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  • Separating Worth From Productivity Without Losing Drive

    Happy Monday, Reader, Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve been circling around this idea of identity, how easily it fuses to output, and how fragile things become when it does. If you’ve felt unsettled reading these emails, that makes sense. This is one of those topics that doesn’t resolve cleanly. It shifts as you…

  • Why Stalled Projects Feel Like Personal Failure

    Happy Monday, [FIRST NAME GOES HERE], Last week, we talked about the danger of tying your identity to your output, and about how fragile that makes us. This week, I want to look at the exact moment where that fragility shatters. It usually shows up around Chapter 3. Sometimes it hits in the middle of…

  • How Tying Identity to Output Creates Fragility

    Welcome to February. For the next four weeks, we’re diving deep into something that quietly sabotages more writers than any craft issue ever could: the way we tie our identity to our output. This isn’t about productivity hacks or writing faster. This is about the foundation underneath everything else—the relationship between who you are and……

  • The Question January Should’ve Asked

    The Question January Should’ve Asked

    January asks: “What do you want to achieve this year?” But what January should have asked instead: “Who do you want to be when you’re writing?” The answer might surprise you. Find out more inside this post. Continue Reading The Question January Should’ve Asked

  • When Proving Yourself Becomes The Goal

    When Proving Yourself Becomes The Goal

    This week’s post breaks down how to tell if you’re writing to create or writing to prove, what that distinction costs you, and how to shift from performance to genuine creative work. Because the writers who finish books? They’re not the ones trying to prove they’re good enough. They’re the ones who gave themselves permission…

  • January Is A Liar

    January Is A Liar

    We’ve been sold a lie that January 1st is some magical reset button. That the flip of a calendar page will transform us into people who write every day, who have their life together, who never hit snooze. But when does anything important actually start in January? Continue Reading January Is A Liar

  • Cookie Cutter Characters: When Your Series Becomes a Factory Line

    I was somewhere around book twelve when I realized I couldn’t remember which hero I was reading about. Not because I have a bad memory. I’ve read over 4,000 books and can recall characters from years ago. No, I couldn’t remember this hero because he was functionally identical to the one from three books ago.…

  • Subplots Without Purpose Are Literary Dead Weight

    Two thirds of the way through a dark romance novella that had me hooked, a new villain walked onstage. A ruthless madam. A silent enforcer. My reader brain lit up with dread and excitement. And then… nothing. They vanished without consequence. In this essay, I unpack why that single vanished subplot broke the narrative spell,…

  • What If You Messured This Instead?

    As the last 31 days of the year begin, many writers start tallying word counts and feeling like they should have done more. But what if your real writing progress this year isn’t something you can measure on a spreadsheet? This post explores the deeper ways writers grow, the quiet wins that never show up…

  • Reediting published books: why going back matters more than people think

    Recently I picked up an old series from an author I love, and it reminded me why reediting published books matters more than most writers realize. The early installments felt like they were written by a completely different person, and the break in continuity pulled me out of the story. Readers feel those gaps. This…