Mary Carroll Moore's Blog, page 12

First Sunday Q &A: Voice! Repeating Themes in Your Writing--How They Foster Your Unique Voice

Welcome, all you new paid subscribers! Almost 90 of you now—wowza. I’m thrilled you’ve joined us and thanks for your special support. In this “First Sunday” newsletter, we discuss your most gnarly writing and publishing questions, so feel free to send them to me. And if you missed December’s topic, on how to navigate the review process—getting the right reviews to help you sell your book, how reviews got my book on the Amazon bestseller list, as a paid subscriber you can access it in the archives.

If you’re not yet subscribed to First Sunday, a yearly subscription is only $45 or $5 a month. My wish is to create a safe space to ask questions and discuss the writing and publishing dilemmas we all face.

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Q: I’ve been reading for years about voice, both the voice of characters and the voice of the writer. I’d love any tips or suggestions about how I might develop my writer’s voice. I feel I have good skills for writing individual character voices but no clue as to how I might develop my personal narrative voice. I’ve written quite a lot, published some, but the whole issue of voice confuses me. Thank you.

A: Voice in writing is the signature tone that engages a reader. Yet how to nurture and develop your writing voice is one of the big mysteries writers face. Some imagine it’s a magical thing that just appears one day, after we’ve put in enough hours. It is magical, but like many things that have a magical quality, it can also be approached deliberately, and grown carefully, if you become aware of how it works.

I love reading certain writers for their voice. I’ve dissected books and essays and short stories to find out why the voice of these writers is so distinguishable.

To me, voice rides hand-in-hand with the prominent themes that emerge in our writing. So this post will discuss the elements in a writer’s voice and how to develop them.

The first, and most obvious, element of voice is the writer’s unique style of writing. The second is the repeating themes that show up in our work, over and over. The stuff we’re passionate about, that won’t leave us alone.

Let’s talk about writing style first.

Writing style

Do you know your writing style? Each of us has a certain way of using words. We favor terse or lyrical. We use words in minimalist or abundant ways. We are attracted to action or description.

Read more

Writing a Pitch for the Next Novel (Pregnant Again?!)

Know a writer in your world who would benefit from a boost to their writing practice each week? Start their new year right with a subscription to this newsletter! Only $45 a year or $5 a month, and they get 52 weeks of inspiration.

Give a gift subscription

My newly released novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue, became a Hot New Release and Amazon bestseller in August from pre-orders alone. It’s now available at all online bookstores like bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, and amazon. (The audiobook is especially amazing thanks to narrator Alex Furness.)

First Sunday newsletter (for paid subscribers) addresses your most gnarly writing and publishing questions. December’s topic was how to navigate the review process—getting the right reviews to you sell your book, how reviews got my book on the Amazon bestseller list. Get First Sunday once a month and build your publishing toolbox! A yearly subscription is only $45. Plus, as a paid subscriber, you get access to the 700+ archives, a safe space to ask questions, and my writerly gratitude for helping me continue to write this newsletter.

Subscribe now

Photo by Alicia Petresc on Unsplash

Pitch writing—so hard. I place it on the same ugh level as the book synopsis, and both are required for so many parts of the publishing journey. How do you condense years of effort into one or two succinct sentences? Or even a few pages?

Pitches are those punchy descriptions that start a query (if you’re after an agent), get submitted with your book to editors, and eventually get used in your book promotion.

This week, I’m back to writing them. Because I’m pregnant again—with the next book.

I’m not literally pregnant—let’s get that out of the way, right off. My son is happily 29 and on his own. My spouse and I are empty nesters (although raising two puppies sets us back into parenthood frequently). And I don’t want to dishonor parenthood by equating it with a book birth, because raising a human kid is hard work. Nothing like it.

But books are babies too. They are grown and nurtured and worried over for years. My last one (A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue) took ten. I almost gave up on it so many times. Now it’s out in the world, entering its own life apart from me, in the hands of readers and happy to have that freedom. Books stay around for years, at least mine have. So I wish it a long and happy adulthood.

Now my attention is on the next baby, still in incubation.

Last Bets is my next novel. This will be my third in fiction, my fifteenth in every kind of book. I’m going to turn 70 the month it’s released (April 2024). When I look back at my career as a writer, starting with food journalism and ending up with three novels, I’m happy to have birthed so many books I’m still proud of and are still on the bookseller sites.

I didn’t originally plan to have two novels released so close together. I’m not inclined to that, personally—I like taking my time. But Last Bets was my distraction book while A Woman’s Guide was with my agent. I didn’t expect to get into it so deeply or to finish it so fast. But I loved the story and I loved writing it, so it provided very effective distraction and a new book. My agent says it my best yet, which makes me very happy. We should get better as writers, right?

Being pregnant again is fun in a creative sense. If seeing a book from final revision to publication takes about nine months (some writers average less, some more), then I’m in my second trimester this month. Enough growth inside to feel the weight of the impending birth, enough weight to make me achy with worry some mornings and slightly nauseous at the thought of doing all that promotion again so soon. How will I not neglect A Woman’s Guide, which readers and reviewers are still loving and posting about? How will I give this new baby enough of my love?

That’s limited thinking, I tell myself. But it’s a reality. I’ve been immersed in A Woman’s Guide all year. I’m afraid Last Bets is going to feel smaller in comparison to its older sibling, because the novel just published has made so many reader friends. I’m afraid Last Bets won’t be received as well.

A few weeks ago, when Last Bets was uploaded to the publisher for first printing of review books (ARCs), my editor sent me a lovely email with congratulations and these lines: “I was also struck all over again by how good this novel is, Mary. I'm looking forward to when it's officially out in the world!” How heartwarming. She likes the story a lot too. So will others.

But what crazy timing! Most of my writing friends are asking why not wait? Why are you doing this so fast?

I wanted to wait, but this new novel is pushing its way into the world, carried on the momentum of the first. I asked for counsel from my marketing guru, Dan Blank, and he gave me an insightful response. How hard it is to generate momentum, actually. How good to keep going when you have it.

My biggest challenge, then, is that pitch, that description. I’ve got one I used to sell it to my agent, to submit to editors, but now I know more about the meaning of the story, having lived with it all these months. Like A Woman’s Guide, I want to create a pitch that really describes how the book is for me, now.

Writing a pitch for a new book

Momentum is great, but if the two books are not at all alike in subject matter, plot, people, or setting, you can’t really use the current momentum to create a new pitch.

But you can dive into the meaning, to the particular fascinations that are present in both.

First, let’s talk about writing pitches. You’ll need one, if you haven’t done this already. You’ll also need time to craft it, because it’s so hard.

What does a pitch do?

It answers the question, What’s your book about?

It becomes a primary marketing tool for online booksellers, social media, your website.

It is something you can use in conversation (at the dentist the other day, the assistant asked that question (What’s your book about?) for A Woman’s Guide and I used my pitch. She got very interested and is ordering the book. And I was glad I’d spent so much time crafting that sentence).

If you’re trying to get an agent, the pitch becomes an important part of your query letter. Then the agent uses the pitch to sell to editors. And the editors use it to sell to booksellers . . . and on and on.

A wonderful article by Joel Schwartzberg on Medium explains the challenges we writers have with the pitch. We tend to describe our book when asked What’s it about? We describe what happens. We don’t share the meaning of what happens. As Schwartzberg says, “Describing conveys ‘what.’ Selling conveys ‘why.’ Describing promotes inventory. Selling promotes a point. Describing is the table of contents. Selling is the blurb on the inside cover.” One of my favorite examples in this article is when he says that Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time isn’t a YA science fiction story about a family and three witches. “It’s about a girl who must fight through time and space to save her family.”

So not only do you have to know what happens, you need to know why. What’s the message, the meaning, that readers will gain from the story?

It reminds me of a course I once took in business marketing. The teacher encouraged us to avoid listing features of a product. Instead we were to focus on its benefits. Not too far off from writing a pitch.

Practicing the pitch

Feedback is one of the best ways to practice your pitch. I also recommend reading how books are listed online—what short blurb accompanies the title? What logline appears on the front or back cover?

A good formula to start with is:

Who is involved

What happens

Where does it happen

Why does it happen

I’d add a final one, which may not come into your pitch but is always asked of authors in interviews. Why did you write this book? What fascination does it hold for you?

Here’s the long description of Last Bets, my new novel (thanks to my writing buddies for a LOT of help with this!).

Portrait artist Elly Sorensen leaves her Washington, D.C., life for the Caribbean island of Bonaire, hoping to find refuge from personal tragedy and financial fallout. Instead, she is confronted by old demons, including a gambling underworld that taps paranormal talents she would prefer to leave dormant. On the island she finds an unlikely kindred spirit in teenager Rosie Ryan, an Australian with a gambling father and artistic talents of her own-and a penchant for breaking and entering, particularly into the rooms of other guests. Against a backdrop of a gathering storm, Rosie is blamed for a freak diving accident, and the stakes at the gambling table mount. Nobody is safe, least of all Elly, whose whole life, it seems, hangs on one final game. Underestimated by the men around them, Rosie and Elly must conquer forces they never imagined and fight for a future that promises real freedom.

And here’s the pitch I’ve worked out so far.

Escaping tragedy, portraitist Elly Sorensen flees to Caribbean Bonaire, only to be drawn into an unlikely friendship with an Aussie ex-juvie teen and the danger of the island's gambling underworld that taps her dormant paranormal talents.

Still clunky. But it took so much work to get even to this point. I benefitted from a word limit, so I’ll give you one to play with in this week’s exercise.

A final word (or two) on creative pregnancy

An author buddy and I were on the phone a few weeks ago, talking about births. She has two books published and three kids raised. I was moaning about my lack of energy and my concern that I won’t be able to muster enough to do this next book justice.

She told me she felt that way with her first child. About six months in, she began to worry whether she’d be able to stay awake long enough to care for her new infant. She wasn’t getting much sleep, she ached in new places, she still felt queasy a lot of the time. Pregnancy wasn’t the beatific process her friends had experienced. But, she said, you’re not supposed to have all the resources you need at that point in the pregnancy. By the time you give birth, you’ll be ready. You can’t be ready before it’s time.

Her words really struck me. I didn’t feel ready, I don’t feel ready. Not at all. I’m still enjoying the responses to my current novel.

But, she added, you have to love the baby you’re going to birth. And you have to find enough nourishment for yourself to keep that love genuinely alive.

I went home and did a little meditation on my new novel, the one that will be born in April. I imagined it in my hands, I visualized riffling the pages and stroking the cover. Admiring it. I’d been tired all day, weighted with all I needed to do for this newcomer. After the little meditation, I felt a surge of energy. I made a curry for dinner. I sent winners of my holiday giveaway their signed books. I found a favorite book to read while the dogs slept next to me on the couch.

Your Weekly Writing Exercise

Answering the questions above, see if you can hone a long description of your book, as best you know it now. Spend time on bookseller sites to research titles of books similar to yours, checking out how they are described.

Then, if you can, reduce your description to one sentence, max 40 words.

New year, new start. If a writer in your life would benefit from a boost to their writing practice each week, get them a subscription to this newsletter! Only $45 a year or $5 a month, and they get 52 weeks of inspiration.

Give a gift subscription

If they love fast-paced adventure stories with women heroes, send them a copy of my newly released novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue. If you let me know, I will mail you a signed bookplate to include in the gift!

Shout Out!

A hearty shout out to these writing friends and former students who are publishing their books! I encourage you to pre-order a copy to show your support of fellow writers and our writing community.

(If you are a former student and will publish soon (pre-orders of your book are available now), or have in the past two months, email mary[at]marycarrollmoore[dot]com to be included in a future Shout Out! I’ll keep your listing here for two months.)

Maren Cooper, Behind the Lies (She Writes Press, November release)

Tammy Dietz, Falling from Disgrace (Cynren Press, November release)

I’m a lifelong artist, and I love to inspire and support other creative folk, which is why I write this weekly newsletter. My goal with these posts is to help you strengthen your writing practice and creative life so it becomes more satisfying to you.

I’m also the author of 14 books in 3 genres. My third novel, Last Bets (Riverbed Press), will be published in April 2024. My second novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue (Riverbed Press), was published in October 2023 and became an Amazon bestseller and Hot New Release from pre-orders alone. For twelve years, I worked as a full-time food journalist, most notably through my weekly column for the Los Angeles Times syndicate. My writing-craft book, Your Book Starts Here, won the New Hampshire Literary Awards “People’s Choice” in 2011 and my first novel, Qualities of Light, was nominated for PEN/Faulkner and Lambda Literary awards in 2009. I’ve written Your Weekly Writing Exercise every Friday since 2008.

Celebrating Yourself and Your Creativity

Happy new year! Thanks for being part of my writing community. Here are some extra ideas for you to make your new writing year the best yet.

Photo by Joyce G on Unsplash

Here in New England, we’re in full holiday/winter celebration mode. Maybe it’s the fight back against the early dark this time of year or maybe it’s the warmth of holiday gatherings. Today I’m with a small group of good friends, making new year’s collages. It’s a great way to review the past year and welcome the new.

I put a box of precut images (from old magazines and Internet printouts) on the big table, with scissors, glue and glue sticks, and poster board or blank cards. Some friends bring their journals.

They aren’t all writers. We are five musicians, a painter, a tech guy and a self-confessed nerd, a writer or two. Everyone is creative and open to the more woo aspects of spirituality, which collage-making can fall into. We don’t talk too much about what we’re doing; we just sit and create.

The musicians take breaks to play for us, live background music. We have food waiting—I love to cook for these gatherings and everyone brings something to contribute. Today we’ll have roast chicken stuffed with lemons and garlic, a curried rice pilaf, a huge green salad with homemade dressing, good breads (gluten free and regular), asparagus, and two or three kinds of homemade desserts. Sometimes I joke with this group that we only invite those who can cook well and love to eat. We’re lucky that’s so.

The collage-making is annual inner work for me. I like to ask myself certain questions then let my eye rove over the images and create whatever comes. It’s very non-linear but the questions or seed ideas give an intention.

Some of the seed ideas and questions I’m using today (see my post from Friday for more questions to spark your collage):

A few things I most grateful for in my life right now.

What do I want to allow into my life in this new year?

Something I am ready to let go of.

I find it helpful to start with what works—the first seed idea—then move on to what I long for, dream about creating, want to work hard to bring forth and what might need to leave in order to make room for these new delights.

As I wrote about in Friday’s newsletter, that list is long for me this holiday: a new novel publishing in April (Last Bets), continued enthusiasm for the novel just published in October (A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue), good health, delightful travel in our camper, enjoyment of my family and community, and service.

What I’d like to let go of: the intensity and busyness of this past year as I launched a book—is this possible? Maybe I’ve learned enough, practiced enough, to do it easier this time? I want more sleep, more regular exercise (my beloved country walks near our home). I want more time: to read, paint, garden, and write to you in these newsletters.

As we sit around the table, we each may talk about what we’re collaging. We may share thoughts about the year ahead, and I may share these ideas that are coming forth. Or we may work silently, enjoying the music in the next room, the candles flickering in the windows as it gets dark (so early now!).

When it’s time, we’ll eat, light the pillar candles on the mantel, sing songs together, read poems or short essays about the season, just hang out.

I’m grateful to have a home that feels like a warm womb, that easily incubates this kind of future dreaming. Our house was built about 200 years ago, not unusual for this part of New England, and like most old farmhouses it comes with blessings of beauty and grace of form, and leaky walls and dust from a dirt basement. But during the holidays it shines in its perfect way.

I’ve decorated the empty window boxes and planters with balsam branches and fire berries by the front door. Our windows glow with candles (electric).

I hope your new year’s is full of goodness for your writing life, however that might manifest best for you. Try the collage this weekend if it calls to you.

Happy new year from me and Your Weekly Writing Exercise!

Looking Back, Looking Ahead: Setting Goals You'll Actually Want to Keep

Want a fun new year’s read about women heroes, estranged sisters reuniting unexpectedly, and danger in the winter mountains? Check out my new novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue. It became a Hot New Release and Amazon bestseller in August from pre-orders alone, and it’s available at all online bookstores like bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, and amazon.

Want an extra writing boost and a chance to ask the hardest writing questions? Sign up for my new First Sunday newsletter. January’s topic is on voice: how voice is created by two aspects, style and the themes that run through all our work. Learn how to cultivate and honor them, and why that’s such a cool step to take for yourself as a writer. First Sunday arrives in your inbox once a month; a yearly subscription is $45 for 12 issues. As a bonus, you also get access to the 700+ archives of this newsletter, a safe space to ask questions, and my writerly gratitude for helping me continue to write.

Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash

Over New Year’s weekend, I’m doing two important activities: celebrating on New Year’s day with friends, good food, singing, and collage-making; and a review and preview of my own years past and future, to help me decide what I want to create next.

The collage-making is an annual ritual, and I’ll be sharing the steps I use in a special post on New Year’s day. I find it helpful to create physical arrangements of images that spark my interest, help me see where I’ve been and where I want to go, and bring in the less conscious aspects of my creative life. My family all participate—we clean off our big dining room table and spread out magazines (art mags and National Geographic are super for great photos), glue sticks, paper, and scissors. It’s a fun, interior process, but there’s a lot of discovery involved. I like to keep mine loose, often tearing the images instead of neatly cutting them.

Sometimes the collage becomes the focal point for a book, as in this quick one I did when I started flying lessons to research my recent novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue.

Sometimes it becomes the cover for a journal that lasts several months, so I get to study its meaning over time.

I’m still learning about this one! But I love the movement of it, and it seemed to reflect that period of my life in 2023 when things were crazy fast but definitely headed in an interesting direction.

Here’s one in progress that I’ll continue over the weekend.

Collages work so well to get my ideas started for the new year.

Another activity that helps me set goals I can keep, that have deep meaning for me, is a review of the year and a preview of the year to come, focusing on my creative life—which for me includes writing, painting, and gardening.

I thought I’d share some of that with you today, too, in the hopes that it might inspire you to do something similar over the long weekend, before the new year hits us all.

Year in review

I do this review a bit differently. I ask myself three questions:

What surprised me about this year? What unexpected doorways opened?

What did I create that satisfied me the most?

What did I learn and how did I serve with that learning?

Surprises and doorways—some delights and some downers:

Readers loved my book (new novel released in October, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue). Reviews were great and are still coming. I did not expect such a positive reception (blame it on slow burners with past books). And male readers loved it, which knocked me over (it’s women’s fiction, guys, but I guess the pilot and Search & Rescue aspects appealed?). The book was chosen for book clubs and Kirkus gave it a half page in their monthly magazine. A lot of successes here that I hoped for but didn’t expect.

After years of working at it, my spouse, also a creator (singer/songwriter), and I refined our ways of getting private (“alone”) time in the house. This is huge for us.

Covid slammed me after my book launch, second time around and less intense, but it created a feeling of burn out that I’m still recovering from. I tell myself it wasn’t because of the book tour, right?

After a concentrated burst of painting early in the year, I didn’t do much with my art. I missed it! The book took over, which was right. I learned I couldn’t do both.

My garden, a main creative outlet in summer, turned low maintenance out of necessity (book again). Oddly, it flourished. Go figure.

Most satisfying creative ventures:

The concentrated month of daily painting. I made studies of reflected light on water. Took good risks, have 25 studies on my studio walls, waiting for next steps.

I wanted an audiobook made for my first novel (2009), Qualities of Light. It was completed in October. I fell in love with the story all over again.

A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue was a huge learning experience and beyond successful in my view.

I learned as much as I could about marketing that’s sustainable and honors who I am, thanks to Dan Blank and mentors I worked with.

Your Weekly Writing Exercise moved to Substack and started paid subscriptions for its new First Sunday Q&A. Subscriptions grew to around 3000, up by 450, 87 of those paid.

My next novel, Last Bets, is through production and set up for marketing in 2024, with a wonderful street team, giveaways, blogger tour, and other fun things planned. It’ll go into pre-orders on January 8.

What did I learn and how did I serve:

My biggest learning was about how to share my love of my new book with readers.

From reader response, I can say the story served to entertain, enlighten, and educate.

I gave my time and energy to these Substack newsletters each week, sharing what I learned with all of you.

I learned it was terrifically hard to continue when I was under the weather with Covid recovery for weeks into months. Much better now, but whew.

The toggle between the two books really intensified in fall. Not easy. I learned how to love the born child while pregnant with the next one.

Photo by Warren on UnsplashYear ahead

I love two goal-setting or envisioning tools and have used them for years:

presume (writing a future resume as if you’re at year’s end looking back)

collage

I find these helpful because I’ve always had trouble accurately imagining twelve months into the future. I do better when I let my more random side explore what speaks to me now and what draws me to learn and play.

I know this doesn’t sound like a super-disciplined approach. But I feel it’s a first step—I have to scope out the atmosphere around my goals before I can make them into task lists or timelines. Both the presume and collage taps the more subconscious levels of our creative selves, letting the imagination roam. I like this because it feels like anything is possible. I focus on the what and why, rather than the how.

When I write a presume, it might look like this:

December 31, 2024:

Looking back on a surprisingly successful year in all ways with my creative life, I see how amazingly THIS, THIS, and THIS happened. I was able to embrace enough relaxation and quality retreat time to keep myself creatively energized. I allowed myself to explore new territory, such as THIS and THIS. New doorways opened unexpectedly, THIS, especially, and THIS, which brought me great joy.

Fill in the THIS with specifics (see below). Envision yourself at this future date, looking back—a year from now, or even a few months ahead works well. Write down the qualities of experience you’d like to have had by then. It’s really a simple visualization exercise, nothing extraordinary, but it works wonders for me.

The collage brings in the visuals—I may not know, at the time, why I’m choosing a certain shape, color, or image. Like a mood board, it speaks to my loves, the things I want to spend time with.

Then, there are the specifics. I’ll share a few thoughts I’ve been jotting down about what those might be. They came from the two exercises above, though. I feel it’s often important, at least for me, to get the big picture first.

Areas I want to create/experience in 2024:

Joyful, satisfying launch for novel #3, Last Bets. Give it as much love as I can, recognize its uniqueness and how can I share that uniqueness with the world.

Painting retreat! Allow that daily practice with only exploration.

Learn more on Substack and make this newsletter even more useful and valuable to readers.

I’ll have a much longer list in a month or two. Ideas will come forward as I taste the ones above, as we move into real time with the new year, as I scan for what I want to allow in and what I want to let go of. I’ll do more contemplating on the collage and presume images to generate ideas.

Can’t wait to see what will unfold!

Your Weekly Writing Exercise

This weekend, if you can break away from New Year’s fun, spend a good hour with your journal or a collage activity. Look back at 2023 and see if you can list your satisfactions in your creative life, using the three questions above.

Then look ahead to 2024 and see if either the collage or presume exercise triggers images of what might make you the happiest in your creative life in the months to come.

Here are additional questions to help, if needed.

For your year in review:

What three things gave me the most satisfaction in 2023?

When I feel good about the past year, what key memories come forward most easily?

What are the most important truths I learned about myself, my creativity, my life?

What unexpected gifts did I give myself, my creativity, my life that has meaning now?

Any mistakes that turned out to be good, after all?

Who did I learn from the most?

How did I serve?

For your year ahead:

Where could I best put my 2023 learning into 2024 practice?

What projects are hot for me right now? What do I really long to spend time with?

What is NOT important—even if it should be—to me right now?

Who are the people I could learn the most from? Or mentor/teach?

What do I need to make more functional or sustainable in the new year? For example, are there deadweight items in my life that need to be cleared away? Do I have software to learn or install, new writing or art equipment to get to make my creative life easier?

How much rest and rejuvenation time do I need in the new year? How will I get it?

If a writer in your life would benefit from a boost to their writing practice each week, get them a subscription to this newsletter! Only $45 a year or $5 a month, and they get 52 weeks of inspiration.

Give a gift subscription

If they love fast-paced adventure stories with women heroes, send them a copy of my newly released novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue. If you let me know, I will mail you a signed bookplate to include in the gift!

Shout Out!

A hearty shout out to these writing friends and former students who are publishing their books! I encourage you to pre-order a copy to show your support of fellow writers and our writing community.

(If you are a former student and will publish soon (pre-orders of your book are available now), or have in the past two months, email mary[at]marycarrollmoore[dot]com to be included in a future Shout Out! I’ll keep your listing here for two months.)

Patty Wetterling and Joy Baker, Dear Jacob: A Mother's Journey of Hope (Minnesota Historical Society Press, October release)

Robert Johns, O’Brien’s Broken Play (River Grove Books, October release)

Maren Cooper, Behind the Lies (She Writes Press, November release)

Tammy Dietz, Falling from Disgrace (Cynren Press, November release)

I’m a lifelong artist, and I love to inspire and support other creative folk, which is why I write this weekly newsletter. My goal with these posts is to help you strengthen your writing practice and creative life so it becomes more satisfying to you.

I’m also the author of 14 books in 3 genres. My second novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue (Riverbed Press), was published in October 2023 and became an Amazon bestseller and Hot New Release from pre-orders alone. For twelve years, I worked as a full-time food journalist, most notably through my weekly column for the Los Angeles Times syndicate. My writing-craft book, Your Book Starts Here, won the New Hampshire Literary Awards “People’s Choice” in 2011 and my first novel, Qualities of Light, was nominated for PEN/Faulkner and Lambda Literary awards in 2009. I’ve written Your Weekly Writing Exercise every Friday since 2008.

Get Yourself Booked on Podcasts!

Holiday season is here! Easy gift: if a writer in your life would benefit from a boost to their writing practice each week, get them a subscription to this newsletter! Only $45 a year or $5 a month, and they get 52 weeks of inspiration.

Give a gift subscription

My newly released novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue, became a Hot New Release and Amazon bestseller in August from pre-orders alone. It’s now available at all online bookstores like bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, and amazon.

I’ve started a new First Sunday newsletter for paid subscribers that addresses your most gnarly writing and publishing questions. December’s topic was reviews—what kinds help you sell your books, why certain reviews got my book on the Amazon bestseller list. If you’d like to receive First Sunday once a month, a yearly subscription is only $45. For it, you get access to the 700+ archives, the monthly Q&A of First Sunday, a safe space to ask questions, and my writerly gratitude for helping me continue to write this newsletter.

Subscribe now

Michelle Glogovac is my podcast guru! She’s as warm and wonderful as she appears in this photo.

When I was planning my book launch for A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue, I read about podcasts. Why they are one of the most important ways authors today are spreading the word about their books. I researched podcasts myself for a few months, booked myself on two, but it was a steep learning curve. I ended up switching my energy to other promotion tasks.

Then I read an interview with Michelle Glogovac, who calls herself the “podcast matchmaker.” Once again, I was struck with the potential gold of these interviews, and I reached out to Michelle. I ended up hiring her and her wonderful assistant, Allison, to book me a podcast tour.

Michelle read my novel in August 2023, we talked extensively about it in September, and she and Allison began their research. They research over 50 podcasts, looking for which would be just right for me and what I offer. Michelle put together a sell sheet for my book, specifically designed for pitching me to podcast hosts.

The best part of collaborating with Michelle was this: she is a natural educator. She taught me how to think outside of the box about my potential interview topics. To consider that hosts would be interested not just in my book itself. I could branch out! I could intelligently discuss side topics like women heroes, writing a book (and finishing and publishing it!), my writing practice. I could even talk about general life topics: making a career change in my fifties, solo adventures I took, courage in crisis, and how food journalism influenced my novel writing.

I had to learn about the best microphone (I now have a blue Yeti) and good earbuds. Because many podcast hosts post interviews on YouTube, a good background and lighting is essential. As I did more podcast interviews, I improved my setup, got additional side lights for my desk, set up the background better, knew what colors to wear. And most of all, learned how to talk intelligently with a podcast host and discuss my book.

Some hosts don’t really talk much about your book when you’re on their shows. That seems odd, but it turned out OK for me. We discussed writing, or life changes, or aviation, and I was able to refer to things I’d learned about each while writing my book. They always gave it a mention in the show notes at minimum. Many hosts wanted to dive into the book’s topic, ask why I wrote it, discuss the ups and down of creating a bestseller. That felt more aligned to my purpose for being on the show, but I learned a lot no matter what.

I’ve been so delighted with the podcast experience so far. I started interviews in June, averaging four to six a month, and the bookings continue into the new year. Sometimes the shows aired immediately; often they aired weeks or months later. Several were timed for my book launch week in October.

Now that I’m releasing a second novel, Last Bets, in 2024, Michelle is working with me to transition. I thought it would be hard, but it’s not. Hosts look at themes, the overview topics that I tend to return to with each book, and this is always fun to discuss—it made me have to think carefully about what did carry over. But it’s working: already, I’m getting asked , “What else are you working on and how does it connect with your current novel?” and I can answer! How my favorite themes and fascinations come out in every one of my novels: intergenerational friendships, badass women who are heroes down deep, and why taking risks brings unexpected blessings. I can also talk about how all this echoes in my own life, not just in my fiction.

Michelle’s new book will be published on January 17, 2024, and you can pre-order it now. I highly recommend it if you’re an author wanting to get into podcasts yourself.

Here is my interview with Michelle—enjoy!

What was your first podcast experience and why did you fall in love with the podcast world? 

Although podcasts have been around for over 20 years, it wasn’t until 2018 that I figured out how to listen to one! A friend from my birthing class with my first child knew I was on the path to figuring out what I wanted to do in my career after having been laid off from my 18 year corporate job in aviation. She told me about a life/business coach who was launching her podcast.

I started listening and was mesmerized by the message that we all have a purpose and passion in life.

I believed this, but didn’t know what mine was. I knew I wanted to do something that would make the world a better place for my kids, but wasn’t sure what that was. After listening and sharing my journey on my social media platforms, the host reached out to me and asked if I wanted to pitch her to be on other podcasts. This was it! As they say, the rest is history.

I fell in love with the podcast industry because it allows people to share their knowledge and stories with others in an intimate way while allowing listeners to know they aren’t alone in whatever they’re doing. The fact that podcasts are free to listen to and there’s a show on every.single.topic made me understand that this was how I could help others: by sharing their stories, tips, tools, and more with those who need to hear it while also helping clients gain visibility for simply being themselves.

Tell us why podcasts are so vital to book promotion today.  What’s changed in the way readers access books, in your opinion?

Podcasts are vital to book promotion today because they allow anyone and everyone to hear directly from the author. We've seen big changes in the publishing industry and when ebooks came out, we saw less people going to bookstores. When COVID hit, we saw the elimination for a time being of book signings and book tours. Podcasts allow readers to meet authors and get to know them all from the comfort of their home or car or the gym. Authors get the opportunity to reach new audiences and potential readers by being a guest on podcasts and for those that prefer not being on stage, it allows them an opportunity to have an intimate conversation with one other person that will simply be overheard by thousands when it airs.

Our world is very much online and being an author means that you have to be present online. Podcasts allow authors to not only share their stories, writing processes and how they came up with their books, but they also give authors marketing material that they can share on their platforms. Repurposing podcast interviews is not only a perfect way to thank a podcast host, but it's also a great way to market yourself as an author.

We've seen Bookstagram and BookTok become very popular. People love the recommendations of others and once they learn they can trust a recommendation of someone, they want more of them! This is especially true for books. The beauty of podcast interviews that differs from Bookstagram and BookTok is that we get to hear from the actual author and get to know them as people. As someone who has always thought of authors as celebrities, it's always a big deal to me to get to interview an author. I think podcast listeners feel the same way.

How do you “matchmake” guests and hosts?  What do you look for?

I do a lot of research and what I call "stalking"! For all of my author clients, I start by reading their books from beginning to end. I Google them in addition to asking a lot of questions and having a zoom call with them. I make it a point to learn their story and ask the questions that I want to know, not as a podcast publicist, but as a reader and podcast listener.

We discuss who their ideal audience is and why. Then there's the research on the podcast side. I have been able to create a "Rolodex" of podcasts that past clients have been interviewed on and therefore know those audiences.

My team and I are also researching new shows every day to pitch to. The research includes listening to episodes, looking at the host's website and social media accounts, reading their show description and more to understand who their ideal audience is and what they're trying to offer their listeners. When certain aspects align, then we know there's a match!

What are some of the most common mistakes that guest do, when on a podcast?

Not being prepared, for starters. You should always listen to an episode, check out the host's website or social media account and try to get to know the host before hopping on the interview. This not only allows you to go into the conversation with knowledge, but shows that you've done some homework and gives you topics you can easily chat about with the host.

Another mistake I often see is when a guest has too many distractions. Your phone should be put in airplane mode, notifications turned off, and you should be fully present for the interview. When a guest is distracted by something, it's not only obvious to the host, but the listeners will be able to pick up on it as well.

The last mistake I see made is not being tech-ready. You should have an external microphone and headphones for your interview. An added bonus would be a ring light for your webcam to ensure you have the best lighting in case the video portion is released.

Know what platform you'll be recording on (hint: it's in the calendar invitation!) and test it out ahead of time so that you don't show up at the exact time to record and then have to scramble to update your computer with a different browser.

Can you share your top three tips to being a better podcast guest?

I have a lot of tips, but I'll try to narrow them down! For starters, avoid the mistakes I mentioned above! Have an external mic and headphones and do your homework on the host.

Relax. Go into the interview with the mindset that this is a conversation with another human being over a cup of coffee. Be yourself and share your stories, journey and knowledge as freely as possible so that people get to know you and want to know more of you. Have a call to action so that you can tell listeners where they can find you, what you can offer them and a way to capture their email address.

Thank your host by sharing the interviews everywhere you can and tagging them. There are a number of ways you can do this, but putting it in your Instagram stories for only 24 hours is not how! If you prepare graphic templates ahead of time, you can save yourself time and make it easy to share your interviews.

Order a copy of Michelle’s book, How to Get Booked on Podcasts, on amazon, bookshop.org, and Barnes & Noble. Release date is January 17, 2024. Highly recommended!

Your Weekly Writing Exercise

Browse the world of podcasts for authors. One place to start is Apple Podcasts. Or Spotify. And here’s an interesting discussion on Reddit. Search for a topic you’d enjoy discussing or hearing about and check out the links that come up.

Listen to samples from shows you might want to be on. I could tell immediately that some hosts like to dominate the conversation and the author got very little air time. Others had a political agenda that didn’t fit either me or my book. I spent time listening and learning, and eventually came up with ones I wanted to pitch. I also asked friends about their favorite podcasts (a post on Facebook yielded 25 suggestions!).

But I went further than my specific book topics of women heroes, women pilots, Search & Rescue, estranged sisters because my life experience and interests had given me a lot more to bring to a conversation. For instance, my book topic of estranged sisters could become a discussion on families, family health, recovery from family trauma, or how relationships change as we age.

Brainstorm other topics you feel qualified to talk about. Research podcasts about these as well.

This week, start or expand your list/research of podcasts you might imagine yourself on.

Shout Out!

A hearty shout out to these writing friends and former students who are publishing their books! I encourage you to pre-order a copy to show your support of fellow writers and our writing community.

(If you are a former student and will publish soon (pre-orders of your book are available now), or have in the past two months, email mary[at]marycarrollmoore[dot]com to be included in a future Shout Out! I’ll keep your listing here for two months.)

Patty Wetterling and Joy Baker, Dear Jacob: A Mother's Journey of Hope (Minnesota Historical Society Press, October release)

Robert Johns, O’Brien’s Broken Play (River Grove Books, October release)

Maren Cooper, Behind the Lies (She Writes Press, November release)

Tammy Dietz, Falling from Disgrace (Cynren Press, November release)

I’m the author of 14 books in 3 genres, an artist, and a lover of freedom and creativity. My second novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue (Riverbed Press), was published in October 2023 and became an Amazon bestseller and Hot New Release. For twelve years, I worked as a full-time food journalist, most notably through my weekly column for the Los Angeles Times syndicate. My writing-craft book, Your Book Starts Here, won the New Hampshire Literary Awards “People’s Choice” in 2011 and my first novel, Qualities of Light, was nominated for PEN/Faulkner and Lambda Literary awards in 2009. I’ve written Your Weekly Writing Exercise every Friday since 2008.

Are Your Characters Embodied?

Holiday season is here! Easy gift: if a writer in your life would benefit from a boost to their writing practice each week, get them a subscription to this newsletter! Only $45 a year or $5 a month, and they get 52 weeks of inspiration.

Give a gift subscription

My newly released novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue, became a Hot New Release and Amazon bestseller in August from pre-orders alone. It’s now available at all online bookstores. Check it out on bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, and amazon.

I’ve started a new First Sunday newsletter for paid subscribers that addresses your most gnarly writing and publishing questions. December’s topic was reviews—what kinds help you sell your books, why certain reviews got my book on the Amazon bestseller list. If you’d like to receive First Sunday once a month, a yearly subscription is only $45. For it, you get access to the 700+ archives, the monthly Q&A of First Sunday, a safe space to ask questions, and my writerly gratitude for helping me continue to write this newsletter.

Subscribe now

Photo by Drew Dizzy Graham on Unsplash

When my older sister died, at age sixty, a sea change happened in our family. We live far from each other, but at the holidays that year I missed my siblings more than usual. We were all shocked to lose one of our own much too early, although she’d been ill for many years. I noticed the grief, how we all responded to it in different ways. I was fortunate to have friends trained in bereavement counseling, one who had also lost a sibling, and they helped me through.

A big empty place resided in my life and heart for quite a while. She was the oldest of four, I was the second oldest. Now I was the elder. It didn’t seem right.

Each holiday, I think of her. She used to take the train south on Christmas Eve from her home in New York City to my parents’ in Baltimore, laden with shopping bags from Bloomingdale’s where she was a manager. Her gifts were always unexpected and in exquisite taste, even if I, as a hippie teen, couldn’t yet appreciate them. Now that she’s gone, we three remaining sibs reach out a bit more during the holiday season. My sister texts us photos of her homemade apple pie, my brother of his sourdough bread, me of the laden Thanksgiving table. We talk about how we wish we were together.

Years now, and still that grief rides inside with its keen sense of loss.

I write about this today because so many of us experience strong emotions during the holidays, or winter months when the light shifts. I write about the grief and loss—and it’s some of the hardest writing I do. Each person processes these subtler emotions so differently. I write loss into my characters, specifically into their bodies.

I never really understood the term “embodied characters” until I realized how smart the body is to convey emotions. I began writing this embodiment of emotions into my characters many years ago, yet I wonder why so many writers avoid it? Maybe it’s my personal honoring of my own grief and loss from my sister’s—and others’—deaths. Maybe it’s a deliberate health practice as well, to counteract what my chiropractor used to tell me: for many years, until I lived through two serious illnesses, I resided a few feet from my body.

Many people do, and why not? It’s not easy to be physically present in this wild world. As a creative person, I’m often in my inner worlds, dreaming up stories. Some days, I don’t feel thirst or how uncomfortable my shoulders are from typing for hours. Maybe you are aware of this too? Or maybe you are perfectly at home in your body.

But are your characters? That’s the question I’m ruminating on today. Do your characters effectively convey emotion on the page by being embodied or do they live outside their bodies (for a reason, perhaps)?

Writing simple and complex emotions

Emotions are easy for some to write, especially when the feelings are straightforward. We can add a wave of anger, a shiver of fear. We can enhance our characters with these simpler feelings—or at least we write them in as perceived (thought) emotions, which is not the same as felt emotions. We’ll go over the difference in a minute!

Simple emotions in literature, to me, are the more obvious ones: rage, jealousy, anger, fear, joy, contentment. They are straightforward in expression. They don’t go unrecognized that often.

The complex ones, like grief, come in unexpected waves, and they often hide beneath the more obvious emotions. I’ll be doing something completely unrelated to the loss of my sister or parents when I feel a disorienting sweep that fogs the brain or causes instant irritation or leaves me wandering. I can tell I’m mad or distracted. I can’t always tell why. Usually, I’m grieving.

In early drafts, though, writers often keep character emotions in the thought realm rather than translate these emotions into the characters’ bodies. It’s a natural placeholder, but if we writers don’t recognize that, we may neglect to take the emotions a next step. And this is vital because readers don’t feel the character’s emotion unless it’s embodied.

Why most of us write dis-embodied characters

Since I grew up in a family that carefully curated emotions—meaning, my dad preferred the silent child to the weeping or angry one—I had to first learn how to tell what I was feeling in my body before I could let my characters feel in theirs.

The body is a great translator but it depends on your background whether you are adept at recognizing emotions in the body. For most of my childhood and young adulthood, I could tell intellectually that I was irritated or sad, but I couldn’t always locate the feeling in my body.

When we’re writing a character’s emotions, they also may not be aware of what they’re feeling—and this is fine, as I said above; the reader doesn’t care. But the reader does need to be cognizant of the character’s emotions. Ideally, feeling them viscerally as they read. Why? Emotions translate the meaning of a scene. It’s the primary take-away, and it sets up the narrative arc, or the character’s growth pathway through the story.

So we writers have a task before us: to figure out how to let the character’s emotion seep in. It usually comes through most strongly via stuff they do with their physical body: movement, body sensations, gestures, facial expressions, what they avoid looking at or hearing, to name a few ways.

You may think you’re already doing this! But after thirty years of teaching writers, I’ve noticed how many of us don’t! Our default is to create characters who are not residing in their physical bodies, who operate from a few feet away, as if the body was a drone. They “feel” but only in their heads. They “remember,” but it’s distant detached memory that may have a reaction but it’s not a felt reaction, at least not felt in the body. They move around, yes, but they are thinking thoughts far removed from the way their feet hit the floor. They talk as well, but the emotion is also conveyed in thought as they react (interior monologue) or via adverbs (“She said angrily”) which isn’t embodiment at all.

It was totally confusing—and illuminating—for me to learn this as a writer. If you’re still with me, we’ll see why all of us can use some fine-tuning on this important skill.

I have to say it again: many people live this way today, absent from their bodies, so it’s no surprise literary characters do too. Our world isn’t inviting or cozy, especially in literature today. But if you want to create characters who are suffering (as most good characters are, in story), and they want to live out of the body rather than in it, that’s fine too. But the body still exists on the page. Its reactions still need to be perceived by the reader.

First step: Move your characters from absent to embodied

My early drafts of scenes, fiction or nonfiction, mostly reveal characters as physically absent from their bodies. I start with a plan. I decide what I want them to do, how I want them to move around, the ways they’ll interact with others via dialogue, and when they’ll react to the setting or action. This is normal in drafting: we need time to get acquainted.

The second stage of bringing characters into their bodies often comes via interior monologue, as mentioned above. This is when a character will begin to recognize their feelings as thoughts. I hate this place, he thought. We’re not actually feeling the hate as readers yet, but the character is thinking it which is a first step. The feeling of being repulsed, trapped, or disgusted isn’t yet manifested in the character’s body.

When I worked as an editor, I saw how often writers relied on interior monologue to convey feelings. It was strewn through scenes in early drafts and even revisions. I could tell the writer hoped this IM would create enough of a breadcrumb trail to the interior life of the character, but it didn’t, at least not for me. I wanted more. I wanted to feel how those emotions translated into the character’s body.

But hey, whatever works! As a first step to get acquainted with these people, it often works quite well. But just know the scene might still be once removed from the reader.

I usually counseled these writers to interview their characters on their background—create a little bio for each. Then to describe the character’s physical appearance (long red hair, round like a basketball). Then explore how the character moves across a room, at a lope or tentatively with small steps or taking up all the space with their energy. Finally, think about a character’s habitual gestures, their favorite objects, what they wear, eat, and listen to.

All part of acquaintanceship. It’s primary character research, in my mind, and it’s needed. Whenever I feel distant from one of my characters, like a bad guy I’m loathe to get closer to, I take these steps. When I know more, when I can see them walk and gesture and move, when I understand their longings and their history, I can more effectively write them into scene. Like watching a good play, there’s a sense of stepping back and enjoying the world they create as they feel their way into story.

I also expect some new information to come through, as I let them become embodied. I know what they’ve told me about themselves, how they “present” to the world. Now I get to see who they really are.

But if you have trouble even imagining how to do this with your more reluctant characters, here are some ways to start.

A link from Greatist helps the writer explore the placement of different emotions in the body—where anger would most likely be felt, for instance.

Another version from NPR is equally helpful and interesting.

A feelings list from Hoffman Institute shows the variations of feelings that your characters might be experiencing.

The well-regarded Emotions Thesaurus, which I’ve appreciated using for years, is a handy guide to help you translate emotions.

Parents with young kids: you’ve probably come across the ways children learn to tell their emotions by body sensations. Not any different from how we writers do this same work. What’s your experience with this process?

Leave a comment

As we begin to write a character’s embodied emotions into scene, we usually stumble in two ways:

We tell the reader the emotion behind the body sensation rather than letting the body show the feeling with sentences like She was so angry she felt her head pound,

We overload the body sensations so they create confusing with sentences like Her head pounded, her throat tightened, and she felt nausea churn her gut. What emotion are readers supposed to get from that except overall stress?

Just like any device, embodiment techniques can be overused. They become too obvious, like a stage manager narrating meaning. So, it’s vital to proceed carefully, delicately, and believably.

The goal is to become aware of the background rumbling of emotions in a character, then the way these emotions manifest in the character’s physical body, and how the character is reacting or avoiding them.

And remember, if you move into complex emotions like grief, they have unpredictable moments which need to be considered.

Your Weekly Writing Exercise

Start with one of these ideas to embody your character. If you find it too clunky as you revise, dial it back. Hopefully, it’ll get you more aware of your tendencies as a writer and you can practice growing that awareness until you can omit the device.

Place your character clearly onstage. Review a scene and ask yourself: Where is my character physically in this scene? Are they standing or sitting, walking or running, crouching or kneeling? What part of their body is contacting the earth or a piece of furniture? Where are they in relation to objects and other people? If it helps, draw a quick sketch of the location and where they are. Or write yourself scene notes: Jane is kneeling on the ground by the porch about three feet from her grandmother, who is sitting in her rocker.

Try using movement to convey character feelings. This works even if the character is not aware of those feelings. Imagine how your character is moving through the space you’ve created. Do they run, walk, crawl, jump? Do they move carefully or boldly?

Have your character use gestures. Pay attention to their hands, face, shoulders, feet, fingers: even if they are not moving around, these can convey inner states. Jane tears a cocktail napkin into neat squares conveys something going on behind her tense smile, right?

Have your character notice emotion in other characters, as a kind of mirror to their own emotions. Jane didn’t understand why Robert was so angry, but she could see how his eyes narrowed even though he appeared to be sitting calmly.

Play with a physical illness, injury, or problem the character tries to ignore but can’t. What would really hang them up, physically? (I tend to use this one when I really want to force embodiment.)

In a future post, I’ll talk about one of the most common questions I got about my recent novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue, and the embodiment techniques I used there. Also, why I gave each of the two adult narrators a physical challenge, what this gave me in terms of emotions to play with was worth every bit of careful revision I had to do, to keep the device from being mechanical. Stay tuned!

Holiday season is here! Easy gift: if a writer in your life would benefit from a boost to their writing practice each week, get them a subscription to this newsletter! Only $45 a year or $5 a month, and they get 52 weeks of inspiration.

Give a gift subscription

If they love fast-paced adventure stories with women heroes, send them a copy of My newly released novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue. If you let me know, I will mail you a signed bookplate to include in the gift!

Shout Out!

A hearty shout out to these writing friends and former students who are publishing their books! I encourage you to pre-order a copy to show your support of fellow writers and our writing community.

(If you are a former student and will publish soon (pre-orders of your book are available now), or have in the past two months, email mary[at]marycarrollmoore[dot]com to be included in a future Shout Out! I’ll keep your listing here for two months.)

Patty Wetterling and Joy Baker, Dear Jacob: A Mother's Journey of Hope (Minnesota Historical Society Press, October release)

Robert Johns, O’Brien’s Broken Play (River Grove Books, October release)

Maren Cooper, Behind the Lies (She Writes Press, November release)

Tammy Dietz, Falling from Disgrace (Cynren Press, November release)

I’m a lifelong artist, and I love to inspire and support other creative folk, which is why I write this weekly newsletter. My goal with these posts is to help you strengthen your writing practice and creative life so it becomes more satisfying to you.

I’m also the author of 14 books in 3 genres. My second novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue (Riverbed Press), was published in October 2023 and became an Amazon bestseller and Hot New Release from pre-orders alone. For twelve years, I worked as a full-time food journalist, most notably through my weekly column for the Los Angeles Times syndicate. My writing-craft book, Your Book Starts Here, won the New Hampshire Literary Awards “People’s Choice” in 2011 and my first novel, Qualities of Light, was nominated for PEN/Faulkner and Lambda Literary awards in 2009. I’ve written Your Weekly Writing Exercise every Friday since 2008.

Writing a Good Villain

Holiday season is here! Easy gift: if a writer in your life would benefit from a boost to their writing practice each week, get them a subscription to this newsletter! Only $45 a year or $5 a month, and they get 52 weeks of inspiration.

Give a gift subscription

My newly released novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue, became a Hot New Release and Amazon bestseller in August from pre-orders alone. It’s now available at all online bookstores. Check it out on bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, and amazon.

I’ve started a new First Sunday newsletter for paid subscribers that addresses your most gnarly writing and publishing questions. December’s topic was reviews—what kinds help you sell your books, why certain reviews got my book on the Amazon bestseller list. If you’d like to receive First Sunday once a month, a yearly subscription is only $45. For it, you get access to the 700+ archives, the monthly Q&A of First Sunday, a safe space to ask questions, and my writerly gratitude for helping me continue to write this newsletter.

Subscribe now

Photo by Ryan Quintal on Unsplash

How do you write a villain in a believable way, so they are not stereotyped or predictably bad?

I have struggled with bad guys, in my fiction (and nonfiction too). I want to give villains some depth, make them real enough to scare even me.

But sometimes they’ve ended up a bit cartoonish, if I’m honest with myself—more like characters in a kids’ TV program. Either I’ve infused them with too much melodrama to really get the repulsiveness across to the reader or I’ve made them so ho-hum nobody would buy their sketchy decisions.

With this recent novel, I learned so much about writing good villains. It has everything to do with the quality of longing. That may surprise you! It certainly did me. Let me explain.

I’ve learned from editors, my agents, and beta readers that my strength as a writer is not in the thriller plot. But that’s what I was depending on to fuel the villainous part of the story. I created edgy actions and hoped the reader would understand why the abusive guy was bad. No other work/explanation needed, right?

Not so.

Longing is what drives behavior, good or bad. Longing inside the person is what makes them choose an action. The reader needs the background of longing to understand the “why” of a villain’s choices.

This didn’t sit well with me for quite a while. Truthfully, I didn’t want to spend time in the interior lives of these rather abhorrent people in my story. Who’d want to hang out with someone with zero morals or caring for others, who does terrible things? I preferred to view them from a distance—far distance—and just have their actions speak for them.

But it never worked. The comments I’d get were all about stereotypes and predictability, at best. Confusion and disbelief at worst.

Distancing myself from my bad guys distanced my reader from my story.

Those of you who have read this newsletter for a few years (as a paid subscriber you can access it back to 2008!)) know my fascination with something called false beliefs. Learning about false beliefs let me understand character-writing at an entirely new level. I think this is when I turned a corner as a writer, in my ability to write believable people. So I want to take a moment and expand on the idea of false beliefs, share some new insights I’ve gained from working with them, especially for writing villains.

False beliefs and how they create believable characters

A good story is a journey—it takes the reader from a certain place to another place, and characters are the guiding force along the way. Yes, definitely, action (plot) can help the reader travel from beginning to end of book. In fact, one of my biggest complements to my recent novel was that readers stayed up all night to read it! That page-turner aspect is important if you want tension in the journey.

But character is what we relate to as we travel. We get involved with them, we worry about them, we hope they’ll succeed or crash and burn, depending on our relationship with their story. “Red was so self-centered in the beginning; I’m glad she changed by the end and cared about others,” is a comment I’ve also gotten a lot about this recent novel. That tells me Red is a character that engages the reader at some level—they may not like her at all times, but they are following her decisions.

When I started out writing Red, I first thought a lot about her false belief. False belief is a term I use for the emotional status quo of each character at the beginning of the story. Some writers call it misbelief. Same thing. It’s where we are, when we start the journey.

If you can sum up a character’s false belief in one sentence, it can tell you a lot. Red’s might be “People have always left me, so I can’t depend on anyone but myself.”

Think of one of your characters. What might be their false belief at the beginning of your story?

Leave a comment

Two important things to realize about false beliefs:

They need to change by the end of the story. They can get worse (if the character is on a downward trajectory and will lose) or get better (if the character is going to win).

Behind each false belief is an unstated—often unrealized—longing.

Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash

The graffiti above translates to “I want love.” Most characters do—this is their secret longing. They may outwardly reject it, but however love is defined for them, they long for it.

Red longs for a family. This longing drives every action she takes in my book. When she’s running from the law, she flees to her estranged sister, Kate. Kate has been the object of Red’s longing for most of her life. They have never met, and Kate would never want to meet Red (the product of her father’s affair), if she knew Red existed. But Red could flee to so many other places, safer places, where she’d do less damage. She doesn’t. She goes to Kate and causes all sorts of trouble.

Longing is tied to that false belief. It cancels out all logic. The character acts from longing even as they try to talk themselves out of it.

Red isn’t the bad guy in the story I wrote. That honor is given to another person, Billy Cotton, who is in jail for arson. Billy’s longing is about Red. He wants Red, badly. He’s willing to jeopardize everything to get her. He believes it’s for revenge. That was the action side of things, but it didn’t touch the real longing, which I knew I had to get closer to.

Longing is often behind the harsher emotions of anger, rage, fear, jealousy. As I look deeper into character, I find that most of these stem from something more complicated.

Longing is important to understand any character, but when you understand a villain’s longing—and where that longing stems from, whether it is hidden or obvious—they become more human to the reader, less stereotypical. I think the villains that are driven only by outer action—revenge, as an example—don’t become as human and scary as they could.

The most challenging bad guys, the ones that really creep me out, are those who have that complicated interior expertly revealed by the writer.

I could write tense scenes of Billy stalking Red, of Billy trying to break into the cabin where she hid, of Billy trying to burn that cabin down. But Billy never really became alive for me until I dug beyond all this outer stuff to ask Why? Why is he wanting revenge? What’s behind that?

If you are struggling with your villain, take a minute and ask that Why? question. Why does this person, so repugnant to you, do what they do?

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To find out my Why? for Billy Cotton, I had to go back to his childhood, his roots, the false belief he grew from that time when he was vulnerable and very young.

I don’t know anyone like Billy, to model from, so I had to really do some fictional research to come up with who he was. I like to use a character questionnaire, such as this one from Reedsy, to start.

Here’s what I got:

Where did your villain grow up? Billy grew up in rural North Carolina, went to school to tenth grade.

What was your villain’s family like? What aspects influenced him the most? Billy’s father was an unhappy man, his mother frail and sickly, so Billy was cared for by neither. (In a way, he and Red had parallel childhoods because Red was also an abandoned kid. She had her mother, but she didn’t have the father or sister or legitimate family she longed for.) Billy had a family on paper but not in spirit. He lived in danger from his father, and he felt powerless most of the time.

What events were began your villain’s fascination with the dark side of life? I didn’t get that much, but I got enough from this question to make Billy’s longing make sense: When Billy turned six, his father took him hunting. Billy’s sensitive hearing made him cower at the sound of gunshot. This infuriated his father who held the shotgun to Billy’s head and forced him to retrieve the dead animals, skin and gut them in the woods. When they camped, Billy had to make the fire. Unexpectedly, he loved this—fire was so clean to him, so thorough in what it consumed, compared to the messy process of killing with a gun. So he became an expert who could build a fire from almost nothing, even wet wood, and that earned a tiny although grudging respect from his father.

What event ignited his longing as an adult? Billy knew Red from childhood and loved her wildness. He loved that she was also fascinated with fire. They were a couple until the night Billy coerced her into helping him set a fire that burned a building. Red turned him in and pled state’s witness; Billy went to prison. He vowed he’d find her when he came out and take her away.

This got me started on Billy’s longing, which was for Red. And if he couldn’t have Red of her own free will, he’d have her anyway. He’d set up a situation where Red couldn’t escape and he alone could rescue her. And so he did.

How to demonstrate a villain’s longing in the story

None of my chapters are from Billy’s point of view; he is never the narrator. I am writing in third person limited, which means I’m not hopping heads. The only pov characters are Red, Kate, and Kate’s daughter Molly. So how was I supposed to reveal the longing that would make Billy a believable bad guy?

I would have to use one of the main pov characters to reveal Billy’s longing to the reader. And the only person who gets close enough in any scene is Red. She is also the one who has the memories of him, and flashbacks can be quite effective to demonstrate longing—the narrator flashes back to a time when the bad guy was vulnerable, describes it in some way as memory, has an emotion about it or a realization, and that clues the reader to the take-away from that flashback.

For instance, in one flashback, Red remembers how Billy accused her as a child of not having a real family—her parents weren’t married. At the same moment, young Red noticed the strap marks on Billy’s legs from a beating. She almost says something like, “You don’t have a real family either,” referring to the obvious evidence that Billy’s father beat him. But she holds back—and this, at least in my hope, demonstrates her realization of Billy as a vulnerable person, someone who can be hurt himself as well as someone who easily hurts her.

Real-time scenes are even more effective, though, especially if they happen after the flashback is planted in the reader’s memory some chapters before.

There’s a face-off between Red and Billy in the final third of the book. I won’t share too much about it, in case you want to read the story! But what Red notices about her old, prison-worn enemy conveys the real Billy to the reader, in all his longing and the desperation that longing causes inside. Revenge turns out not to be what he’s after, after all.

Photo by little plant on Unsplash

Stereotyping villains is such a pitfall for writers. We have to carefully examine our motives for writing these characters. What person or persons in our past are informing how we describe them?

So many writers, fiction and non, carry a conscious or unconscious revenge motive that creeps into their literary bad guys and makes them less believable than they could be. Those writers want to be sure there’s no mistake about how terrible these villains are—and the people they represent in the writer’s past.

We’re going to end with a few ways to keep from falling into that trap. This isn’t an easy exercise but it’s proved extremely therapeutic to both my life and my writing, reducing the bad guys in both arenas to their proper size. That said, read through the instructions and think about whether it’s for you.

First, write about the real-life person in your past who was truly a bad one. Write with every detail you can muster. Write about behavior, abusiveness, even outright evil. Get as much detail on the page and out of your memory as possible. You may find this incredibly cathartic but if you have trouble with this part of the exercise, only proceed if you feel enough emotional stamina. Watch your body reactions every step of the way. I took my time trying this with a former boyfriend in high school, someone who did me harm and I’ve spent years writing about. When I take it slow, it’s been incredibly helpful to heal from those memories and make my bad guys more believable on the page. The key to this exercise is to make sure the writing includes (1) how you felt about this person in the past, (2) how you feel about them now, and (3) a clear description of what happened between you. These three elements, not just one or two of them, create a kind of alchemy of healing. (See the work of UT Austin professor James Pennebaker and writer Louise DeSalvo for more information.)

Now try to go beyond the person’s behavior and its effect on you: write their history. Where did they come from? What influenced their life the most? Write down any background you know, in as minute detail as you can.

The final step is to free write (explore) this person’s desperation and any longing you can guess they experienced that stems from that desperation. What did/do they want more than anything and how does this make them human?

I find that doing this exercise with a real-life bad guy who has personally affected me helps me write those gnarly fictional villains with more accuracy. The exercise, if taken slowly and carefully according to my emotional stamina, can bring me to a more detached place. From there, I see how human beings can be fascinating to a reader, no matter whether they are heroes or antagonists.

I have to give a shout-out to teacher and writer Josip Novakovich as we end. (Here’s a great review of one of his books for fiction writers.) I took an online class with Josip many years ago through the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Mass. I was struggling at that time with parts of this novel, trying to get a sense of one of the bad guys, Mel Fisher, the straying husband of main character Kate.

I discussed my challenge with Josip and he read parts of my scenes with Mel—fairly rough back then, nowhere near what they became for this recently published novel.

I was quite surprised that Josip encouraged me to push the dark side of Mel even further. I had held back, because so many of my readers (writer’s group at that time and others in classes) disliked Mel intensely. Josip guided me towards more exploration rather than backing away—he saw something valuable in diving deeper. From him, I learned more about writing villains than anyone else.

Recently, I got an email from a reader of A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue, which includes the finished scenes with Mel. This reader talked about my “unique way of bringing out the goodness” in my characters. Even if they are not good at heart, she said. To me, that goodness is what lies beneath all their outer actions, the decisions they bring to the plot tension, the longing they carry. Finding out what caused it is the key to making them believable.

To perceive longing inside a person who seems lost to humanity means seeing them as more than their misdeeds or false beliefs.

Your Weekly Writing Exercise

Two options for this week’s exercise.

Use the steps above to research your bad guys, if you feel ready. It’s a great first step to understanding how to write them in literature, but if digging into your past is too much, use the same steps with someone fictional.

Free write about what you are struggling with right now, with your bad guys. Based on the ideas above, what do you think you might try next to give them more believable characteristics?

Share any comments below, and feel free to ask questions too.

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Holiday season is here! Easy gift: if a writer in your life would benefit from a boost to their writing practice each week, get them a subscription to this newsletter! Only $45 a year or $5 a month, and they get 52 weeks of inspiration.

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Shout Out!

A hearty shout out to these writing friends and former students who are publishing their books! I encourage you to pre-order a copy to show your support of fellow writers and our writing community.

(If you are a former student and will publish soon (pre-orders of your book are available now), or have in the past two months, email mary[at]marycarrollmoore[dot]com to be included in a future Shout Out! I’ll keep your listing here for two months.)

Patty Wetterling and Joy Baker, Dear Jacob: A Mother's Journey of Hope (Minnesota Historical Society Press, October release)

Robert Johns, O’Brien’s Broken Play (River Grove Books, October release)

Maren Cooper, Behind the Lies (She Writes Press, November release)

Tammy Dietz, Falling from Disgrace (Cynren Press, November release)

I’m a lifelong artist, and I love to inspire and support other creative folk, which is why I write this weekly newsletter. My goal with these posts is to help you strengthen your writing practice and creative life so it becomes more satisfying to you.

I’m also the author of 14 books in 3 genres. My second novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue (Riverbed Press), was published in October 2023 and became an Amazon bestseller and Hot New Release from pre-orders alone. For twelve years, I worked as a full-time food journalist, most notably through my weekly column for the Los Angeles Times syndicate. My writing-craft book, Your Book Starts Here, won the New Hampshire Literary Awards “People’s Choice” in 2011 and my first novel, Qualities of Light, was nominated for PEN/Faulkner and Lambda Literary awards in 2009. I’ve written Your Weekly Writing Exercise every Friday since 2008.

First Sunday Q&A: What Draws a Reader to Actually Buy/Read My Book?

Hello, all you new paid subscribers! A flood of you came to join us this month and I’m very glad. Welcome to “First Sunday” Q&A, where we dissect and discuss your most gnarly writing and publishing questions. I plan to write this the first Sunday of each month for you, as long as you wonderful people send me your questions. I have a great selection from attendees at my virtual launch on November 10 and I’ll lean on these as we get going, but please feel free to post questions in the comments or email them to me at mary[at]marycarrollmoore[dot]com, and I’ll spend time on them, sharing ideas, tips, and resources from my own experience. I’m happy to keep you anonymous.

My intention is to make this a safe, generous place to exchange ideas and talk about the deepest writing and publishing issues on your mind.

If you’re a free subscriber, you’ll get a taste of the article below. Upgrade to paid (only $45 a year) to read the rest. Thank you for supporting this newsletter!

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Q: I’m a new author (thrilled about that!) with a nicely produced book (yay!). I depended on my publisher (a small press) to do most of the publicity, though, which turned out to be a bad move on my part. So much NOT done! Looking back, I can see how sales would’ve been better if I’d gotten more involved, especially with reviews. I got a handful of good blurbs but no trade reviews, not much online either. From your recent book launch, what have you learned about getting enough reviews to make readers click through to buy your book?

A: First, congrats! Being published is a huge victory for authors. And yes, there’s often a gap between what we hope for with our publishing experience and what actually happens. Blame it on publishers’ limited budgets and time to promote us, when other authors are on their list too. I did learn quite a bit about this with my recent launch, so I’ll share what I know and where you might research to find out more.

I was lucky to have a good friend (a New York Times bestselling author) reach out early in my pre-publication months and offer to help me with my book promotion. We both know—she especially, from her experience—that no matter how great the publisher, most authors these days must take charge of their book promotion. She taught me three steps, often overlooked, that make the biggest difference in your ability to reach readers. They are quite simple, and I’ll be talking about the first one today: getting enough and a certain kind of reviews.

Because I found out about this and acted fast, my novel became an Amazon bestseller in three categories in August, and the audiobook is still on two of those lists now in December. I’m beyond grateful to have learned about these steps and I’m hard at work now, putting them in place for my next book.

So today, we’ll talk about the first step: getting a certain kind of review, making sure there are enough solid reviews posted before your book launches, and continuing that effort after it is out in the world.

We’ll also explore why buyers today rely so heavily on reviews. And what kind you, as the author, can reach for and what kind your publisher has to handle.

Reviews are just one of the three steps she taught me; the other two are based on first having enough reviews that teach you how readers describe your book.

Why is this essential? Because you, the author, have a certain way to talk about your book. It may not be how readers talk about it, and readers are the ones buying your book. Bridging that gap is vital.

Once you have a solid number of reviews, you can take the second step: locate the keywords that are most communicative to the readers you want to attract. Then the third step, insert these keywords into all your online book descriptions and promotion.

Why didn’t I know about this? I have solid publishing experience, 14 books in 3 genres. Because I left reviews up to my publisher—who often didn’t do much, like the questioner above experienced—and I wasn’t educated about why reviews mattered or how to use them to make a difference in book sales.

Learning about this important step was one of my biggest ah-ha’s when doing my book launch prep.

This week, I’d like to escort you through what I learned about the first step: how to get the right reviews and establish the foundation for steps two and three.

I’d love to hear both your questions about this and your experiences, so please share in the comments section below.

Book reviews in publishing today

So why didn’t I connect the dots between my own reliance on reviews and how potential readers would find my books? Not until my NYT bestseller friend mentioned the usefulness of reviews did I begin to research this for myself.

Book reviews range wide in the publishing industry. The basic groups are:

Read more

From Marathon to Daily Miles: Transitioning Back to Practice

My newly released novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue, became a Hot New Release and Amazon bestseller in August from pre-orders alone. It’s now available at all online bookstores like bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, and amazon.

I’ve started a new First Sunday newsletter for paid subscribers that addresses your most gnarly writing and publishing questions. November’s topic was “rejection and discouragement,” and I offered new ways to approach both. If you’d like to receive First Sunday once a month, a yearly subscription is only $45. For it, you get access to the 700+ archives, the monthly Q&A of First Sunday, a safe space to ask questions, and my writerly gratitude for helping me continue to write this newsletter..

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How do you transition back to ordinary after an extraordinary experience? How does a writer move from being “author” to being “writer” again, facing the empty page with nobody around?

I know so many authors who’ve struggled with this, who’ve created structures ahead of time in their writing life to handle the post-partum depression. Some have another book in the hopper (this is my current technique—another novel out in the spring). Some take a long break or go away from their lives to recover. Book birthing can be brutal, even with all the joy and excitement, and it certainly takes us away from our ordinary selves.

At Thanksgiving last week—we hosted 15—one of my very distant relatives by marriage, a man in his seventies, someone I don’t know well but enjoy a lot for his excellent sense of humor and midwestern values, came up to me with some shyness after dinner. He handed me a copy of my new novel and a pen. “Will you sign this?” I was a bit dumbstruck. This man is so far from my ideal reader, at first I couldn’t believe he’d actually read the novel. “Who do you want me to sign it to?” I asked. “To me,” he said, as if that was obvious. “I loved it.”

Then he told me why. And how he’d gotten so involved with the characters, he worried about what might happen next. He wants a sequel.

It was one of the biggest compliments I’ve gotten. Mostly because I saw how the book can touch people I would never guess. An older man, retired from teaching school and working in the tech industry, approaching me with the hope and innocence of a small child. Later, his daughter told me he’d even asked her before the party if she thought I’d be willing to sign his book. Like I wouldn’t?!!

When your book’s life, the circle of its reach into the world, becomes much bigger than you expect, as this book has done for me, it changes you inside. There’s a sense of astonishment and awe about the power of literature to affect people. People you’d never imagine to be open to such a story—a novel about women heroes, about a rock star, and about sisters reuniting.

I learned a lot from this. Never pre-judge what your book can do, if you love it enough to fuel its passage into the world. And be aware that the moment of touching someone else is not really about you. It’s about what you created.

I saw this same man at another gathering two days later (we are a family who has serial thanksgivings to include everyone over several days). Again, he approached me to talk about the book and express his worry (!) for one of the characters. “What will happen to her?” he asked me.

(I have no idea. This is a fictional person. But the question, once again, thrilled me. And got me thinking . . . )

I’m still thinking about this encounter. And a number of other equally astonishing emails and texts and DM’s from readers who are now living with my story and wanting to talk about it. They create a happy crowd, a celebratory noise, and when a writer has run months of this, as a creative work is finding its way to readers, it feels like living with a large family. The readers, hopefully growing in number, now occupy the world you created.

So much joy in this, so much satisfaction. But there has to be a movement back to “writer” instead of “author,” if you’re lucky. Find the silence again, in order to create.

I love winter for its silence. I live in northern New England and it’s already very cold. The moon was full over Thanksgiving weekend and Jupiter shone in the sky, a bright, visible dot of white. I crave the quiet at this time of year, I want to sleep more, I find myself ready for bed by 8:00. And I incubate. Ideas, creative imaginings, future plans for my writing.

After the crowd noise of readers embracing what I’ve poured my heart into for ten years, it’s like the transition between a warm Indian summer day and waking up to stillness and white. The silence can be deafening. It can feel lonely. Where are all the people who have been accompanying me on the journey all these past months? Are they still thinking about my book, are they still talking about it to friends, are they posting about it? I check the online booksellers and Goodreads, notice new reviews. Nurture the noise a bit.

But after a while, the silence is stronger and it calls me in. I begin to let go of the need for the noise and I begin to want to go deep again, find new paths.

It’s a little death, to publish and let go of something you’ve lived with for so long. It’s the welcome outcome, for sure. But it’s like spending the most fabulous week with your best group of friends then saying goodbye at the airport. Who are you, when you aren’t surrounded by all that love?

I’m in a pause between books and I know I need to appreciate the silence, let it refresh me, because soon the next book will be roaring its way into the world and the noise will begin again. So I’m straddling two realities as this next book is in production—with the ebook designer and the audiobook narrator, as I’m lining up publicists for the new year and new marketing campaign. I love this next book as much or even more. It’s my best novel yet, I know that. But I’m still a bit in grief and confusion over the transition.

And I know I’m privileged to even feel that. I’ve been both successful and satisfied with this recent publishing experience.

And we writers often straddle two worlds: our writing and the incubation of that writing, the essence of the creative practice we embrace, along with the dream of readers out there, somewhere, eventually loving our work.

Most of us write with that kind of horizon: the dream of publishing someday, the hope that the publication process will be successful and satisfying. That’s correct. We want to go from talking with ourselves to sharing our creativity with a reader. But after that happens, how do you let go of what you’ve done, the beauty of it, the reader who asks, What happens next to these characters? How do you transition back to the silence of winter, the incubation of daily practice, the stuff that makes you say “I’m a writer”?

I think of marathoners—I am not one—who have their practice of daily miles. They train for months to do that one race, perhaps. Do they miss the high after the marathon is over and it’s back to routine? It’s natural to miss the high of a team of book lovers spreading the word about your novel, readers messaging and posting their glowing reviews, the fun of planning a party or other outreach.

But I know this for a fact: the core of the writing life is not about publication. I don’t write to publish, I write to discover.

Yes, I feel honored that so many people enjoy my book, but the real juice of creativity has to emerge from my private expression, my daily practice. I have to keep that element of discovery alive to keep digging into what means the most in my life. It’s the nurturing silence that feeds me.

I’m a bit worried about these next months, to be honest. I’m worried that I’ll get swept too fast into the marathon of a book release again, without enough time and silence to regain my practice and the humility of just me alone with the page. I’m trying to be very disciplined with my recovery time, as I call it. As much sleep as I can talk myself into. Reading. Playing with collage. Playing with some short fiction. Reading my Substack subscriptions. Walks with the dogs. Staring at the full moon.

Publishing is about standing up and saying, This is my work, this is what it means. Writing practice is about inquiry. Nothing is solved, much is being questioned, which is the beauty of it. A kind of listening to that silence that exists between the writer and the page.

A definite nurturing, different from the noise and celebration of publication.

This week, I found the five flash essays I was working on before A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue began its fast flight. In them, I was writing about my mom, the WW II pilot who inspired my novel. She may remain a mystery for me to solve the rest of my life, and these essays are ways to explore what I knew and what I’ll never know about her.

These essays are conversations, nothing more. They are so different from fiction, they are stark in their reality and pain. They are intensely private. And they are helping me a lot during this pause between books, as I transition back to writing practice and silence.

If you, like me, struggle with transitions, here are ten very simple techniques I want to share this week. I view them as doorways from one room to another. The goal is to not get stuck at the threshold, to toggle back to what was and not be able to let go. They help me find a way back to the habit that brought me here.

Your Weekly Writing Exercise

Ten short, simple practices to explore this week. Try one. Try two. Notice if they help you with your writing practice in any way, help you transition, help you let go and go deeper into creative incubation.

Poem a day. For one week, read a poem each morning or evening. (Try the online Poem-a-Day or Spotify’s podcast version.) Notice how poetry changes your internal rhythms and what you notice around you. Take this new vibration into practice by distilling the essence of a chapter or scene you’re working on into five poetic lines.

Switch genres. Read a chapter from a book by an author from a different genre or writing style. If you love minimalism, go for exotic and rich. If you’re a sci-fi fantasy geek, turn to history. Notice how the switch affects you. Maybe some rewiring happens? Take this into practice by modeling a few paragraphs or a page from the book you’ve browsed: using the author’s exact structure (number of lines in a paragraph, number of words used), change to your own words. Think of how art students paint copies of the masters' to learn brush stroke variation. Do the same with words and rhythm and structure.

Go on an outing. Leave the house. Find a park, coffee shop, library, community center. Write among sounds you’re not used to. Take down dialogue you hear. Paint word pictures of what you see that’s completely new. Take this into practice by setting a scene in this new location. What might happen?

Fast from media. Julia Cameron suggests this in The Artist’s Way and each time I try it, it revolutionizes my life. She suggests a week—can you try one day? Or even an afternoon away from doom-scrolling and Amazon ratings, to pay attention to new thoughts that emerge without anyone’s prompting. Take this into practice by journaling about your mind’s frantic boredom and how mad/irritated/annoyed you get at someone else making such stupid rules.

Use your hands. After the holidays, when we were arranging back the rooms that had been shifted to seat 15, I found a box of collage materials and immediately got to work on one. Find magazines or print images from Unsplash and arrange in a pleasing or disturbing or any creative way in your writer’s notebook, a poster board, your journal, or a handful of blank large-size index cards. Take it into practice by setting a timer for 20 minutes and writing about the most unexpected collage you create.

Write your gratitude. Make a list of all the people who’ve helped you get to where you are now in your creative life. Each day, choose one to write a thank-you postcard to. Take it into practice by selecting an author whose work helped you grow—write them a thank-you note as well.

Switch the goal. What can you change, renew, invigorate about your practice? Start with your regular goal—word count or page count—and flip it. If you do pages, set 1000-word goals each sit-down session. Take it into writing practice by testing one method each day. Which works better for you this week?

Find a friend. Expand your practice to include a small community of writing buddies. Spend time thinking about what they would do for you, and vice versa. How often would you ideally connect? How? Would you exchange writing or just check in for accountability? Take this into practice by initiating a call, text, or email to someone you’d love to have on your team.

Go deep. Use the week as a break from production of pages. Take up your journal instead of trying to create something formed. Add some play: colored pencils or collage. See what your nonlinear brain has to say.

Use prompts. A battered copy of What If? by Pamela Painter and Anne Bernays sits on my desk. Prompts reacquaint me with discovery.

Over 700 past posts are available in my archives for this newsletter—lots of great tips, interviews, publishing info, and more. The archives are accessible to paid subscribers only, so if you want to join the fun, consider upgrading your subscription! It’s only $45 a year, a bargain for what you get. You’ll also get my monthly Q&A on publishing and writing, “First Sunday.” And I will thank you forever for helping me continue to write this newsletter.

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Shout Out!

A hearty shout out to these writing friends and former students who are publishing their books! I encourage you to pre-order a copy to show your support of fellow writers and our writing community. (If you are a former student and will publish soon (pre-orders of your book are available now), or have in the past two months, email mary[at]marycarrollmoore[dot]com to be included in a future Shout Out!). I’ll share your listing for three months.

Patty Wetterling and Joy Baker, Dear Jacob: A Mother's Journey of Hope (Minnesota Historical Society Press, October release)

Robert Johns, O’Brien’s Broken Play (River Grove Books, October release)

Maren Cooper, Behind the Lies (She Writes Press, November release)

Tammy Dietz, Falling from Disgrace (Cynren Press, November release)

I’m the author of 14 books in 3 genres. My second novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue (Riverbed Press), was published in October 2023. For twelve years, I wrote a weekly food column for the Los Angeles Times syndicate before moving to fiction. My writing-craft book, Your Book Starts Here, won the New Hampshire Literary Awards “People’s Choice” in 2011 and my first novel, Qualities of Light, was nominated for a PEN/Faulkner and a Lambda Literary award in 2009. I’ve written Your Weekly Writing Exercise every Friday since 2008.

Making a Satisfaction List for Your Writing Life/Business

So many wonderful reviews and comments on my newly released novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue, which became a Hot New Release and Amazon bestseller in August from pre-orders alone. Check it out at all online bookstores like bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, and amazon.

Are you subscribed to my new First Sunday newsletter? I address your most gnarly writing and publishing questions. Coming up: Character writing techniques I’ve learned the hard way. November we had an awesome question on rejection and discouragement, and I offered new ways to approach both. Intrigued? You can get First Sunday once a month plus this newsletter each Friday plus access to the 700+ archives, a safe space to ask questions, and my writerly gratitude for helping me continue to write this newsletter for $45 a year. Subscribe below.

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Being an inveterate risk taker, I like to give my all to every venture. I love the freedom to try as many ideas as I can think of. Being a practical person too, after the dust settles I always want to sit back and evaluate what worked and what didn’t.

Maybe you have your ways of evaluating the success of a change in your writing life or business. (By “business,” I’m talking about anything you do to get compensated for your creative time: submitting a piece to lit mags, querying agents, launching a new book, starting a Substack, planning a workshop or class you want to offer.) It applies to the structure beneath your writing life or business, such as revamping your writing practice or setting yourself up with better software or equipment.

When is a good time to risk? Sometimes that’s dictated by external needs: a contest deadline, publication window, something failing (a computer crash). Sometimes it starts with internal longing—you’re sick of your safe creativity and want to try an idea circling around inside. Or you see a window to release a new project you’ve secretly incubated for months or years.

There’s an interesting juxtaposition between the timing of a risk and the practicality of it. Risks require resources of energy, time, money, and passion. I used to just wing it, moving forward on passion alone, and my success rate was about 50 percent. There can be regrets in this approach, but it’s also a thrill. I’d decide to send out a new short story to twenty lit mags, but passion just had me doing minimal research and not considering my bank account for submission fees.

But it’s also OK, and not less creative, to approach risk with some evaluation. How will it impact you on different levels?

Over the years of being a professional (read: paid for what I write), I’ve come to treat my writing life with that practicality. Being savvy to me means evaluating an idea for what it’ll cost on all levels, then testing the idea in a controllable way, repeating what works, and discarding or changing what doesn’t.

My nature is a push-ahead style, so I usually loathe the structure of evaluating ahead of time, but I’ve come to value it because it gives me more satisfaction afterwards. I feel saner, more in control of my creative life, and smart. When I don’t do this, I often lose track of what I’ve flung my energy and resources towards.

I want to show you the evaluation results from my recent year-long publicity campaign for my just released novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue. But as a smaller example, I’ll start with how I evaluated my weekly newsletter, which you are reading now, and how it grew from a few hundred subscribers to around 3000. The risk evaluations I did along the way helped me make good decisions, and create a newsletter that’s starting to pay me for my time and energy, too.

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My satisfaction list for Your Weekly Writing Exercise (this newsletter)

I started writing Your Weekly Writing Exercise in 2008. Students in my classes asked questions—a lot! I needed time to research and answer these. So I published my responses every Friday on Google’s Blogspot.

That first year, the subscriber list grew into the hundreds. I held steady on Blogspot for another five years, since it was free. But when I got to around 1500 subscribers, I knew I needed help managing the subscriptions.

Constant Contact was an email client I’d heard of. It cost about $600 a year but it took care of all the admin. The newsletter was still growing, and I was glad to have help when someone new subscribed or dropped.

When I started out on Blogspot, I promised my subscribers a weekly newsletter. No matter how small my response, I wouldn’t miss a week. I did not guarantee any subject—newsletters ranged from interviews with published writers to links to great resources I’d found to techniques I taught in my classes. It was fun to write, I loved the research, and I heard good feedback from readers. I felt happy to have a place to respond to writing questions students emailed me each week.

The newsletters felt useful, a benefit. A way to pay back all the help I’d received over the years. I didn’t intend to grow it, but grow it did.

After five years on Constant Contact, I felt relief at the admin help but dismay over my bank account—I was losing money with their yearly fees. About $3000 by that point. I didn’t want to stop the newsletter, so I hired design help, created a banner, revamped the layout to include a sidebar about my upcoming classes, publications, awards, and other publicity. I worried about this risk—would my readers feel the newsletter was all promo now? But no. The subscriber list continued to grow. My yearly fee was offset by more class registrations.

The next risk evolved from inside: I wanted to create more of a community. That’s when I migrated my newsletter to Substack. I also wondered if some of my long-time subscribers might be willing to support my efforts, gratis all these years, by the paid subscription Substack offers.

Two risks, as it turned out: a new platform and a move to the paid subscription option, with extra benefits.

Since I moved to Substack in April of this year, my list has grown from around 2200 to almost 3000 subscribers, 73 of which pay me a small free ($45 a year) for the weekly uplift and information. Best of all, I am starting to feel a community here. Other newsletters are recommending Your Weekly Writing Exercise. I give shout out’s to students who are publishing and to writing colleagues who write their own Substacks. It feels generous and authentic.

There were some bumps along the way.

Photo by Tungsten Rising on Unsplash

Not everyone liked the format of Substack. After years of Constant Contact, with its certain layout and type style, a handful of readers objected to Substack’s plainer and smaller fonts. So I did my usual “let it run” and “evaluate.” I took notes.

I always take notes along the way of any venture in my writing business. They are not terribly precise notes—I do write down facts and figures, like the Constant Contact fee, when they bite a hole in my finances or time or energy. When a decision results in family disharmony or sleepless nights, it certainly gets noted. Same with unexpected successes, like the subscriber increase.

Mostly, I evaluate the internal result—how satisfied did I feel with each effort I tried?

Satisfaction with my creative life is a lot more important to me than success in the eyes of the world. I want to feel good about what I’ve done. I want to feel I’ve shown up fully for whatever dream I’m championing. I also want to know that ten years from now, I won’t be harboring regrets.

Satisfaction, for me, is rarely immediate. I try something, I experience a setback, I regroup. I let the project run for a while, because testing validity is never a fast process. I can get a burst of good results but will they last?

Is the energy sustainable? That’s how I achieve longevity with a project.

I’ve been on Substack nine months now. I’ve grown the newsletter by around 300 subscribers. Yes, some have dropped. Some come for a few issues then go. But many email me (I’m still training folks to comment instead) and I am hearing even more good feedback about the weekly topics. I decided this year to share more personally about my own writing journey with my just-published book, and the subscription growth and comments indicate to me that readers are OK with this shift too.

I’m delighted with the community here on Substack. It feels like home.

A bigger project demands more risk—and potentially more satisfaction

Preparing myself for bigger risk was also in the plan this year—launching the new book. I used my satisfaction list again, reviewing other books I’ve published, to see what I could afford to try.

Katherine May (a favorite writer here on Substack) said that’s it’s old-fashioned to believe that we don’t have to self-promote. So a year ago, when I knew my new novel would be published in October 2023, I sat down with my past books and did the risk and review.

I’ve been published by every kind of venue, from agented submissions to major publishing houses to unagented small press to agented indie. Each book has resulted in some successes, some failures, and a certain amount of satisfaction. Some books I am still proud of—no creative regrets. Others, not so much.

I wanted this new book to be 100 percent satisfaction, and I knew I’d need to put energy, time, money, and passion towards it.

When I looked at my past books, I came up with this list of requirements for the new one:

I wanted to take my time with writing, editing, revising, and getting feedback so the book was absolutely the best I could create.

I wanted it to look and feel beautiful, physically.

I wanted plenty of advance reader copies (ARCs) for trade and other reviewers.

I wanted to try pre-orders.

I wanted an audiobook with a fabulous narrator.

I wanted to hire helpers—publicity, for sure, but also coaches to help me understand the publishing world today.

I wanted to try two new publicity avenues: bloggers and podcasts.

I wanted a fantastic launch party to celebrate.

This list came from things I didn’t always get with my other books. Sometimes the publisher wouldn’t spring for an audiobook, for instance. Or the book production would end up being less than what I wanted. Or they’d pay for publicist help but it was more traditional. Or review copies were stingily offered.

In my earlier publishing years, I didn’t have the passion or the ability to push for these things. This time, I would do it. I felt huge satisfaction, imagining this wish list manifesting for my new novel.

This week, I sat down to do my evaluation. It’s been a month today since my book launched on October 24. And another novel is in the works, releasing in April 2024, riding on the momentum. So I am beginning my pre-launch decisions and want to have enough satisfaction in my pocket so decisions for the 2024 release will be even more so.

My hope is that you can pick up ideas, tips, things to avoid, by seeing my list. Maybe it’ll help you risk in ways you may not have naturally tried or step back and evaluate the cost to your resources and whether the risk is worthwhile.

My satisfaction list for A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue

I took my time writing and rewriting. Ten years, yes, but each book takes what it takes. I didn’t try to rush it and I kept steady with my writing practice. The book got my attention 3-5 days a week. At stuck points, I hired editors and coaches. I took online classes from The Loft Literary Center and Grub Street each semester I could. I signed with a hands-on agent about eight years into the project and she helped me see next steps (i.e., I’m not a thriller writer, I need a strong plot, I write characters very well). I took critique from my writer’s group and writing partner. Neither pride nor discouragement stopped me for very long.

I was picky about everything to do with the physical book. At times, I was annoyed at myself for this. I got feedback from trusted friends on the cover design and asked for changes. I read and reread the galleys (typeset proofs) so many times. We faced delays because of my pickiness and worries over that almost caused me to shortcut but I am proud I didn’t. It involved redos, rushed my production team, and overworked me. The team was amazing; they hung in there with me, we created a gorgeous book. An email from a long-time owner of a print shop confirmed this—she went on and on about the stellar page design, cover, page weight. I also pushed to get ARCs early, sent them successfully to the trade and other reviewers, and got three pages of great blurbs. Finally, although we were “late” starting pre-orders (many publishers start 6-8 months out), even with less than two months, pre-orders put my book on Amazon’s bestseller list in three categories.

I researched audiobook production, consulted with friends who run a voiceover company, and auditioned narrators. Two candidates were almost perfect; I held out for perfect and got my wish with narrator Alex Furness on Fiverr.

I hired three publicity helpers—after researching all the options. One was my overall coach (Dan Blank). One was a blogger publicist (Suzanne Leonard). One was a podcast publicist (Michelle Glogovac). This is where most of my money went. But I had saved for it, I wanted to learn, and I am earning it back with book sales. It worked, 100 percent satisfaction.

I made good decisions about how to celebrate the book’s launch. Having two parties was a very meaningful way to celebrate. The in-person launch party at the Loft Literary Center on October 24 was a huge success. It took a lot of work, and I had tons of help as well, but it was completely worth it. To be F2F with friends and writing buddies meant everything to me. The travel was fun but exhausting because we decided to drive in our camper with the two dogs. I didn’t sleep as well as I wanted, because I was nervous about the event. After, I got sick. But it remains a highlight for me. Having a virtual launch as well, so my far-flung community could attend, was a great decision too. Even more people came to that. I wasn’t 100 percent healthy, cough still an issue, but I loved it. I’m glad I decided not to do more in-person events, such a bookstore appearances or book signings. I’d done a LOT of those for other books and I’m still not sure it increased sales or was worth the effort. I focused on my two parties and regular online presence, and that felt like enough.

What didn’t work and I wouldn’t do again

Several fellow writers swore by placing ads on BookBub and Amazon. I had a meh experience with both. My first BookBub ad cost $100, and it generated about 10 preorder sales and 3000 impressions (interest), but the second ad, much less costly, produced almost nothing. I placed two ongoing Amazon ads without knowing much of what I was doing, and neither generated much. I either have a lot to learn about how to do these or I won’t try them again.

Extra satisfaction I didn’t expect

I’m not great on social media and it often saddens or irritates me, but keeping up with posts became very important. I had to select the social media to focus on. Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn each have between 800 and 1000 followers, and I’m comfortable with those communities—each so different. I had a learning curve with LinkedIn, needing to reframe my posts in a business tone, and I had to learn Canva to create enough Instagram images. My goal was to post every day, at least once, on each site. I managed it for Facebook and Instagram and got good responses there. Learning Canva was a great asset. We are such a visual society! I used to know very rudimentary Photoshop techniques but everyone I asked mentioned Canva’s ease. I tried a few images and liked it. I decided to buy the pro version, I taught myself how to make Instagram quote posts first. Then I expanded to review posts, announcements of book milestones, and sharing personal moments in the book journey. I still have much to learn but it helped me keep posting regularly, especially on Instagram.

I loved my launch team of 66 volunteers. I had to decide what to ask them to do in exchange for their advance e-book. I chose reviews. I focused on Goodreads, Amazon, and BookBub reviews. Reasons: Goodreads reviews helped promote my two Goodreads giveaways, which drew almost 13,000 entries. Amazon reviews, although they mostly happened after pub date, are a standby in the industry and gives a book the best chance to reach bestseller ranks. BookBub is relatively new to me but I hope to be selected as a feature, so good reviews were important. The team posted pre-pub on Goodreads and BookBub, then on Amazon after the pub date. Many of them posted on all three sites. I was impressed with participation of the team; almost 60 percent of them stayed involved and followed through with tasks I requested.

Your Weekly Writing Exercise

This exercise is a spin-off from the one in a past newsletter on Doing What You’re Most Scared Of. It’s geared more towards your writing business and being out in the world with your writing, but adapt it in any way that fits you.

This holiday weekend, when the football games are feeling a little dull or visitors are comatose with good food, take yourself away from the crowd (with an extra dessert, perhaps?) and make a satisfaction list.

Consider a current project you’re trying with your writing life/business. Ideas might include:

Revamping your writing practice (improving the place, setting aside more time, upgrading frequency, knowing ahead of time what you will do)

Upgrading equipment (do you need a better laptop, printer, wifi? is your software ancient? would you like to try Scrivener or another program you’ve heard about?)

Starting to submit stories or essays to lit mags or other publications

Querying agents

Upgrading skills (taking classes online or in person, studying privately with a coach or teacher, getting feedback from a writing partner)

Creating better accountability (finding an accountability partner, using a class deadline, joining a group online)

Taking a break (a writing retreat, changing media—trying another art form for refreshment, reading more widely)

Starting a Substack or other publication

Designing a workshop or event or in conversation to share your knowledge

Learning different ways to promote your work and yourself

What lights up for you right now? It may feel risky—that’s often good. Write down 3-5 things about this risk that, if you accepted the challenge, might give you real satisfaction down the road.

Shout Out!

A hearty shout out to these writing friends and former students who are publishing their books! I encourage you to pre-order a copy to show your support of fellow writers and our writing community.

(If you are a former student and will publish soon (pre-orders of your book are available now), or have in the past two months, email mary[at]marycarrollmoore[dot]com to be included in a future Shout Out! I’ll keep your listing here for two months.)

Patty Wetterling and Joy Baker, Dear Jacob: A Mother's Journey of Hope (Minnesota Historical Society Press, October release)

Robert Johns, O’Brien’s Broken Play (River Grove Books, October release)

Maren Cooper, Behind the Lies (She Writes Press, November release)

Tammy Dietz, Falling from Disgrace (Cynren Press, November release)

I’m the author of 14 books in 3 genres, an artist, and a lover of freedom and creativity. My second novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue (Riverbed Press), was published in October 2023 and became an Amazon bestseller and Hot New Release. For twelve years, I worked as a full-time food journalist, most notably through my weekly column for the Los Angeles Times syndicate. My writing-craft book, Your Book Starts Here, won the New Hampshire Literary Awards “People’s Choice” in 2011 and my first novel, Qualities of Light, was nominated for PEN/Faulkner and Lambda Literary awards in 2009. I’ve written Your Weekly Writing Exercise every Friday since 2008.