Don’t Abuse the Slush Diggers

In the game of writing, we must either learn to laugh at ourselves, or it’ll be a non-stop sob-fest, right?

Which is why I love the rejectionist for (her?) refreshingly honest barbs about life as a slush pile digger:

“I wish I could say that my role as an intermediary between the humble masses and a publishing contract has taught me grace and compassion; instead, it’s taught me that the world is overrun with racist, lady-hating lunatics, hell-bent on inflicting their own horrific visions upon an unsuspecting populace. And yet, once in a very great while, I find a little island of magic in a sea of despair: that query so lovely, so perfect, so charmingly funny that I can almost picture its author, its sample pages peppered with a handful of flawless phrases that make me catch my breath in wonder and think, Yes, thank God, this one. This one. For that chance, I’ll keep reading. “

You don’t want to abuse the likes of her with your query, do you? I don’t like to toot my own horn, but I’m good at queries. Mine have worked at getting me agents, freelance assignments and a variety of other miscellany. I can help you with yours, too.

Contact me if you need such a service (Hint: select the “contact” button at top), or visit my website: www.jordanrosenfeld.net.

Intrepid Dreamers

Most of the freelance writers I know are talented dreamers, who took to the field through a variety of unusual paths–many giving up jobs that sucked the life out of their souls, many taking huge leaps of faith to launch themselves.

Recently, one of these intrepid dreamers, Brandi-Ann Uyemura, looked me up after reading some of my work. It turns out she lives less than a half hour from me, so we decided to get together for coffee, to talk about the writing life. For freelancers, who no longer have offices, it’s a good thing to get together in person, step out of the isolation of our desks, put on something other than pajamas (you know who you are!), and talk shop.

The visit was such a pleasant reminder that not everyone in the freelance world is in competition with each other, that some of us work better together, in fact.

She has since interviewed me for her blog 2inspired.com.

She’s a talented and inspiring writer who deserves to thrive!

In Praise of Zeal

There are many kinds of writers, but a certain breed of them is gathering energy right now, building up storage for the long month of November, when they will eschew family, jobs and social mores to write 50,000 word novels just because. The fact that “Nanowrimo” is now a word more often recognized than not, is a testament to the power of creative zeal.

It is the zealous who madly whip out novels in a matter of months or days, who carve out new paths toward publication with the mighty power of “whythehellnot!” in their pen. Not only have I been lucky to interview tons of these folks during my time as a contributing editor at Writer’s Digest magazine, but the fact is, I am one of them. And you probably are, too.

The revised product of my first round with Nanowrimo garnered me an agent and changed how I looked at “free time to write.”

The second round produced a book that I wrangled with for over a year before eventually abandoning it for what it was: a mess that would take a lot of breathing room to figure out. But it taught me a lot about novel writing that I’ve taken with me into what I’m working on now.

Both results were worth the trouble.

Now, I’m 225 pages into a novel that has been written most often in 20 minute bursts since the birth of my first and only child 16 months ago.

Both Nanowrimo and motherhood have taught me the same thing:

• You have far more time to write than you think you do.
• Writing done hastily is still better than no writing–all writing can be revised
• The sheer power of creative zeal is often enough to get you knee deep into a very worthy project.

So go for it.

But if you don’t do Nanowrimo this year and are looking for something else to do with your November, I’ve still got a few spots in Fiction’s Magic Ingredient! www.jordanrosenfeld.net/events-classes.html.

A New Home

Maria Schneider over at www.EditorUnleashed.com  has been offering great resources for writers on the state of publishing, social media, and more since she launched her site a year ago.  Has it really been a year? Maria and I met some years ago now when she was Editor of Writer’s Digest magazine and I was the persistent, hounding, perpetual writer who pitched her probably weekly, if not daily, until she finally decided that the only way to keep me off her back was to take me on as a contributing writer. I honestly don’t think I have ever had more fun writing than under her tenure for those glorious years. I interviewed some of my favorite writers, followed writing trends , and felt part of something great.

So when she, well, unleashed herself, and launched her own writing site, I knew it would also shine brightly, and the community of thousands of writers who have followed are a testament to this.

So I’m honored and thrilled that once again I get to be part of Maria’s world, as she’s made a home for my writing workshops in the EU forums. All the group participation will take place there, and you’ll benefit from the wonderful existing forums already there. I hope you’ll join us!

Accountabilibuddy

This week, students in my online course “Finish What You Start” have been encouraged to strike up a relationship I call the “accountabilibuddy.” (Yes, I borrowed that from an animated tv show).  This is someone, preferably another writer, whom you both respect, and  fear a little. By “fear” I mean that you will listen to this person’s admonishments and criticism. You take them seriously. The accountabilibuddy’s job is to hold you to the goals you set for yourself as a writer. I have my students write a letter to this person using the following template:

Dear x

You know that I’m a writer, and frankly, I am a damn fine one! But I need support to help me finish my writing goals so I don’t whittle away my time trying to find naked pictures of Johnny Depp online when I should be writing. I respect you, trust you and know that you can help me be accountable to myself and my writing. My goals for myself are as follows: I will write x hours or words, x number of days per week on Project X until I finish a draft. I would like to send you my log each week. If I completed my goals, please cheer me on and tell me that Mother Theresa has nothing on me, for I am great. If I did not, please remind me that life when I am not writing is as bad as a forced marathon of Steven Segal movies in which I am not allowed to take a bathroom or snack break.

 Your buddy,X

So what are you waiting for? Go get yourself an accountabilibuddy today!

***

Meanwhile, there’s still time to REGISTER for my next 1 week online course, “Learn to Layer Scene Types.”

Self-paced. $49. Begins Oct. 19

Image Building

Even though I am a sucker for a good plot even if the author has not been as careful with the prose, what I am most seduced by in a book are the images that arrest me along the way, and for which I am glad to have been stopped.

Betsy Cox, one of my grad school mentors, was the first one to really drive home for me the evocative use of images, one involving flies sipping on milk foreshadowing death in Cormac McCarthy’s Suttree. Before then, I’d been unconsciously aware of these stylized visuals designed to conjure emotion and to ping on the tinny submarine of the subconscious.

Since then, I look for them in everything I read, often disappointed when they aren’t there, and giddy when they are. Images may at first seem to be mere setting description, but they hit us below the conscious mind and are  incredibly powerful in fiction and non-fiction alike. They speak a symbolic language, and conjure layers that plunge a reader deeper than the sentences at hand.

Here are a few examples:

From Scented Gardens for the Blind, by Janet Frame:

…If only she were sitting now in her desk at school, turning the pages of Shakespeare…observing the stain of creation where word had joined word, blood had been shed, and the letters were lying tangled and asleep, bound by their dark cages upon the cloud-white paper.”

From Veronica by Mary Gaitskill:

On Animal Planet, people are putting computer chips under the skins of beautiful lizards in order to help save them from extinction. The camera zooms in on the writhing creatures. Their eyes bulge; their hinged red mouths fiercely gape. One strikes the air with a stiff webbed claw. Joanne presses the mute button to say grace.

***

If you’re interested in honing your own image building skills, I’m teaching a 1 week online course in the subject.

Image Building. 1 week online class. REGISTER
Nov 30-December 6, 2009. $49.

The visual world of your novel or story is a powerful way to evoke mood and feeling. There may be nothing more effective than using “images”—stylized, poetic visuals that specifically conjure a feeling, a mood, or a theme. Images are different than mere descriptions in that they speak to the reader on the unconscious and emotional level. They bypass the logical mind and resonate in your reader’s mind and heart long after the page is turned.

Learn to create and use images in your fiction.

Duck the Wave: Fighting Overwhelm

If you freelance write, edit, or teach, you know all about overwhelm, which I call “the wave.” If you work and write on the side, or work and parent, or any combination therein, you also know about “the wave.” The wave is a combination of panic and terror that you cannot get it all done in the limited time you have to do it in, and you will shortly be screwed because you are on deadline, need the money, must reply to your students/clients, etc.

Here are some strategies for ducking the wave rather than letting it crash into you:

 

1. Write it ALL Down

You’ll begin to corrall the wave once you have a good look at all that’s expected of you. I don’t know about you but I tend to try to hold my entire year’s assignments/projects in my mind AT ONCE!  Depending on how you organize you may have an assignment/project board that you look at each day (I use an eraseable white board–highly recommended). A study was recently done that proved decluttering your brain of information was good for stress levels. Sometimes I just make a list of everything that feels as though it’s crowding my brain. Then I make a second smaller list of what I know I can do TODAY. The next day I may do it again. It’s incredibly anxiety relieving.

2. Break  Down

If I have a 300+ page edit to do, I can start feeling pretty overwhelmed. So I divide that project by the working hours in the time frame allotted before it’s due. That way when I get up to work that day I don’t have a 300-page behemoth to tackle, I have 25-50 pages. Much more manageable.

3. Use email, social networking, reading of People Magazine online (guilty) as REWARDS for finishing your work.

Other than basic checking of email pertinent to work, save email and other online surfing for after you finish a project. If you’re like me and you have 3-4+ things to check off your list each day, then give yourself a brief reward after each project. Finished article? Find out if Brad and Angie are calling it quits. Edited 25 pages? Pop in for a quick tweet session, and so on. That way you both feel rewarded AND get work done.

4. Step Away From the Desk.

That’s right. Remember to get up, to stretch your legs, drink some water, refresh that cup of coffee and eat breakfast and lunch.  Sometimes the sheer act of moving away from all that’s rushing at you is enough to make you feel calm(er).

5. Tune Out

Timothy Leary may have suggested tuning in, but I’m here to tell you to tune out. If you’re teaching, or interviewing someone for an article or anything in person–TUNE OUT the other projects begging for your attention. Focus all your attention on the ONE thing at hand. This study proved that multi-tasking is a myth; you actually get less done. And people sense when you’re scattered. If you made a list, then breathe easy–you won’t forget what’s next. Actually, this goes for any project you’re working on. Do ONE THING AT A TIME. You’ll get far more done than trying to jiggle back and forth between several projects.

 

6. Breathe.

I’m a big fan of meditation, but not everyone can spend 15-30 minutes meditating in their work day. So try this little short-circuit trick: Close your eyes and take 10 deep breaths when you’re drowning or feel as though you might. It is amazing!

Who Doesn’t Like Free Books?

I like books–it’s no secret. So what’s better than books? FREE ones! I enjoy receiving books as gifts, ARCs in the mail, recycled books–you name it. I love free books.

So I thought, hey, why not give the joy of free books to others, as well? Here’s how you can take advantage of this:

Sign up for any of my online courses and I’ll send you a free copy of my book with Rebecca Lawton, Write Free: Attracting the Creative Life.

Successfully refer a friend to my most popular online course Fiction’s Magic Ingredient in November, and I’ll send you a $10 gift certificate for books from an online book provider (not sure which one yet), for EVERY person you successfully refer who signs up. For anyone that you get to sign up for my 1 week mini-series, I’ll give you a $5 gift certificate. And yes, you can earn as many gift certificates as you sign up people. Your friend just needs to mention you as the referrer.

Tell me that isn’t a deal?

There may even be more free book offers soon…stay tuned!

JPR

The Art of Plausibility

I’ve had the good fortune to professionally edit writers’ manuscripts (as a freelance editor) for the last seven years, and have judged several writing contests, sifting through on the order of hundreds of essays or book-length manuscripts (so please don’t begrudge me such a long first sentence). Though I’d never deign to suggest I see as many ms’s as an agent’s slush pile, I’ve gotten quite an education in the school of “implausibility”—or topics/ideas that every writer should seek to omit or reconsider before pursuing an agent. Yes, fiction is a license to make things up, but there’s a line!

Violence and Gore (not Al). Recently I edited a manuscript that involved obscene, gory sex between unfeeling “clones.” Though the author eventually made an elegant point about humanity, the imagery was so grotesque that it felt as though the author’s only purpose was to gross out his reader. It was so difficult to read that I had to play incredibly cheerful music at the same time just to make it through. Violence, murder, and death all have their place in fiction—but remember you want to entice readers first. Shock ‘em a little bit later. Talking Animals. Disney cornered the market on talking animals about seventy years ago. Unless you’re writing children’s fiction (and even then, be selective), opinionated penguins and babbling beavers “young down” your writing and can appear silly.

Beautiful People. Except in Romance, literature is the place where flawed people get to be flawed. Therefore every character need not be “Five foot ten, with a stunning mane of blonde hair and killer blue eyes” or the male equivalent (You can decide for yourselves what else is wrong with a description like that). Beauty is fine—but let it be real beauty. Scars, off-kilter noses, chipped teeth and moles can add up to a composition that is still attractive. And sometimes, frankly, beauty is boring (no offense to the beauties among you). Let your characters be interesting over beautiful if you can.

Meetings of Convenience. There’s nothing that stretches credibility more in a novel than when you put your characters in places where they conveniently interact with, or “know” each other because you haven’t thought out your plot. For instance: A girlfriend flies to another state to be with her new boyfriend, only to walk in at the precise moment he’s trysting with her best friend—didn’t they figure this might happen? Or your protagonist “bumps into” the very person crucial to taking your plot to the next step somewhere he always goes. Meetings must be organized and timed to be surprising and dramatic. I’m not saying that there is never a place for coincidence or convenience, but look for it in your work and see if it’s merely a shortcut to a tighter plot.

On Cue. Okay, I’ll admit that this one’s just a pet peeve. Please, please, please do not let your characters do anything “as if on cue” or a variation on those words. You are the magician playing sleight of hand with your audience. You never want your reader thinking (or worse: reading the words), “Well she did that as if on cue.” You want the machinery and devices of your novel to be hidden so that all readers see is the elegant action that your complex characters engage in. If your readers see the wizard behind the curtain (you), it’s known as “authorial intrusion” and it breaks the spell you’ve tried to cast.

Agony. The two most common kinds of agony I see rendered utterly implausible in fiction are childbirth and homicide. Do your research, people! While there are five women on the planet who have had a relatively painless birth, I promise you that childbirth involves a lot more than a little breaking water and screaming obscenities at their husbands. Also steer clear of TV renditions of the act. Rent some real videos or attend a birth—it’s a powerful, animal, otherworldly event that often goes on for days. Similarly, when a person is murdered in my clients’ work I see lots of dramatic clutching of the heart, staggering about in pain, and shaking of fists at the heavens as one’s lifeblood runs out onto the floor. I’m fortunate to have never seen a person shot or stabbed—but my brothers-in-law are Sheriff’s deputies—and they vouch that a great deal of deaths are pretty simple. Bang, pow, person falls over dead. Stab, stab, scream, dead. If you want a dramatic death, research what means cause one to writhe and clutch at one’s chest, or slowly asphyxiate to death. Redux: don’t take your deaths from TV or movies!

About Faces. I’ll leave you with another pet peeve of mine: when a character makes a sudden, dramatic, and unjustified change of heart. Your character hates the terrible nun who beat her as a child and then, whammo, has great sex one night and wakes up the next day totally forgiving. Character changes must be earned, slow, and justified. There must be actions that precede these changes, and logical reasons for why your character changes. Changes work best when they happen toward the end of the novel, unless a change in the middle is only one of several changes your character will undergo.

Exorcise Your Themes

You can’t let go.  You have not taken control. Just admit it. There is at least one, but likely several themes you simply have not exorcised from your writing that trip you up. If not a theme, I’ll bet it’s a character, an image or a setting that you can’t shake. Though I’m a fiction writer, I am sure this applies to non-fiction writers and poets too.  

“Every artist is undoubtedly pursuing his truth. If he is a great artist, each work brings him nearer to it, or at least, swings still closer toward this center, this buried sun where everything must one day burn.”

 While I’m in agreement with Albert Camus’ point above, I’m pretty sure that mediocre and just plain good artists are also swinging closer to this center of truth in themselves in their thematic repetitions. In editing clients who’ve been patient enough to work with me repeatedly, I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it in the work of favorite authors–bestsellers (Jodi Picoult) and underground favorites (G.K. Chesterton ) alike. And, of course, it turns up in my own work.

WhenI worked with the intrepid Alice Mattison my final semester at Bennington, I was shocked by my own denial regarding my recurring themes.

My writing was theme-heavy, emphasizing stories of frustrated parents and their angry children who seemed to be waiting for cues on how to behave differently, which I continually failed to provide.

In a letter Alice wrote to me:

 “There’s nothing wrong with writing about one subject, and after I read two or three [of your stories] I thought, “Well, she can give the book the title “Bad Mothers”…Most of these mothers are unrelieved: they aren’t complex, they are just awful. I don’t mind that sort of horrible character in general—I don’t think every single character needs to be complex—but so many bad characters…with no good traits…of the same category makes the work add up to a scream of rage about mothers…”

Believe it or not, my first reaction to this was not to fall apart in tears. I laughed. Hard and long. She was so right! And she was kind enough not to point out all the Absent Fathers who quietly slipped out of scenes, giving the Bad Mothers center stage.

 She went on to write,

 “What you need is for your reader to be able to take each story on its own terms instead of being so struck by the pervasiveness of the bad mothers that they become a theme instead of just being part of the subject matter.”

In order for the writer to get to the place where she can construct stories that stand on their own terms, a lot of close scrutiny at our work is necessary, to discover what repeats. There’s is powerful energy in that which keeps trying to get through, but that energy can either trip us or transform our work. 

These mothers and fathers of mine have been unfairly under-used. It turns out that they have feelings too, and quirks and longings and unfulfilled desires worthy of exploration. Now they’re just road signs pointing, “Go deeper here. Don’t give up there.”

What themes keep coming back to you? How do they help your work? How do they trip you up?  If you’re an artist of another kind besides writer, I pose the same question to you!

Give yourself an assignment to attempt to change some of your themes!

Professional Rivalry

I recently came across a series of emails that chronicle the end of a friendship I had with a fellow freelance writer a couple years ago. It’s something that still smarts even now, an event I still can’t quite get my head around. I am shocked to find that the hurt feelings persist.

The friendship began when she, a lovely woman whose name I would see in some of the same local publications I wrote for, contacted me saying she’d been reading my blog.  We got to chatting and decided to meet for coffee.  She’d been freelancing longer than I had and knew all about how lonely it can get at home and sounded supportive of my jump to the same position. 

Over the course of a year or so we got together more and more frequently, sharing exploits. I often marveled at her success and ability to reach a huge variety of publications, and she expressed admiration for things that I did, like writing a book. I thought we had a pretty good mutual admiration society going.

At one point she suggested we “share sources” so that we didn’t trample each other’s writerly toes, since we swam in a pretty small freelance pool. I was surprised and pleased by her openness. I even took a risk and asked for a contact…and found her to be less open than I thought. It was clear she wasn’t really happy with me asking. Mixed messages!

And that’s when it began to go sour, though I didn’t know it for quite some time. I learned later, that, according to her, she’d only offered to share sources because she was already feeling threatened.

When it all fell apart–ostensibly over her perception that I stole an idea from her, when that idea had actually been in the works already but I had never spoken to her about it–it came with accusations that I was taking work that was rightfully hers (though she felt that I did this unconsciously, which was even more confusing). From her perspective, I can see how it looked bad, but she never gave me the benefit of the doubt. The timing looked too coincidental. And I will admit that I should have changed one detail (which was not even set by me) because it was, in fact, too similar.

But that was it for her. I was judged, accused and sentenced without a trial. I tried falling on my sword, to say that I understood if it looked egregious, but I had honestly not borrowed from her, but all that got me was cut. I decided that she had made up her mind at some ponit to be rid of me, and nothing I would have done could have helped. Stupid as it is, I still hurt over it. I was locked on the thought: hey, you reached out to me. You befriended me! What’s that: keeping your enemies close?

In the end, I decided it was too risky to get too close people who ran in the same circles like that. I would admire them from afar. I’ll never know if that was a wise decision or not.

I’d like to know your stories of the personal and the professional getting you into trouble.

Fiction Writers Need Platform Too

Day Five of my interview with Christina Katz, author of Get Known Before the Book Deal and Writer Mama.

 

 

Q: Is it as necessary for a fiction writer to build platform as a non-fiction writer?

 CK: Why in the world wouldn’t a fiction writer want to build a nonfiction platform alongside her fiction platform? Fact of the matter is: published fiction writers produce a ton of nonfiction. Why not own it? Why not own it starting now? Any traditionally published author (or self-published author, for that matter) is going to be producing a ton of nonfiction material to support her platform. I have a whole chapter in Get Known about how fiction writers can spin off nonfiction topics from their book.

 

Don’t get hung up on being one kind of writer and not another. Fiction is one form. Nonfiction is another. If you write strong fiction, there is a pretty good chance you can write strong nonfiction too. Everyone is a writer today. A huge number of people write fiction. A huge number of people write nonfiction. Be one of the writers who write both and save yourself a lot of headaches. Once you become traditionally published, a huge gush of nonfiction writing comes pouring in at you. I’d suggest embracing the opportunity to write nonfiction and even using it to make some money.

 

 

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s question:

 

There has been all kinds of press lately about how the publishing industry is changing, how it’s becoming smaller and more competitive than ever. How do you think platform plays into this new world of publishing? Do writers need to be more online savvy then every before?

 

Time to Play

Don’t you get a little tired of the drudgery part of seeking publication? All that sifting, sorting, posting, mailing and then the waiting…

Want to have a little fun in the process of seeking publication? Then join me and Rebecca Lawton, authors of the book Write Free: Attracting the Creative Life for our monthly self-paced “Playshops.”

Playshop One’s theme is “Playing toward Publication.”

The playshops take place each month. Next one begins April 6, 2009.

For 20 days of the month you receive inspiring quotes and words, write free prompts, craft exercises and a weekly message to juice your creative energy up and engage in new publishing strategies. 

Sign up at: www.writefree.us/bookstore.html .

Editors Are People Too

I’ve found that it’s all too easy to pin our writerly anxiety about publication on the editors we pitch and submit to, whether as freelance writers or as an author waiting to hear back from a book or proposal out on submission.  Most likely your family, spouse or friends are a tad sick of hearing about how nervous you are…so those feelings end up aimed at the wrong people. You might accidentally think of them as purposely withholding an answer about your precious pitch, or spitefully telling you that it isn’t what they’re looking for. You might even think that they went out of their way to tell you what was wrong with something you pitched. These are understandable, but I think, unnecessary feelings.

You know that little trick that’s supposed to help actors overcome stage fright–picturing the audience in their underwear? Well I like to think of editors as the real people they are. The kind of people who groan when their alarm clock goes off and hit the snooze button for a few more minutes before they have to face the inevitably chock full email in-box or slush pile, the one that waits for them day after day like some looming tower of pressure. I like to imagine editors runing a pair of pantyhose by snagging them on the underside of a desk; exploding their  lasagne all over the inside of the microwave; exchanging gossip or celebrity trash over their stacks of manuscripts; enjoying a delicious afternoon latte on a quiet bench somewhere where no assistant or editorial director or yet another damn writer can bother them with questions about when, why, or…why not.

I like to imagine my editors sliding into a comfy pair of jammies at the end of the day, heaving a groan of satisfied relief that the day is over, that they can turn it all off for a little while, and just be a person again who doesn’t owe anybody an answer.

Because that’s a person I can understand. A person I know is just doing their job, one they probably love, but which also kicks their ass with the workload.

So go easy on the editors. They’re only people too.

Wanting to be Jackie Kennedy

My talented friend Elizabeth Kern has made it to the Amazon Breakthrough Novel quarter-finals for her novel Wanting to be Jackie Kennedy. I have had the good fortune to read this lovely novel and I can plainly say that it is a winner. If you’d like to help out a talented author and read a wonderful excerpt, you can review her book favorably!

Download the excerpt here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001UG39M4

Social Network Overwhelm

I feel so old, so out of date for what I’m about to say: between facebook and twitter and just keeping up with my two blogs, I am overwhelmed. And I don’t even get any of these applications on my cell phone! I like all of these forms of expression. The blog was a perfect outlet for a confessional sort like myself, and I understand its importance in a more professional manner, too. Facebook is a fabulous way to keep a quick tab on friends and whittle away time chasing down ghosts of the past. Twitter is like communication in haiku, but it’s also a little bit like what I imagine the stock exchange is like–conversations whizzing over and around one’s head so fast in so many directions it seems impossible that one is actually being noticed.

Yet so many people are out there, doing it all. Blogging regularly, tweeting all over the place, and seamlessly, too. How about you? Can you keep up? Which is your favorite form? If you do it all, how?

Playing toward Publication

Month-Long Write Free Playshop: Playing toward Publication
Join us for the first Write Free Month-Long Playshop in which you exercise your creative chops and aim for your publishing dreams. We are now accepting sign- ups at our website for this new month-long, self-paced Write Free Playshop, which begins in March, 2009. Join us every weekday for four weeks (20 days), for the following activities, which will be sent to you in a daily e-mail (except for the Weekly Message, which will come once a week):

• Write Free Writing Prompt to jumpstart your own personal freewrite for the day
• Quote on Attraction to inspire and align you with your best creative life
• Word of the Day to spark your imagination
• Exercises to work new writing muscles
• Weekly Message from Jordan and Becca on writing craft, practice, and community.

All this for $19.95-less than $1/day for the whole month! 

To SIGN UP, visit: www.writefree.us/bookstore.html

The Best Writing Book You Never Found

So here’s a quick question for you: Is there a writing book you wish you had? One that you haven’t found that answers questions or explains craft elements? This would be the perfect book of answers to your writing conundrums.

What “is” that book? What would it reveal to you, and how? Answer here in the comments.