Writing Resources
Grief as Guide: Thoughts for Writing about Loss
One of grief’s strange gifts is courage.
After losing my father to cancer last year, I’ve done my share of writing with grief as my companion. I’ve noticed it’s dampened my fear of writing something “bad” and replaced it with a stronger desire to write something true.
Grief is bigger than fear, so it may be pushed against to overcome it. It’s like a fulcrum, where you can apply a crowbar to the fear and apply some force to lift it.
That being said, writers sometimes think they need grief—or another strong negative emotion—to write well. I’ve heard writers say, I’m afraid if I’m happy, I won’t be able to write. Or I need to have problems to write something interesting.
My response to this is that it’s not the pain or grief that makes writing good—it’s the dissolution of fear.
Constructed Voice, Organic Voice
Voice.
In writing, it’s the emotional texture of the person behind the page. It’s how we get to know our storyteller—through their construction of language, what they choose to focus on, and how those choices make us, the readers, feel. Voice is a craft element, which means it can be constructed. But our voice is also our most basic means of expression: given to us at birth, inherent in our bodies.
I’ve been reading Alexander Chee’s collection of essays, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel. In his essay about writing his first novel, he talks about this paradox of voice (emphasis mine):
“It didn’t feel like I could say that I chose to write this novel. The writing felt both like an autonomic process, as compulsory as breathing or the beat of the heart, and at the same time as if an invisible creature had moved into a corner of my mind and begun building itself … The novel that emerged was about things I could not speak of in life…But when the novel was done, I could read from it. A prosthetic voice.”
Revision is Writing
A client recently started coaching with me after her first book proposal was rejected. She was a little distraught because she’d thought it was a done deal. The agent was a friend of a friend, and he seemed genuinely interested in her concept.
“I thought this was going to be so easy,” she said, “but then—shut down!”
Welcome to writing!
If you’ve ever sat down at your computer and thought, I should be able to write something amazing right now, you’re not alone. Many people approach writing with the belief that it’s a one-and-done process—a single burst of inspiration that results in a near-perfect first draft.
How to Write When You're Too Busy to Write
Writing advice often feels like this: “Set goals. Be accountable. Schedule time. Write everyday.” Cool, great, thanks. If writing on a schedule was easy for you, you wouldn’t be looking for advice on how to work writing into your schedule, would you?
The thing is, writing is hard, but avoiding writing is easy! Even full-time writers—people who literally rely on words to pay their bills—find themselves descaling their espresso machines instead of writing. It’s normal.
A lot of my clients struggle with this. Some don’t. Some charge out of the gate like derby thoroughbreds and never look back. They have a different set of problems. But if showing up to your writing desk is the problem, or you just want to be more consistent, here are some strategies to test out. Try one, try them all—see what sticks.
How to Break Through Writer’s Block
Writer’s block isn’t just one thing—it takes many forms. Sometimes it looks like sitting down to write and feeling like nothing is good enough. Other times, it’s avoiding writing altogether or feeling stuck before you even begin. Whatever it looks like for you, it’s the thing that makes writing feel like a slog.
So where does it come from? And how do we break through it?
Matt Bell talks about writer’s block as the result of comparison, the weight of measuring our work against others or against an idealized version of what we think it ‘should’ be. ‘Should’ is the death of your writing. Avoid it all costs.
At its core, writer’s block comes from holding on too tightly—trying to force the writing to be something specific, to meet a certain perceived standard, or to avoid becoming something we don’t want (or think we don’t want).
The antidote isn’t pushing harder—it’s loosening your grip.
Why AI Can’t Teach You to Write
Hemingway App is a new AI editor designed to help you improve your writing. It claims that it “makes your writing concise and correct,” and gives a rating for readability. Lower scores are better. 9 is the cutoff for “good” writing.
Naturally, I was curious — how would Hemingway rate some of the greatest writers of all time? So I ran excerpts from a few of my favorites through the app to see what it had to say.
Here’s who was put to the test:
David Foster Wallace: Pulitzer Prize nominee, Whiting Award winner, perennial Best Books of the Year listee.
James Baldwin: A literary titan whose legacy defies a single sentence.
