. Consistency is how we practice our craft and improve. And you’ll have the confidence to undertake bigger projects because you know you were faithful to follow through with the smaller ones. Keep a growth mindset. Move toward mastery. Improve and experiment and improve even more. When you’re consistent,

Back in December of 2014, my first podcast episode spoke to listeners. I preached to myself, as well. The message? Just get started. You Only Need to Know 'Enough' I’d been putting off podcasting for years. There was a wave of interest in podcasting a few years prior to 2014, and I felt like I’d missed that wave. But the opportunity stirred again. People in the online world were buzzing about podcasts and podcasting yet again, and I realized a second wave was swelling. Perhaps I could ride the wave this time, I thought. Now, I’m not too good on the water—I survived a spectacular wipeout while waterskiing when I was in my early 20s. Thankfully, I’m only using that as an analogy. I saw it as a risk—launching a writing coach podcast felt as scary as pulling on those skis. The fear felt the same. But I decided to dig in and do it anyway. I decided to do minimal, just-in-time research and then jump right in even if I didn’t think I knew enough. I was tempted to have every duck in a row, but if I waited for that, I knew I would wait another week, another month, another year. I knew I just needed to know enough. I could get answers along the way. To be honest, at the time I was kind of mad at myself for missing out before, so I was determined to move forward no matter what. Start with What You Have I couldn’t find a straightforward "podcasting for dummies" kind of tutorial. Those came a few months or a year after I started. I read what was out there, tried to figure out the basics, and jumped in with the equipment I had on hand. A couple of questions remained unanswered, but I forged ahead. I used my smartphone and a little earpiece speaker I use for making phone calls. I pulled that very first audio file into GarageBand, did some light editing, uploaded it to my podcast host, and with that, I started. Those first few episodes, I was nervous. The quality was adequate, but not professional. And I did make a couple of mistakes behind the scenes. I was kind of upset and anxious about them for a week or so until a kind and patient person at Blubrry—that’s my podcast host—explained my options, helped me decide what to do, and walked me through next steps. Problem solved. Basically, I had to re-brand the podcast because I couldn’t change the name without starting over. But the point is that even with the mistake, I was able to meet my ultimate goal, which was to get content out there—audio content—that could help writers. I didn’t wait another day and I didn’t waste another opportunity. About a year later I heard the term “minimum viable product” for the first time and realized, “Ah! That’s how I got myself in motion!" That microphone was okay—it met my minimum standard. If I’d waited until I saved up for a nicer mic before starting, I might have missed the wave. Get the First Pancake Out of the Way Whatever it is you’ve been dreaming of doing? Do it. Start it. Grab your computer keyboard and type the first words of that novel. Set your phone on a shelf and record your first Facebook Live. Grab your camera and snap a first few photos for Instagram. Set up a website and start publishing articles. Have you heard of the first pancake rule? I love it because I’ve literally seen its truth in action. Every time I make pancakes—or crepes—the first one or two are kind of misshapen and unappealing, though they taste just fine. After those first two, I get the swing of things. The pan is the right temperature and the batter has sort of settled. Before long, I’m flipping stacks of beautiful, round, puffy pancakes ready to be doused in syrup, or piles of elegant crepes ready to be rolled up with some sweet filling. But I always have to get those first couple of wonky-looking pancakes or crepes out of the way first. Same with my podcast. Same with your project. If you haven’t created something like that before, you can have all the right ingredients and you'll still have to do the first whatever...

Photographer Walker Evans said, “Stare. It is the way to educate your eye, and more. Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long." Pay attention to this world. Learn something. And then, I might add, give it away. Before you die. Because life is short and there’s so much to say. Stare We writers join the photographers and fine artists and children as the watchers, staring at the world around us, noticing what others brush past or ignore. We’re the ones who see and take note. We pry, listen, eavesdrop. We press in and push out, serving as a conduit of whatever truth we’ve taken in. Share Whatever you learn, whatever you know, whatever you see and hear, write it. Share it. Pass it on. You have stories to tell that only you can tell because you were the one who was there—you were the one who took time to notice and see what others missed. We stare a long time and sometimes stand up, walk to another location to gain a different perspective, and stare even longer—this time from that other angle. Capture it. Verify, as much as possible. And bear witness with honesty and humility. We play with words as we tell the truth. We may speak truth others can’t articulate on their own, or we speak truth others can’t bring themselves to utter. We often speak the truth others can't quite wrap their minds around, but when they see it, read it, hear it, they’ll “get it.” All because we stopped to stare. All because we were willing to share. The Unexpected in the Everyday Sophie Howarth & Stephen McLaren, authors of Street Photography Now, respond in part to the Walker Evans quote, as they describe the work of street photographers in terms that sound something like the work of writers. They say: Street photographers elevate the commonplace and familiar into something mythical and even heroic. They thrive on the unexpected, seeing the street as a theatre of endless possibilities, the cast list never fixed until the shutter is pressed. They stare, they pry, they listen and they eavesdrop, and in doing so they hold up a mirror to the kind of societies we are making for ourselves. At a time when fewer and fewer of the images we see are honest representations of real life, their work is more vital than ever. (excerpted in The Telegraph) We writers can do the same kind of work as the street photographers. When we do, we elevate the commonplace and familiar into something bigger, even “mythical” or “heroic.” We, too, thrive on the unexpected in the everyday. Our work, too, is more vital than ever. Make Much of What Others Pass By Dinty Moore of Brevity Magazine tweeted a quote from Steven Church, who said: "I think our obligation as essayists is to make too much of things that other people wouldn’t make much of." Essayists, poets, novelists, memoirists: look around. In the commonplace, familiar world we inhabit, we see the bigger themes, the more profound truths, the window into what our world is becoming. We do this, in part, by noting what some small piece of it has become. We make much of things others pass right by. Every writer can learn from the street photographers. We can learn to stare. Pry. Eavesdrop. Take it all in. Use every sense. Take it all in and get it all down, even if you don’t write about it until a week later, a month later, a year later. But don’t wait too long. Help the World Begin to See In the play Our Town, the character Emily is speaking to her loved ones when she says, "I love you all, everything. - I cant look at everything hard enough.” Her monologue models attention to detail and inspires every theatergoer, every writer—every human being—to do the same. She cries out to her family to look at each other. She realizes too late how fast life goes, how we don’t have time—or take time—to look at one another. "All that was going on in life and we never noticed,” she says. She takes one last look as she says goodbye to the world—to the town,

In her book The Artful Edit, Susan Bell says editing “involves a deep, long meditation within which the editor or self-editor listens to every last sound the prose before him makes, then separates the music from the noise" (5). We talked last time about the need to listen—we even explored ways to do so. Now we’re taking it to a more intense level involving "a deep, long meditation," as Bell emphasizes the need to listen to "every last sound the prose" before us makes. This takes time. Attention. Focus. We're making decisions based on what we hear, listening with a discerning ear, to separate the music from the noise. Listen for the music. Eliminate the noise. The Noise Let’s start with the noise. I suspect most of us would agree we writers don’t want to add to the noise of the world, nor do we want to simply make noise with our words. No need to sound like a clanging cymbal unless that’s adding pizzazz or punctuation to drive home a point. So we must recognize when a passage isn’t pulling its weight. Have you read something that feels like it’s sagging, long-winded, or slow? Yeah, that’s probably a sign it ought to be examined more closely and tightened or even eliminated. Susan Bell says in a later chapter, “Develop your editor’s eye to see where your words slouch.” Though she’s switched from listening to seeing, I suspect avid readers who have grown to love the sound of words can see or sense a slouchy passage, especially when reading aloud. We may be able to spot it on the page, too, if the paragraph is packed with long sentences, too much detail, or lack of clarity or focus. You’ve probably hit a sluggish, slouchy passage if you realize you’re speed-reading to rush through a section or you caught your mind wandering. Your text probably needs attention if you're reading and re-reading a passage because it didn’t click the first time. Mego And heaven forbid if your eyes glaze over. The late Ben Bradlee, legendary editor of The Washington Post, coined a term for a bad story: “mego.” A story that bored him was “mego," M-E-G-O, the acronym for “my eyes glaze over.”  If you’re reading and your eyes are glazing over, flag that section. Come back and tighten it, condense it, or if it isn’t necessary, simply delete it. Slouchy words and passages will tire or bore your reader. You’ll risk mego. Minimize mego. Maximize music. Making Music So let’s talk about the music. Bell advises, "you can rhythmically hold on to [your reader] by controlling the musical measure of your prose" (119). A balance of sentence length is a simple fix, but it’s not a science. I can’t tell you to add three compound-complex sentences followed by a short sentence for the perfect combination. I like to think we’ll know music when we hear it. It’s the sound of the sentences flowing from one to the other. It’s the word choices that roll off the tongue with ease. It’s the idea that engages the mind without having to read it twice and the scene that unfolds naturally so the reader practically steps into it. The flow of the passage serves the story or the idea. The music serves the message. Author Mary Caponegro says: I’d always write out loud. When I got that opening, I would repeat it out loud, over and over and over…because it was so important to me that the sonic qualities were intact in every single line. A lot of my self-editing would be preoccupied with trying to maintain the standard in my head of musicality. (171) She seems to enter that long, deep meditation Bell describes to listen to every last sound the prose makes. She’s intent on making music, first. Above all. Beige or Purple Prose When crafting lyrical prose—or trying to—writers are tempted to go too far and often produce "purple prose," a term for passages that have grown too flowery, elaborate, excessive, or ornate. They're overwritten and overwrought. Out of the blue, a series of adjectives plucked from a thesaurus line up to modify a pe...

Recently I plucked from the shelf The Artful Edit: On the Practice of Editing Yourself, by Susan Bell. Already I can tell that Susan Bell's approach to editing has less to do with comma-spotting and more to do with staying attentive and open to more important matters: ponder the piece to comprehend its purpose and meaning; listen to determine the pace and sound of the writing itself. Editing anyone's writing in this way calls for objectivity while shepherding both the author and his words. Actually, it requires the same thing when self-editing: objectivity. Bell says this: We are loath to put an objective ear to our subjective selves. But to edit is to listen, above all; to hear past the emotional filters that distort the sound of our all too human words; and to then make choices rather than judgments. As we read our writing, how can we learn to hear ourselves better? (2) We gain time and objectivity to shepherd our own words by listening. But how can we hear past the "emotional filters" she mentions? How can we "learn to hear ourselves better"? Thankfully, Bell offers some suggestions. Create Distance To hear with greater objectivity, try to create some distance from the draft. Figure out how to make it sound less familiar. Here are some of Bell's recommendations: Leave your WIP at desk. Don't sneak pages into a bag or peek at it on your phone. At the end of a writing session, walk away and don't look at it until you return for your next session. Resist continual re-reading and revising. Many writers obsessively pore over their previous work as they write instead of pushing past the existing words with a promise to deal with edits later. Resist re-reading the previous session's output and you'll force the story to progress. If you ignore the words on the screen (or printouts) you can simply write whatever's next. Write longhand. When you forgo the screen and write by hand, you can't so easily go back and delete, insert, or move sections around. Instead, you just keep the pen moving to get the whole thing out, start to finish. It creates distance and helps us pour it all out at once without fussing over each little segment. Set it aside. Create emotional distance from the work by building in a substantial break from the time you finish the draft and the time you return to begin editing. Change the font or size. It's such a simple trick and so easy to do with our current technology. Get a fresh look at your words by simply changing the font from Times New Roman to Georgia or from Arial to Garamond. Then pump it up from 12 point to 14. Changing the way it looks changes the way you see the words you so faithfully churned out the first time. Chances are, you'll notice typos, missing words, repetition, and unneeded punctuation you overlooked before. Send it. Yeah, go ahead and publish the thing somewhere, on a blog or social media. Send it to a beta reader and ask for input. That's when it gets real. Knowing we have a reader on the other end forces us to run our words through a different filter, think differently about it, and get it ready for prime time. Read Aloud By far the best way to learn to listen and "hear ourselves better" is to actually...hear ourselves. Read your work aloud. I know you will be loath to do this, to borrow a phrase from Bell—no one seems to like the sound of his own voice. But try it. Read it aloud. Read it to a friend. Read it to your dog. Read it in public. Record yourself and play it back. If you need some distance from your own voice, have someone else read it aloud to you. Or, if you want to go high-tech, most computers have some way of reading text to you. In the book, Susan Bell quotes Samuel Butler, who is reflecting on Molière reading aloud his plays to his housemaid: If Molière ever did read to her, it was because the mere act of reading aloud put his work before him in a new light and,

Curious writers are generally creative and productive, and able to achieve their writing goals—all while having fun. This is no surprise to you—I say it every week! Curiosity can fuel our writing projects and our writing lives so we can create our best possible work. But curiosity can also send us off willy-nilly with no plan or accountability, distracting us from deadlines and keeping us from wrapping up projects. In fact, every once in awhile, curiosity ruins my writing. And if you’re not careful, it can ruin yours, too. Here are five ways curiosity can ruin our writing. 1. Too Curious about our Environment Interruptions and distractions can throw us off, but outside distractions alone aren’t always to blame. Sometimes what threatens my productivity or the depth of my ideas isn’t the distraction so much as my curiosity about the distraction. Let’s say the phone rings. Someone else answers the phone, so I don’t have to lift a finger from the keyboard. And yet, a minute later, curiosity kicks in and I’m distracted from my work: "Wait, who called? Is it a reminder call from the doctor? Will I have to make an appointment somewhere?” Or we’re listening to music in the cafe or the coworking space or we have our own headphones on and start to think, "I wonder who wrote that song? What’s that line?" The notification dings on the phone. Curiosity is behind that knee-jerk response: “Should I check who sent that, or can it wait?” Or, “Isn’t that my Words with Friends notification?” So it’s not only the distractions that distract—it’s our curiosity about the distractions that can disrupt a writing session. Solution: Try asking a question out loud about the writing project to distract from the distraction and bring yourself back to the work. It reminds the brain where to direct its attention, like: “What would make this section stronger?” or “What am I trying to say here about the topic?” Redirect your curiosity about the environment over to re-engage with the work. 2. Too Curious about the Next New Program or System Have you found yourself curious about systems? This is like Shiny Object Syndrome. It’s when you’re curious to try a new organizational tool, word processing program, or productivity app, and you spend a few hours researching it, downloading it, messing around to understand how it works. Then you spend another hour moving all your information over. You're kind of slow using it at first because you’re still adapting, and just when you gain some momentum, you hear about another system and find yourself drawn to give it a try. And you go through the process all over again. All the while, you could have been writing. Solution: Productivity experts will tell you this about those alluring systems: The best system is the one you already use. Pick one. Commit. And resist anything that’s interrupting your writing. Don’t worry if Trello’s color scheme isn’t your favorite or Evernote’s tagging system feels a bit cumbersome or Scrivener looks a lot cooler than Google Drive. If Google Drive is working well, stick with that. Curb your curiosity next time someone entices you to try something else. 3. Too Curious During the Research Stage Curiosity is a friend to the research process…to a point. Driven by insatiable curiosity, we research and research and research for a short story, novel, article, or essay, and we follow interesting tidbits that branch out to more and more interesting tidbits. In reality, if we stepped back and took a look at our notes, we might see we already have what we need to get busy writing the story to meet the deadline. Our curiosity about the subject matter can drive us deep into rabbit holes, digging up interesting but unnecessary information instead of using what we have to get going on the project. Sometimes we’re overwhelmed by the project—maybe a little afraid to get started writing it—and we let research serve as a crutch and an excuse not to do the wor...

Last time we talked about enjoying our vein of gold as we decide what to write next. To discover our strength as a writer—writing that represents our brightest, most brilliant contributions—I proposed we may have to experiment and try new genres, new subject matter, or even expressing ourselves in a new and different voice that may turn out to be our truest voice. What intrigues you? What have you been tempted to write? How might you write it? Experiment. Give it a try. Experimentation Expands Us Through these experiments, we might uncover something we’re better at than anything we’ve tried before. Or we may confirm that our vein of gold is what we’ve invested in the most already. Either way, we learn something new. And even if our experimental efforts aren’t going to win a National Book Award, we will have expanded our repertoire and quite possibly our very selves. Experimentation is how to tap into new spaces inside…discover new possibilities…gain new insights. Experimentation Is Risky If you’re going to step out of your comfort zone to try something new, however, you’ll be taking a risk. You probably already thought of that—it may be what’s holding you back. Risk-aversive writers may resist, and I can’t promise your experiments will end all rainbows and unicorns. Your experiment could have any number of outcomes: It may stretch you. It may captivate you. You might love it. You might hate it. Readers might love it. Readers might hate it. You might feel like you’ve landed flat on your face and feel embarrassed, wondering why you wasted your time. You might feel like you’ve produced your best work ever—and you’ll wonder why you’ve invested so much time and energy on whatever you’ve been doing all these years. Then again, your experiment might result in something far less dramatic. You might simply learn a clever new technique or dig up a pleasant memory. You might make yourself and your reader chuckle or shed a tear before shifting back to the tried and true work you’re known for. Whether your experiment lands you at one extreme or the other—or somewhere in-between—don’t be afraid to try. If you’re tempted, give it a go. In the film The Greatest Showman, P.T. Barnum’s protege Phillip Carlyle says, "You’re risking everything you’ve built.” Without missing a beat, Barnum replies, "Well how do you think I built it?” Creativity Requires Risk Interesting, creative work usually requires risk. And risk…is risky. Readers not expecting you to tackle a new topic or genre or tone may be thrown off and respond with shock, surprise, delight, or derision. You won’t know until you try. But risk, even in the form of tiny, everyday creative risks, is how you grow as a writer and, over time, it’s how you build a writing career. Monet often painted the same subject in a series—haystacks, bridges, lily pads, a cathedral. He experimented with subtle changes in light and color, and the impact of weather and time of day on the scene. Given that, one might argue he stayed in his vein of gold. But Monet, the father of Impressionism, didn’t start out with those famous quick brush strokes he’s known for today. He started out with charcoal, then trained with oils, experimenting with a new medium and eventually a new style. He submitted his early work to the Salon, you know, the “establishment," and those first pieces played more or less by the rules of the day. Eventually, though, he experimented. He expanded his repertoire. He took his work outdoors, en plein air, and shifted to give the impression of a scene more than rendering it realistically. The “establishment" didn’t react favorably. Monet, you may recall, formed a group of artists that held their own exhibition in another part of Paris. Today, their style seems normal to us, quite appealing, but it shook the art world of 19th Century Paris. Aren’t we glad Monet took those creative risks?

If you were to meet me in person, you’d find out I’m a little silly. My humor is situational, and a story grows more animated in relation to audience reaction—which I don’t have in real time here on the podcast. If we were together in person and I saw that you and other listeners were amused by something I said, I’d play around with it and gauge how far I could take it. I'd make goofy faces and do voices if it added punch to the punchline. This may be hard for you to believe, since you usually hear me on this podcast speaking in a fairly measured, calm tone. But, yeah, if you were to meet me in person I think you’d be surprised. I’ve had more than one client say they did not expect me to be fun or funny. What Do I Write Next: Exploring Strengths I’ve often wondered if that represents untapped potential for my writing. In fact, when I’m trying to decide what to write next, I occasionally ponder the possibility of exploring humor. Could I pull it off? Would people laugh? Then I remember the times I’ve tried to translate my comical side to the page. I’ve not done it often, but when I have…it’s usually fallen flat. In contrast, I’ve found that the strongest reactions to my writing over the years have come in response to quiet, reflective, somewhat melancholy pieces. Restrained, vulnerable memoir seems to be my vein of gold. The Vein of Gold Back in the late 1990s I discovered Julia Cameron’s book The Vein of Gold on a library bookshelf. She explains where she got the concept and phrase she used in the title. It came from a chat she had with film director Martin Ritt, when he said: All actors have a certain territory, a certain range, they were born to play. I call that range their ‘vein of gold.’ If you cast an actor within that vein, he will always give you a brilliant performance. Of course, you can always cast an actor outside his vein of gold. If you do, the actor can use craft and technique to give you a very fine, a very creditable performance, but never a performance as brilliant as when he is working in his vein of gold. (Cameron, 99) To explore this, Cameron considers Robert De Niro's roles that feature male bonding versus anything focusing on the love of a woman. De Niro’s vein of gold: male bonding roles. Kevin Kline in comedy versus drama. Kline’s vein of gold: comedy. Meryl Streep in comedy compared with high drama. Julia Cameron’s book was published in 1996, and I think most of us would agree with Cameron’s conclusion that at that time, Streep’s vein of gold was drama. Discovering a Writer’s Vein of Gold I've thought about that phrase—that idea—on and off for years. Is Mr. Ritt’s theory correct? Does an actor have a vein of gold? Does a writer? If so, what’s my vein of gold? Have I stumbled into the kind of writing where I’m regularly giving my finest performance? The concept is arguable, but let’s say for now he's correct: that every artist—whether actor, sculptor, singer, or writer—has a vein of gold. Subject Matter Gold For writers, maybe it comes out in the topics we write about. Whenever we compose a book review, our critical analysis makes readers consider the title more carefully and we realized this is where we shine. We write about culture or politics or sports, and our writing exudes energy, spark, or sizzle. When that happens, we may have stumbled into our subject matter vein of gold. One day we switch things up to experiment: we take a freelance job writing about sports when we’re best at book reviews. After a few weeks we realize we’ve mastered the jargon and learned all the stats—we offer a very fine, a very creditable finished product—but it’s not what anyone would call brilliant. Alternately, we may discover we’ve found a new area of passion and write even better about sports than anything we’ve tried before. So experimenting can confirm our vein of gold or uncover a new one. Genre Gold Another possibility is that our vein of gold manifests in a parti...

A few weeks ago, when I introduced the idea of how we can decide what to write next, I proposed several ways a writer can approach that decision. One was to write whatever’s next in sequence. Write What’s Next in Sequence If you’re writing a novel, tackle the next chapter. Your short story will need the next scene. A poem grows with the next line leading to the next stanza. An article will expand with another paragraph or section. If you write DIY tutorials, you write in sequence to show the viewer or reader what to do next in order, one step after another. The sequential approach can be a logical way to decide within an existing project what to write next. In those cases, the answer is often right in front of us. What’s the Next Action? A simple way to keep those projects moving along is to ask the question “What's the next action?” Answer that, and you often realize right away you must simply write the next line, the next stanza, and so on. This question is an essential element in David Allen's Getting Things Done system, also known as GTD. When you think of a project you’re currently working on or one that you’re considering, try asking “What’s the next action?” Answer it with a statement that begins with a verb. Because we’re talking about writing, the statement will probably begin with “write”: Write chapter 17 Write the last stanza in the poem “Chase the Sun” Write the promo video script Write about the puke-y flight from Brussels for the travel article (yeah…I won’t on it elaborate here) “What’s the next action?” helps break down big projects into manageable actions so you know what to write next. Instead of scheduling a writing block on the calendar and labeling it “Blog post,” you can add the specific action, like, “Write the last two paragraphs for blog post.” With this approach, you know precisely what to write next. This focusing question works best when the projects offer obvious answers. Why Not Write a Series? But when you’ve closed out a project and you’re deciding what’s the next big undertaking, it’s not always so clear what to write next. You can still think in terms of sequences, though. In fact, you could even have some fun creating a sequence—how about a series? You could introduce a serial format to something you weren’t originally visualizing that way. It can hold your own creative interest as a writer as well as the interest of the busy, easily distracted reader. Writing and publishing short-form work in sequence—in a series—can work well for short attention spans while encouraging people to return for more. A series gives you a means to dive deeper into a topic, or explore it more widely in its applications, or look at it from many angles. Publishing novels in a series creates multiple entry points for readers who can dig in and read the entire collection. Series Ideas Want some ideas? Short Stories On your website, what if you release a series of short stories linked in some way? Maybe they’re all set in the same town or feature an ensemble of characters who alternate getting center stage from story to story. Novel Write and release a novel in serial form on your website. This should be a novel you didn’t intend to pitch to agents or publish traditionally; it would be something you just want to share with the world. You’ll be following in Charles Dickens’ footsteps, who his books in serial format in newspapers. Or, as I mentioned, you could write and publish novels in a series—anything from a detective series or sci-fi trilogy, to a realistic world peopled with characters like Father Tim in Jan Karon's Mitford series. Social Media A lot of ideas you might publish on a website could be serialized in even shorter format and pushed out via social media. You could do this with a story told in segments. Or you could implement a visual theme with applicable captions that link a series of updates all together.

Just as musicians credit their musical influences, writers, too, have literary inspirations who help them discover and shape their unique voice. At a White House event for poets in 2011, Billy Collins said to students about finding your voice: You’re searching for the poets who make you jealous...you're looking to get influenced by people who make you furiously jealous…And then copy them.1 Billy himself was influenced by the work of Wallace Stevens—I suppose he would say he was furiously jealous of him. Anne Lamott's Seemingly Effortless Prose Author Shauna Niequist openly mentions the influence of Anne Lamott on her work. The first time I read Anne Lamott, I thought, “Is this allowed? People can write like this and it gets published?” I laughed at her sometimes-crass and often sarcastic style. She opened the door to a whole new way of writing, with honesty and sass. While hers was not exactly my style, I admired the conversational tone—the seemingly stream-of-consciousness flow of ideas—that, upon close examination, were carefully crafted. That skill to make her work seem like it effortlessly spilled onto the page but was actually carefully constructed? That made me furiously jealous. Annie Dillard's Literary Craftsmanship My friend and co-author Charity Singleton Craig has mentioned Annie Dillard's impact on her. She frequently quotes her and I sense hints of that literary genius in my friend, as well as in Dillard. I read Annie Dillard in my early 20s and wondered, “What is this?” I liked it, but I didn’t “get it.” I didn’t understand what she was doing. But I saw that she stitched her work together with precision using the tools of a literary craftsman. And that, I admired. That made me furiously jealous. Madeleine L'Engle's Bridges of Trust, Love, and Hope As a child, I read Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. Whether I voiced it or not, I know I wondered, “How did she do that?” At that time I didn’t want to write in that style or genre, but she led us to trust, love, and hope through the delight of quirky characters. I was thrilled how intimately she connected with her reader—with me. I was grateful at the time. Now, as an adult who writes, I’m furiously jealous. I want to create bridges of trust, love, and hope, as well. Scott Russell Sanders' Unpretentious Midwestern Truth Charity and I attended a lecture by Scott Russell Sanders. In my notebook, I scribbled notes. Then I leaned back and listened. Finally, I wrote, “I want to write like that” on the page of my notebook. I tilted the page toward Charity to show it to her. She nodded. She could see I was furiously jealous. He writes about the Midwest, where I’m from, so I’m always impressed with how he brings it to life. His work connects with me in the familiar references of trees and rivers and birds. He names them and I know them. He makes creative choices seem less mysterious than Dillard and more accessible. He’s conversational in some ways but not curmudgeonly like Anne Lamott. When I read him, I think, “Hey, I could try that.” He’ll tell stories, create scenes, and introduce a theme, a phrase, a word. He presses in, gently, a little more—labyrinthine at times and progressively, sequentially, other times. I want to write like that. He’s unpretentious. I can tell that the ideas and stories he shares on the page are true. When I met him at that event with Charity, it was clear: he is who he seems to be on the page. That’s who I am and want to be, too, in my writing. In life. Unpretentious. I want to be like that. What Writers Make You Furiously Jealous? When you say about a writer or author “I want to write like that,” that’s a creative influence. When a writer’s work makes you furiously jealous, that’s a creative influence. When you think, “Hey, I could try that!” that’s a creative influence. Make a list of all the people whose work makes you furiousl...

Last week I presented you with a long list of ways you can decide what to write next and then I promised to expand on some of them. One suggestion was to decide to write something you can finish and ship fast. Projects Big and Small Big goals and big projects hold potential for big payoffs. If you finish that book, for example, it may propel you closer to your highest, most important life or career goals. I encourage you to see it through, because your big ol' work in progress is going to require focused effort for the next several months or years, and you’ll feel so amazing when it’s done. But if you’re in the middle of that long-term project, you may realize you’re not going to get any real feedback on it for a long stretch of time. You’re not going to enjoy a sense of completion until it’s done. As you keep plugging away at it, day after day, you must be persistent and patient and take the long-range view to maintain motivation. Do that work. Don’t stop. However…consider giving your spirits and brain a little boost by assigning yourself a shorter project now and then. What can you write that you can finish and ship fast? Could you... finish the short story you started and send it to a literary magazine push out thoughtful commentary via social media write and submit a poem to a journal express one complete idea or story via blog post send a letter to the editor about a concern that disturbs you compose a thoughtful book review to share via Goodreads and Amazon pitch guest post ideas to a website you enjoy write a fan letter or email to an author you admire Assuming you’re able to complete a short project like this without derailing your primary work in progress, the quick turnaround will offer a satisfying sense of completion. You’ll feel happy—even proud—and you can return to your big project with increased enthusiasm. You mustn’t abandon the big commitment, of course, if you’ve got that in the works. It’s just that deciding to pursue something you can finish and ship fairly quickly changes us. Completion satisfies. Achieving Small Goals Motivates Us to Pursue the Big Goals Professors Francesca Gino and Bradley Staats wrote in a Harvard Business Review article: [F]inishing immediate, mundane tasks actually improves your ability to tackle tougher, important things. Your brain releases dopamine when you achieve goals. And since dopamine improves attention, memory, and motivation, even achieving a small goal can result in a positive feedback loop that makes you more motivated to work harder going forward. A little dopamine hit from shipping those projects sounds like a great benefit. What writer doesn’t crave a positive feedback loop? Heaven knows we could all use some motivation to work harder and move forward. Don’t Undermine Your Primary Objective Completion and feedback loops satisfy something deep within as we feel we’ve made progress, so I encourage you to consider shorter projects you can ship faster as a legitimate element of your writing life. But I also offer a warning. If you feel jazzed by a hundred likes and dozens of retweets on social media, you might be tempted to devote excessive time to the mundane and too little to important projects. Be careful not to let the delight of shipping shorter projects undermine the work that matters most. If you have a big goal to complete a big project, make it your priority and be sure to allocate time for it. Of course, if short-form work represents your primary focus as a writer and you don’t even attempt long-form writing, you’re set. Go for it. Dive into your next short project with joy and confidence, knowing this is who you are as a writer. If you’re an essayist, blogger, microblogger, or poet, finishing faster than a novelist is built into your calling. Small Projects Lead to Big Goals In a 2013 blog post, Austin Kleon wrote: Building a body of work (or a life) is all about the slow accumulation of a day’s ...

Every day, a writer wakes up and asks, “What do I write next?” And the answer varies from writer to writer—even your own answer may change from week to week. Sometimes it’ll be obvious what to write next. When you’re approaching a looming deadline and that article or chapter must be completed, the decision is made for you. You sit down and work on that. But other days you have flexibility. You can write anything you want. How do you choose? Can we be sure the next thing we write is the right thing to write, or the best thing? Do we need to be sure? I don’t think there’s an absolute right or wrong answer. You choose. But you usually choose based on something, whether consciously or subconsciously. And if you make the choice based on something that rings true with your values and supports where you’re at in your journey, you can feel good about your decision. Ways to Decide The next few weeks, we’ll go through various ways you can decide, so you’ll feel a little more confident moving forward on whatever you do write next. Write Something That Moves You Toward Your Goals When you’re trying to decide what to write next, you may already have clear goals in mind. You want to submit poetry to literary journals in hopes of being published this year, or you want to put together a book proposal and send it to an agent this fall. Knowing your goals can help you start with the end in mind and work your way back so that you know what to write today and the next day. For you, the question “What do I write next?” will be easily answered by those goals—your next thing to write will be whatever moves you closer to that goal. But you may not be that clear about your goals. You may not know where you want to be in a year or what you want to do even in the next month or so. Or you’re re-evaluating your goals. Or you just want to write. That’s okay. You don’t have to overthink it or get uptight about your decision. But if you want to give it some thought, I’m going to toss out various filters or motivations that might help you begin to think about your next writing project and make a decision. This list will serve as an overview, and then in the weeks ahead, I'll go into more detail on some of them. So…How do I decide what I write next? Write Something That Increases your Skills One way to decide what to write next is to take stock of your skills and experience. Do you need to work on something? You could pick a project based on its ability to help you hone the craft and develop yourself as a writer. Write Something You Can Finish and Ship Fast If you’re working on a long-term project and have been for years, you may realize you’re not going to get any real feedback on it for several more months and you won’t know what readers think for months or even a year after that. An occasional shorter project lets you enjoy quick turnaround and a sense of completion. This could be something as immediate as a social media update or as formal as a poem sent to a literary magazine. Write What’s Next in Sequence If you’re writing a blog article series, write the post that explains the next step or stage. If you’re writing a novel, tackle the next scene. Your short story will need the next beat. A poem grows with the next line leading to the next stanza. An article will expand with another paragraph or section. The sequential approach can be a logical way to decide what to write next. Write Something for Validation You may want to write something in hopes of a magazine acceptance. You’ll get that feeling of being chosen. “Hey, they picked me! They picked my article! Someone other than my spouse and mom says my writing is worth publishing.” After that, you may have readers responding and enjoy another layer of objective outside affirmation and validation. Though we should be careful not to rely on the trends and whims of the market to help us feel good about our writing,

This fall, I traveled to New York City for the first time. I’d been concerned about how to navigate the city; I'd never before been there. I didn’t know what to expect, and wasn't sure how things work. Should we take taxis? The subway? Uber? I was nervous. A little scared, honestly, because everything was so unknown and unfamiliar. But I went. I said “yes” to the trip, did a little reading and research, and finally, I decided to trust that my traveling companion and I were smart enough to figure it out. Once we were there, we found our way using Google Maps in "walking" mode. We turned the wrong way a few times—actually, every time—but we'd revise our path, turn down a different street, and you know what? We arrived at our destinations—even if it meant we took the long way a few times. And we laughed a lot at how our first few steps were almost always in the wrong direction, but we eventually figured it out. We even hopped on the subway to visit some sights with no problem. Once I familiarized myself with the unfamiliar, my concern shifted to confidence. My fear dissipated as we figured it out. Dive In If you've never written a long literary essay—or something bigger, like a novel or a nonfiction book—you might be concerned about all the details involved in the process. It's unfamiliar, so you might feel nervous, intimidated—even a little scared. Writers who dread the learning curve and fear failure might put it off indefinitely and never even try to tackle that essay or book. The best way to familiarize yourself with anything is to do a little research up front, and then...take a deep breath and dive in. Drive to the city and find your way around. Open up Google Docs or Microsoft Word and start making an outline or writing the first chapter. As you begin, you’ll start to see what you understand and don’t understand; what you have and don’t have. You’ll poke around and find answers to your questions. Figure It Out as You Go This is the year to tackle that complicated, unfamiliar new writing project. Start writing your story and eventually you’ll figure out how to set up a filing system that works well for your content. Start writing your essay and you’ll discover something you need to research. Sure, you might get turned around at first, not having much of a plan. You might have to regroup or revise something after the fact. But there’s very little that can’t be reworked and reorganized, often with less effort than you thought. If you've been putting off a project that feels foreign and you're unsure how to tackle it, start writing it. Figure it out as you go. And I suspect—I hope—you'll find the unfamiliar will grow familiar faster than you imagined. Fear Stops Us from Starting I released a course this week, and if you’re curious about it, you can go to annkroeker.com/courses and it should take you to the page for my school. The course is called: The Organized Writer: Tap into the Power of an Editorial Calendar. I’d love for you to take a look at the description because if you’re in a state of overwhelm and fear regarding a big project that you have no idea how to create, I want you to know…I can relate. I know how you feel. It took forever for me to start making this video-driven course. There was too much unfamiliar to navigate—I had to record several kinds of video requiring several kinds of video editing, all of which was new to me. I was using new equipment and new software. I was so intimidated by it, for ages I didn’t even start; for months, I resisted. I put off even playing around with things, dreading the learning curve. Then, one weekend, I decided to trust that I was smart enough to figure it out, and if I ran up against something that confused me, I knew I could get answers along the way. So I took a deep breath and dove in. I bumbled through some of the setup in the main software, but most aspects of it were simple and intuitive; a confusing...