Mary Carroll Moore's Blog, page 4

Writing as the Ultimate Heart-Healer: Restoring a Sense of Wonder

What’s new in my writing room: My latest novel, Last Bets, was selected for Kirkus Reviews' Top 100 Best Indie Books of the Year! Kirkus reviews thousands of indie books, and less than 1% receive a coveted starred review (which mine did). Of those, only 100 are selected across all genres for the “Best of” list. Kirkus is (to many) the Michelin Guide to industry book reviews. A star is like a Michelin three star award. A Best of is way beyond! I’m humbled, stunned, delighted. Grateful to all who helped me get here.

Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash

Are you writing this week? My guess: Maybe you’re too distracted. My two cents: You absolutely need to write. Because it’s a life-giving force in a time of drought, perhaps.

Sometimes we can’t write when we’re overwhelmed, outraged, or grieving. I know! I’ve been there, but this week, my writing is the most sane and worthwhile occupation I can possibly find. It provides energy as well as wholesome distraction. It reminds me of the goodness.

Some of this comes from soft-focus rather than reactivity. Deep in a story, I go all soft focused about the world, because I’m listening to my creative self more than any other voice. It’s like being half here, half in the fictional landscape I’m creating.

Do you find this?

Writing also forces me to step back and live in a state of wonder. I am inventing ideas. I am wondering about possibilities in a new way. There’s hope inside that. Spring coming, rather than endless winter.

Writing also tempers my often-instant reactions. Instead of having an immediate opinion, outraged or vindicated, I ask questions. I look for the “story behind the story,” as a writing friend puts it. I do this when I’m writing fiction or nonfiction: I try to see behind my characters’ single actions into their larger lives.

State of wonder

If you’ve experienced this kind of curiosity and wonder, it’s almost childlike—you know? Like you’re giving up being the expert and you’re allowing yourself to not know the answer. I find the best writing comes from this state of mind.

Writing is healing to me because it adds this sense of wonder to my life. The act of writing every day—my goal, maybe yours too?—puts me in a place where I’m a learner again. That openness of heart and mind transfers to my outer life as well. As I muse a story and let it fully capture my inner life, in my outer world I find myself going to the same place: wonder first, reaction less.

That’s why I write this newsletter, truthfully. To remind us all to set up our lives so creativity is foremost. Sustain a regular writing practice and it becomes your good medicine.

Setting up wonder

I’m taking care of a close family member who has just gone through surgery. I’ve done this before, years ago, when an aunt was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I felt called to help. So I reworked my working life to allow me to be with her several days a week, at minimum.

Tending post-surgery is not nearly as drastic, but it’s still an effort physically, emotionally, and mentally.

I knew this effort was going to take a lot of my time and energy. I thought how my writing life could help sustain me. I had a suspicion that when the new year rolled in, I would need a solid, sure reminder of goodness and stability. If life was going to get more chaotic, writing would once again bring what I needed.

So I set up a kind of study course that would let me bring in wonder every day, on purpose. I decided to dive into learning again.

I went to my two favorite online writing schools (Grub Street in Boston and The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis). They offer year-long and half-year classes that are application-only. Grub had a five-month course on building and refining a short-story collection, taught by Caroline Belle Stewart, an instructor I like and respect. It would be a cohort of ten writers, maximum, meeting online each week.

I applied last fall and was accepted. The course started in January.

Being a beginner instills wonder

In the writing life, I move from beginner to not. As my books are published, I move into a kind of “expert” role—podcast hosts and interviewers expect the author to know what they’re talking about when asked about their books, right? It’s exhilarating and wearying to publish, as many of you know, and by the end of the two years it took for the last two novels to be published and promoted, I longed for the “beginner” life again. I wanted the wonder that comes with learning.

Before the novels came out, while waiting for my agent to respond, I had signed up for a handful of online “generative fiction” classes where we were all beginners, no matter our publishing experience. My favorite ones focused on short form fiction, like flash.

What a relief! Both to not know anything and to write fun short pieces. Nowhere as easy as I expected, either. I had a lot to learn about flash. The instructors of generative classes are geared to encourage any ideas. I surpassed my own goals and generated 35 story ideas.

My agent takes her time, so I had months to develop many of these ideas. I finished some and submitted to lit magazines, even got ten published. The rest languished as my novels were released and I began promoting. I love my novels; I’m a novelist at heart, because I like to stick with my characters for a good long while. But I often thought of those stories. I missed the refreshment and wonder of the beginner’s life.

When I knew I’d be close to home for a while, taking care of my family member post-surgery, I was thrilled to dive into them again.

Holding questions curates wonder

I came into the class with a lot of questions. How does a writer decide which stories work together and form the collection? Is there always a theme? Do the stories need to be linked? How does a writer know—other than rejections when the stories are sent out—which still need work?

The course is structured around such questions, which I find healing and liberating. Each week, we read a published short-story collection and discuss it. The authors we’re reading come from such varied backgrounds and cultures: Palestinian, Jamaican, Indonesian, and American so far. We talk about the questions above for each book. Some are radical in their structure, almost like prose poems in their form. Some are traditional (beginning-middle-end in a predictable flow).

I know from my own teaching life that great learning is possible from reading and discussing other writers’ work. Each of these collections teaches me a new way of curating my own stories.

Get busy creating

My painting teacher long ago said that she painted every single day to stay out of trouble with herself. Now that my class is encouraging me to get back to daily writing, now that I’ve recovered from the push of publishing and marketing, I find that true for me too. I get in less trouble with myself (read: less worry, less angst, less trauma reaction) because I’m too busy creating.

One of the best questions I’ve begun asking: what am I trying to say with this story? I created an Excel chart with my 35 stories, their word count, their location and a few other details. Then I added a column for what I’m trying to say.

Another way of phrasing this: what’s the message or theme or purpose of this story?

I start to see a pattern when I do this. I can group my stories by their purpose. I found two that have almost identical purposes, so I tried combining them into one. The merge created one of the best stories I’ve written yet.

Another great question: where is the moment of transcendence in the story? An emotional turn, you might call it.

Many of the published authors we’re reading have this. Even if the story is super gritty, there’s a moment when the character moves beyond themselves to see or experience something larger. As I worked with this idea, I noticed the stories I feel are successful have this moment. The ones less so, don’t yet. Ah-ha! I thought. A pathway to follow as I revise.

Finally, I’m staying open to all possibilities. I am playing with magical realism. I’m exploring all kinds of narrative points of view. There are no closed doors in a state of wonder.

Your Weekly Writing Exercise

This week, I wanted to encourage you to reach out and learn something new. To be a beginner again, no matter how experienced you are as a writer. Learning is available to all of us, all the time.

If you’d like some spark of learning this week, here are a few of the most popular posts I published in 2024. Check out one that you missed!

Creating a Sustainable Writing Practice

Organizing Your Writing Life: Practice versus Perfect

Organizing Your Writing Life: Tools

Celebrating Yourself and Your Creativity

Three Favorite Techniques to Foster Meandering

Renegotiate Your Agreement with Time

How to Get Your Characters to Reveal More

Shout Out!

A hearty shout out to these writing friends and former students who are publishing their books! I encourage you to pre-order or 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.)

Morgan Baylog Finn, The Gathering: Poems (Finishing Line Press), November release

Ed Orzechowski, Becoming Darlene: The Story of Belchertown Patient #4952 (Levellers Press), November release

Mary Beth Spray, Imprint: A Woman’s Journey from Trauma to Freedom (Beaver’s Pond Press), December 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 15 books in 3 genres. My third novel, Last Bets (Riverbed Press), was published in April, after becoming an Amazon bestseller during pre-orders. My second novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue (Riverbed Press), was published in October 2023 also and became an Amazon bestseller and Hot New Release from pre-orders. 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.

The Power of "Just Start"

What’s new in my writing room: My latest novel, Last Bets, was selected in December for Kirkus Reviews' Top 100 Best Indie Books of the Year! Kirkus reviews thousands of indie books, and less than 1% receive a coveted starred review (which mine did). Of those, only 100 are selected across all genres for the “Best of” list. Kirkus is (to many) the Michelin Guide to industry book reviews. A star is like a Michelin three star award. A Best of is way beyond! I’m humbled, stunned, delighted. Grateful to all who helped me get here.

Photo by Taylor Kidd on Unsplash

Imagine your writing life as your best friend, your closest love. How do you romance it?

A few years ago, I remember workshopping a “final” version of a novel revision. I hoped the manuscript was ready to send to my agent, at last. I sought the feedback from a small group of beta readers, other published writers that I was lucky to know and exchange writing with.

My beta readers took time to really think about the story’s complicated structure, which moved between narrators and time.

I asked them some questions:

Where did they fall into the "dream" of the book?

Where did they fall out, get distracted or confused?

When the feedback came in, I was disappointed to hear the manuscript still had things to fix. It wasn’t ready for the agent, after all. So I gathered the pages of notes and made a master list of areas to look at more closely. Where I hadn't quite delivered what I wanted.

Of course, with feedback, especially feedback in quantity, there are some rules to keep your sanity. Extreme likes or dislikes are suspect. Opposing views cancel each other out. You look for repeating comments. What many people noticed is often worth your notice. And I was feedback savvy, since this novel was my fourteenth book.

But still, it was hard to hear. For me, feedback is rarely a YES! feeling. It’s more like a big sigh, then time to reflect, and most often acceptance.

The danger is: in the process I can fall out of love with my story.

Falling In, Falling Out

It’s a day of love, Valentine’s Day, today. I'm telling you this story because (1) you may have fallen in and out of love with your writing too. You might believe that experienced, published writers don't go through this relationship challenge with their art. They do, we do. It's normal. Ego gets slammed, no matter how gentle the comments, how right-on the suggestions.

My first reaction: It's not perfect? Really? My agent is waiting and I’m late!! You say this to yourself, never to anyone else; you wouldn't be that foolish. But doubt can haunt you for a while, like finding out something really bad about a person you love dearly.

What do you do with this new knowledge, this new way of seeing them? Do you say, "Get lost," and move on? Because you know it's going to take some work to get the love back.

It took me about five weeks. The printed-out comments and the manuscript itself languished on my office shelf. I got busy with teaching, four new online classes and an all-day workshop in Boston. I started reading more--three books I loved, in different genres. I painted a bedroom wall sunshine yellow. I handwrote a few letters to friends (I still do that). I made soup. I didn't worry about the manuscript sitting and waiting for my verdict.

How much do you trust yourself?

Well, yes, I did worry a little. I thought about it sometimes and felt a rush of anxiety. What if I never touched it again? What if I just stopped writing, forgot I am a writer?

Beyond the worry was trust. As I said, I've been here before. I know the ego needs a while to lick its wounds, to settle down. My perspective needs to realign. I need to fall in love with my story again--and that can't happen when I am only looking at its warts.

Looking for something to read one evening, I rummaged through my writing books and found Dani Shapiro's Still Writing. It's about how to keep going, something I usually don’t need. But tonight, in the slump of a bad manuscript affair, I did.

Just start, it said. Get back into it, one sentence at a time.

I fell asleep, thinking about the process of just starting. The next day, a change had kicked in. I was cleaning out some old teaching files and came across a writing exercise I loved—and although I don't remember where it came from, whose class I learned it from, please let me know if you know (see below)!

Along with the exercise were my own notes and a free write I’d done years ago, when I first began writing this novel I was now struggling to finish. No big surprise, the free write was about the very section I’d just received so much feedback about.

I'd taken the exercise prompts and created backstory about one of the characters. As I read the rough writing again, I fell in love! I love this character, she’s one of my all-time favorites, ever. She is cranky, fearful, talented, and a badass.

My family went off to their jobs and school. I opened the manuscript on my laptop and began to read a couple of chapters. Not half bad, I thought, getting interested again. I took a deep breath and turned to the feedback. Struck gold! An idea came, how to solve one of the questions. I began to type.

I looked up two hours later. The house was still silent, just me and the furnace clicking away. But my book was my dear friend again. I’d fallen back in love.

You can fix things with love

I’m no psychologist but I have witnessed, in my own life, that things fix better when there’s some love, affection, even neutrality. Versus dislike, avoidance, hate. Consider your book relationship like your people relationships. Sure, you can get tired of each other. You can even discover nasty stuff. But if there’s love, you can come back to an agreement: You're in this for the long haul.

Try the exercise that saved my book. Celebrate Valentine's Day with your writing, if you wish.

Your Weekly Writing Exercise

Choose a character or narrator in your current writing project, someone you'd like to get to know in a new way. Spend no more than five minutes freewriting on each of these prompts. Take them in order. Set a timer--it's easy to go over the five-minute limit, but the game is not to.

Prompts
1. Legacy
2. Totem
3. Sustenance
4. First criticism
5. Listening in
6. Self-criticism
7. Fantasies
8. Reprise

There's no right way to do this, no explanation of what any of these prompts mean. What do they mean to you? Where do they send your writing?

Have fun!

Shout Out!

A hearty shout out to these writing friends and former students who are publishing their books! I encourage you to pre-order or 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.)

Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew, The Release: Creativity and Freedom after the Writing Is Done (Skinner House), October release

Robert Johns, The Fighters: A Trilogy (River Grove Books), October release

Morgan Baylog Finn, The Gathering: Poems (Finishing Line Press), November release

Ed Orzechowski, Becoming Darlene: The Story of Belchertown Patient #4952 (Levellers Press), November release

Mary Beth Spray, Imprint: A Woman’s Journey from Trauma to Freedom (Beaver’s Pond Press), December 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 15 books in 3 genres. My third novel, Last Bets (Riverbed Press), was published in April, after becoming an Amazon bestseller during pre-orders. My second novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue (Riverbed Press), was published in October 2023 also and became an Amazon bestseller and Hot New Release from pre-orders. 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.

A Letter to the Inner Critic

What’s new in my writing room: My latest novel, Last Bets, was selected in December for Kirkus Reviews' Top 100 Best Indie Books of the Year! Kirkus reviews thousands of indie books, and less than 1% receive a coveted starred review (which mine did). Of those, only 100 are selected across all genres for the “Best of” list. Kirkus is (to many) the Michelin Guide to industry book reviews. A star is like a Michelin three star award. A Best of is way beyond! I’m humbled, stunned, delighted. Grateful to all who helped me get here.

Photo by Dulcey Lima on Unsplash

Everyone faces the Inner Critic, no matter how experienced they are. Professional writers, even those who have published widely and won awards, even give it names. Sue Grafton calls hers "the ego," the part that's always concerned with "how are we doing?" Some Inner Critics are funny, joking with you inside your head about taking it all so seriously. Most are discouraging, even menacing.

But rarely is this inner voice truthful--its job is to sabotage our efforts to make art, to do our writing.

Some writers tame the voice with alcohol or drugs or other medicating behaviors. You've read about all those famous writers who couldn't write--or even function in their lives--otherwise. But it's not the only way.

Getting acquainted

Believe it or not, each of us has a negotiated contract with our Inner Critics. We aren't the victims of these voices.

We developed them on purpose, as a kind of gatekeeper to protect the most tender, creative parts of ourselves. If we grew up in an environment dangerous to creativity, the Inner Critic will be a real warrior by the time we're adults. The contract has been in place for so many years, it's hard to believe we have any control over it.

Most writers, when first becoming aware of the Inner Critic, choose to fight it instead of re-negotiating the contract. Common wisdom suggests that a fight makes sense--using any means we can. But in my experience that often turns into a never-ending battle.

Taking time away from our writing.

The way that's worked for me is this: Get to know your Critic and make it an ally, not an enemy.

Ally, not enemy

Get to know the signs of the Inner Critic's influence. For me, when I begin to think about how something will sound to others, versus how it sounds to me, the Inner Critic is getting agitated. It can be both strong and sneaky. And it can appear in different guises at different stages of the writing process.

For instance, when you explore and plan your book, the Inner Critic might tell you that you don’t have a good enough idea. It will rumble in the background, causing doubt that your ideas are serious enough or good enough.

If you get passed that, begin to write your book and form your islands or chapters, the Inner Critic can try to convince you that you need feedback from your best friend or partner--right now! Get encouragement, ask them if the draft is worth continuing. This, of course, is a not-so-subtle sabotage attempt, made real when your friend asks about missing commas, and you remember you are lousy at grammar so why bother writing at all?

It can sneak in as you revise, too. Maybe you're trying to gear up your book's inner story, its theme, or the pacing, those essential fine-tuning steps each book writer must implement. The Inner Critic will tell you to focus on marketing now instead--get that query letter written. Or it will even tell you to edit out the juicy parts because all your relatives will shun you when they read them.

It really rears its head as you try to sell your book. In full battle mode, the Inner Critic can keep you awake at night with nightmares about rejection letters and the award your writing friend just won--and how you don't have a chance.

So, first get to know it. Then you can begin to look past its irritating qualities into what it's really there to do--for you.

Inner Critic as gatekeeper

For most of my writing life, I fought the Inner Critic as an enemy. It was only when I was writing my second self-help/memoir that I realized the Inner Critic's benign efforts to protect me. I'll share this story, from my book Your Book Starts Here, to illustrate the gatekeeper aspect of this inner voice.

I was writing an essay about a business bankruptcy. It happened during the 1980s recession, and it was a terrible time in my life. Yet I knew I wanted to write about it, since I'd learned so much from the fires of that experience and I felt others might too.

As I wrote, the Inner Critic began flooding me with feelings of shame about the failure I still felt. I noticed I was writing more slowly, even reluctantly, as the voice inside my head got louder.

“Why bring up this all over again?” it argued. “Totally in the past, not helpful to anyone else. Let it be.”

I persisted, angry at its interference.

Suddenly I had to run to the bathroom. I was very ill, vomiting and dizzy.

As I lay on the bathroom floor, the cold tiles against my face, I wondered if this was the work of the Inner Critic. Had it escalated the sensation of shame so strongly, that it turned into a physical reaction?

After a while, I came back to my desk. I was shaken. How could I keep writing if I was going to make myself sick? I wanted to help others with my experience. How could I do this if I couldn’t get past my own Inner Critic?

I took a break. I located my writing notebook under the manuscript pages and began writing about being literally sick with shame.

As I wrote, I got the idea to start a “treaty” letter to this gatekeeper-as-Inner-Critic, thanking it for its help in keeping me safe all these years. I wrote about how I appreciated its role. I wrote how I understood why it brought caution to my writing life because it had my best interests at heart.

With each sentence, I felt a lessening of tension in my gut, a softening in my heart. No longer waged in battle, I was able to see my Inner Critic in a new way.

Then I re-negotiated my contract.

Renegotiating your contract

I asked the Critic to kindly to step aside, to let me write this story, explaining why I needed to write it and reassuring the Critic that this story didn’t have to get shared—ever. I just needed to get it on paper.

When the letter was finished, I closed my notebook and went back to my desk. The story flowed out better than I could’ve imagined and the Inner Critic was noticeably calmer the rest of that writing session.

I realized a truth here: my Inner Critic only wanted to protect me from the shame of fame. It didn’t want people looking at me in a different way because I told about a business failure many years before. By collaborating with this gate-keeping voice, instead of rejecting its help, I was able to proceed.

When I finally published this story, I got more reader response from it than any other I’d written to date. My intuition was right—people needed to hear about self-forgiveness for big mistakes.

Your Weekly Writing Exercise

1. Describe your Inner Critic. What does it sound like? Can you picture it? Does it remind you of someone in your past?

2. Now ask the Inner Critic what it’s contributing to your life. Listen inside for anything that might come, even small things it does for you. How does it keep you safe? How does it keep you connected to others? How does it keep you responsible? How does it make you feel intelligent? How does it bring you respect of peers?

3. Finally, thank it for its help in these areas. If more comes to mind as you write, add your gratitude about those.

4. To close the exercise, write a request to the Inner Critic: ask it to step aside for a week. Re-negotiate your contract. Tell it you’ll be exploring a new avenue in your writing and you feel you need freedom. Ask for its help in letting you try it.

If you'd like, mark on your calendar to follow up in a week. After one week, spend five minutes freewriting about any changes you’ve noticed. Are there fewer blocks in your creative process? Is your writing any different? Do you experience less negative self-talk?

Shout Out!

A hearty shout out to these writing friends and former students who are publishing their books! I encourage you to pre-order or 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.)

Morgan Baylog Finn, The Gathering: Poems (Finishing Line Press), November release

Ed Orzechowski, Becoming Darlene: The Story of Belchertown Patient #4952 (Levellers Press), November release

Mary Beth Spray, Imprint: A Woman’s Journey from Trauma to Freedom (Beaver’s Pond Press), December 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 15 books in 3 genres. My third novel, Last Bets (Riverbed Press), was published in April, after becoming an Amazon bestseller during pre-orders. My second novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue (Riverbed Press), was published in October 2023 also and became an Amazon bestseller and Hot New Release from pre-orders. 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: Process versus Product--Chart a More Balanced Course in Your Writing Life

What’s new in my writing room: My latest novel, Last Bets, was selected this month for Kirkus Reviews' Top 100 Best Indie Books of the Year! Kirkus reviews thousands of indie books, and less than 1% receive a coveted starred review (which mine did). Of those, only 100 are selected across all genres for the “Best of” list. Kirkus is (to many) the Michelin Guide to industry book reviews. A star is like a Michelin three star award. A Best of is way beyond! I’m humbled, stunned, delighted. Grateful to all who helped me get here.

Photo by Alexander Milo on Unsplash

Q: My dream is to be a published writer. It's been a long time that I've been away from that dream. I'm recommitting to the journey now. The first resource that I turned to was you and your book, Your Book Starts Here.

I'm organized, I have my writing space, my ideas, my commitment. I've signed up for this newsletter, Your Weekly Writing Exercise. I've signed up for an on-line workshop.

What would your guidance be to move forward? I appreciate any direction that you may have.

A: Publishing is a business. Writing is an art form. To get published, I believe you have to approach both aspects and do them well.

In other words, you have to know how to become a skilled writer (read a lot to learn your genre, get skills via classes and study, practice those skills, get feedback and learn how to use it, learn the process of putting together a book).

But you also have to know how to navigate the business side of publishing (how to tell when your writing is ready to submit, learning how to do the often complicated job of submitting it, how to handle rejection, how to work smartly with a publisher or agent if you get one, and how to market your book).

When an artist decides to move from just creating the art to wanting to be recognized for it, it’s all about embracing these two arenas. In the writing world, recognition is what readers give you—the act of someone reading your work and loving it, even finding it life-changing. But it takes work and educating yourself on the steps.

What I call the process and the product of the writing life.

The goal is to end up satisfied. To feel joy about what you’ve created. But only you can decide what that looks like, what’s enough for you, what you have the ability to work for.

My publication journey of baby steps

For most writers, the desire to publish starts with a longing, a mission, even, to share what you’re creating. Mine happened when I was nineteen. I’d been a visual artist all my life. But I’d lived in France for a year and began to write little stories with recipes of my experiences learning French cooking.

I thought they were fun to read and the recipes really pleased me. So I decided I wanted to share them. I had zero idea of how to do this.

I lived in Sedona, Arizona. It was the mid-seventies, and Sedona was far from the tourist spot it was to become. I worked as a cook on a ranch out on a red dirt road, and I taught French cooking classes in my little kitchen after hours.

One day, I met the editor of a magazine called Sedona Life. We chatted about what I did, and she asked if I’d ever be interested in writing a monthly cooking column for the magazine. I think the pay was something like $25 a month. Just enough to pay for my ingredients when I tested the recipes for the column.

When I dreamed of being published, I had never imagined this as the vehicle. I liked the magazine well enough, I liked the town and the people who’d be reading. But in my innocence as a new writer, I’d imagined publishing would be bigger, with more glory.

Of course, I was smart enough to say yes, though, and put aside my pipe dreams, realize the editor was offering me a step towards my dream. That publishing was a journey, not a destination, as I imagined. The journey would be composed of steps of opportunity, and here was one.

She helped me a lot. I think I wrote my column for the year I lived in Sedona, maybe a few months beyond. The editor taught me how to hone my little stories about French cooking for the Arizona desert readers. More people came to my cooking classes, which helped me pay my rent. I loved experimenting with recipes, and I loved writing.

So it all worked out.

The next step follows

From that monthly column came my writing career. The next gig was a larger magazine, Vegetarian Times. They asked me to write a monthly column for them, an even bigger step. My byline in print nationally.

Eventually, I was published in twenty or so national publications, including the big ones like Food & Wine. From that came a weekly syndicated column in 86 newspapers via the Los Angeles Times. Cookbooks followed. (At last, I thought, a book!) Some of those books were bestsellers for their publisher, one won a big award. I earned good money as a writer now.

But do you see the point of this? It was far from a fairytale. It was a lot of very small steps, good fortune, and hard work. I queried these magazines, these publishers. I got an agent. I worked for all of it.

If you’re just starting out, I think it’s hard to think in baby steps. Most new writers hope for a big break, something magical. What it really is about is working hard at the writing, reading a lot in your genre, getting feedback from other writers and editors, researching publications or publishers, and submitting your work.

Also: holding your dream clearly inside, allowing that you don’t actually know the steps ahead but being willing to be alert to them.

Why do you want to get published?

Why do you want to get published?

Are you willing to go through what it takes to get published?

And what does “being a published writer” exactly mean to you?

There are so many degrees of “being published” now, so many avenues that writers use to get their work to readers.

Start by examining your desire to be published. Mine originated with that little thought: I have something cool to share, it might help others.

You may want to make a living from your writing. That will take a certain amount of work and stamina. You may want to feel as if you’ve achieved something worthwhile. That’s a different amount. But access the core reason, because a strong enough dream will hold you steady when the journey gets challenging, as it will.

And it has to be your dream, not someone else’s. Yes, sometimes writers succeed by doing it for someone else—like to finally prove to a parent that they’re smart enough. But it works better, with less soul-sucking, if it’s your reason alone.

If I’d had the dream of being published for fame or for making my living solely from my writing, I would have taken completely different steps to get there. Mine was a small dream, but just the right size for me.

It moved my dream life, as a writer, into astonishing new directions I couldn’t have predicted.

Product versus process

So let’s talk more specifically about the product versus the process of the writing life, if publication is part of your goal.

You keep the product (the end result, the book you’ll hold in your hand, the poem in a magazine that you show to friends, the online publication you’re proud of) in your heart and mind as you work towards it. But you are actually first involved in the process to get skills and educate yourself. And as you get educated and skilled, how the product looks to you may change.

This month, I heard from four students who recently published. Their journeys and their end product are vastly different.

A man wrote a history of his family’s immigration from Eastern Europe, printed enough copies to give family members for Christmas, and felt very proud of this lifelong dream.

A woman took her memoir manuscript through a decade of classes, private editing, feedback, and reworking. She applied to a hybrid publisher and was accepted. Her published memoir fulfilled her publishing goal.

A writing duo was accepted by a small press for publication of their young adult mystery. They enjoy working with this small press and are very pleased with the result.

A woman was signed by the umpteenth agent she queried. She just got a contract with a Big Five publisher for her novel.

For each writer, what it meant to “be published” was very different, yet each was satisfied by a dream come true. No avenue was more satisfying than another.

Questions to ask yourself

Before you can chart your course and decide what steps will be next, you need to clarify what “being published” means to you. It’s a wonderful time for writers now: publication can mean anything from stories as a game of cards to an audio only book.

For anyone who wants to be published, I put together a post last month about the process of writing, disguised as a checklist for revision. You can read it here. It’ll give you a clearer idea of the process.

For both product and process towards publication, here are the steps I’d recommend:

Journal about what it means to you, to be a published writer. What does it look like? What would satisfy you, within your own abilities?

Study up. Take classes, study the craft. Like learning anything (think: playing the violin!) you need to gain skills. Just because we grow up writing, doesn’t mean we have publication-worthy skills as a writer. That’d be like saying you’re a skilled professional speaker just because you can talk.

Get feedback. You need other eyes on your writing, when you’re ready, to gauge how your skills have grown. Join a writer’s group or a class that offers feedback. Hire a coach or editor.

Read a lot in your genre. Get educated with what other writers are producing. Find out what you love and how close your own writing is.

Continually check back with your original goal of being published. As you educate yourself and gain skills, you’ll need to revisit it and see if it’s still what you want to work towards.

When you’re ready, start learning about the publishing industry. I recommend Jane Friedman’s book, The Business of Being a Writer, for a clear and succinct overview. Again, use the information to revisit your goal and revise as needed.

You can do it. Being published requires a strong dream, enough skills, and the stamina to stay the course. Many writers who started off feeling they didn’t have the talent to be published, were able to get there from these qualities instead.

I’d love to hear your thoughts, what you might try from this, what you’ve learned in your own writing life.

Leave a comment

“First Sunday” Q&A is where we dissect and discuss your most gnarly writing and publishing questions. You can send them to me via message on Substack or to my email at mary@marycarrollmoore.com. Your subscription supports me continuing to write my free newsletter each Friday since 2008. I’m grateful!

How to Find and Work with an Accountability Partner

What’s new in my writing room: My latest novel, Last Bets, was selected this month for Kirkus Reviews' Top 100 Best Indie Books of the Year! Kirkus reviews thousands of indie books, and less than 1% receive a coveted starred review (which mine did). Of those, only 100 are selected across all genres for the “Best of” list. Kirkus is (to many) the Michelin Guide to industry book reviews. A star is like a Michelin three star award. A Best of is way beyond! I’m humbled, stunned, delighted. Grateful to all who helped me get here.

Photo by Isaac Wendland on Unsplash

Quite a few years ago, I took an online class with the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. I had taken a lot of online writing classes around that time, even before the pandemic, because it was hard to travel to in-person ones in my area. I liked FAWC and I especially loved the class I took that year—because I met my accountability partner there.

I don’t remember too much specifically about the class topic or the instructor. But we were in small feedback groups, and I totally lucked out with my classmates.

I was working on the very early beginnings of what would become my third novel. One of my feedback partners was a sailor, and since the story was about an island, she was able to give me great suggestions for making the sailing scenes more accurate.

I also loved the insights shared by the other writer in my small group.

We liked each others’ comments enough to keep going privately after class ended. I think we continued sharing work for at least six months, each sending an excerpt each month. I’m hazy on the details from so long ago, but there was some structure of exchange that worked for each of us. And the accountability was almost more valuable than the actual feedback.

Our trio hummed along for a while, but eventually one of the writers lost momentum. Maybe it was job challenges or something happening in home life, but soon it was only two of us exchanging. I kept fingers crossed that she would stick with me. We were both serious about publishing, we both wrote steadily, and we both read deeply, so the comments were beyond surface level.

We’ve been writing partners now for two novels, one novella, and several short stories (her) and two novels and several short stories (me).

Although we exchange writing and give feedback, I most value her for accountability. She’s my first successful experience with a long-time partner who keeps me on track with my writing goals.

She is not judgmental. She celebrates my wins and helps me grieve losses. She is always excited about what I’m working on and gives me ongoing encouragement.

Developing a writing partnership

Accountability partners come in all levels of commitment, frequency and type of interaction, and what each offers the other. I have what I consider an ideal relationship with my writing partner, but it took time and work to get there.

At first, we were like traditional writing group members. We exchanged writing for feedback. Eventually, it evolved into more. Sometimes, as in the past year when I’ve mostly been promoting my recent novel, I pause in sending her work. But I still respond to her writing as often as she wants to send it. Other years, this has flipped, and she’s read more for me. We maintain a generous spirit about what we are willing to give, within constraints of our lives.

What I appreciate most is our regular touch-ins with each other. What are you working on now? What’s new in your writing life? What goals do you have, that I can help you with?

Types of accountability partners

An accountability partner’s role in your writing life is to support you with regular checkins. Someone cares. You can ask questions, run ideas by your partner, grieve your rejections. Offer and give feedback. But most of all, the goal of an accountability partner is to keep you working steadily.

The point is to become accountable. The idea is to have someone out there who cares if you are. It’s very morale boosting, and I’ve found it keeps me going through the slog of writing, especially with a long project like a book manuscript.

The best accountability partner is also nonjudgmental. Yet they are able to kindly call you on any slippage. In other words, they’ll hear you when you haven’t done anything and they’ll understand, but they’ll also care enough to help you get back on track.

Checkins can be simply a text, email, or phone call sharing what you did that week towards your writing goals and what you plan for the next week. For instance, “This week I wrote XX words” or “I didn’t meet my goal of ten revised pages but I did some amazing research and discovered XX.”

Accountability partner or writing group?

What’s your primary need right now, in this new year of writing? Are you ready for feedback or do you mostly want to keep butt in chair and get some pages done?

When I taught weeklong writing retreats, writers often wanted to continue working together after the retreat ended. We talked about what each person most needed. Many gained such momentum from the retreat that they wanted regular critique of pages. These writers formed groups with regular meetings, an exchange of writing, and feedback.

Writing groups are huge in my own writing life; I’ve belonged to many, and I couldn’t produce as regularly without the one I’m in now. But groups have a challenge inherent in their structure: they often require similarity in experience and type of project for long-term health.

Why? When there’s unevenness in individual goals or publishing experience, feedback might vary wildly. Newer writers may not know how to critique a piece close to publication. It takes time to learn this art. There may be jealousy if one group member gets an agent or publishes. Or when a new author’s immediate interest turns to promotion rather than writing, the need for a group dissolves for six months to a year. When a relationship pivots around feedback and a writer stops writing, what reason is there to stay together?

When this has happened in my group of four, we ride it out successfully because everyone still gives feedback. And we know from experience that the “missing” group member will return with a new project, because we are all serious about our work.

Accountability partners experience very little of this unevenness. We’re just after regular accountability and our goals can move around without disturbing the structure of the exchange. Even when one partner publishes and moves on to marketing for a while, support can still continue.

A writing career flexes. There are always ebbs and flows around publishing. I love how my partner and I have managed these flows without losing each other.

How to find your own

It takes trial and time to find a good accountability partner, but it’s so worth it. Fastest way? Join a group in a class or elsewhere. Meet other writers online. Reach out to someone in your current writing group to see if they might be interested. If you are both working on deadline to finish or continue a current manuscript, it can help enormously.

I hear lots of successful stories about how accountability partners get it each to publication. Two writers from one of my weeklong retreats joined up and worked as accountability partners for a year. Because of this, one was able to finish and publish her second novel, the other finish her memoir.

If you’re considering an accountability partner, here are good questions to ask:

How often will you check in with each other? I find that weekly is the best to keep momentum.

How will you check in? Text or email? A short phone or Zoom call?

What projects will you be working on? Interestingly, it’s less important in accountability partners to have the same type of goals. One can be working on research, for instance, and the other in cranking out pages. All that really matters is the regularity of the checkins.

How will you each handle it if the other person takes a pause? Will the continuing writer be able to keep the partnership going?

Your Weekly Writing Exercise

Think about the benefits to you, in this new year of writing, in having an accountability partner. If it feels right, reach out to someone this week and start the conversation.

Check out these interesting articles about the process:

Columbia’s Writing Studio

Prolific Writers Life

Reddit

Shout Out!

A hearty shout out to these writing friends and former students who are publishing their books! I encourage you to pre-order or 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.)

Megan Lindhal Goodrich, Beyond Terminal: Processing Childhood Trauma to Reclaim Self (Wise Ink), September release

Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew, The Release: Creativity and Freedom after the Writing Is Done (Skinner House), October release

Robert Johns, The Fighters: A Trilogy (River Grove Books), October release

Morgan Baylog Finn, The Gathering: Poems (Finishing Line Press), November release

Ed Orzechowski, Becoming Darlene: The Story of Belchertown Patient #4952 (Levellers Press), November release

Mary Beth Spray, Imprint: A Woman’s Journey from Trauma to Freedom (Beaver’s Pond Press), December 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 15 books in 3 genres. My third novel, Last Bets (Riverbed Press), was published in April, after becoming an Amazon bestseller during pre-orders. My second novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue (Riverbed Press), was published in October 2023 also and became an Amazon bestseller and Hot New Release from pre-orders. 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.

Surprising Benefits of an Annual Journal Review

What’s new in my writing room: My latest novel, Last Bets, was selected this month for Kirkus Reviews' Top 100 Best Indie Books of the Year! Kirkus reviews thousands of indie books, and less than 1% receive a coveted starred review (which mine did). Of those, only 100 are selected across all genres for the “Best of” list. Kirkus is (to many) the Michelin Guide to industry book reviews. A star is like a Michelin three star award. A Best of is way beyond! I’m humbled, stunned, delighted. Grateful to all who helped me get here.

A selection of my journals from this past year—some with collaged covers!

Journaling is how I start my every day as a writer. Rarely do I miss it. In these dark winter days, I get up before the rest of the household, make myself hot water with lemon or some tea, and get settled in my very comfy armchair in front of the fire. The house is completely silent. Dogs and family are still asleep. I know I have an hour to myself, and it’s the most precious time of my day.

My journal open on my lap, I begin writing. Usually I have to clear out what happened the day before, the concerns I have in the moment, what I have planned for that day. I write about three pages, stream of consciousness, no editing. Sometimes I stop to doodle or make a margin note. If I feel really “time luxurious,” I’ll grab my cloth bag of colored pencils and use those too.

I’ve journaled since I was eighteen. My first journal is a rather embarrassing record of my life the first year of college. I still have it. I keep it as a memory but I don’t need to include it in my annual review.

Review list

Every January, I also do a review. I read through my completed journals from the past year. Sometimes I skim but often I read each page. For me, this is hugely instructive. I find wishes I’ve forgotten. Achievements and realizations I haven’t celebrated enough. Sorrows I’m still living and need to continue to acknowledge.

My journals include quotes from what I’m reading, seeing, hearing. Nature notes for the seasons. Sketches of my dogs sleeping. I get to touch in with these again. It takes time, but it’s worth it. Totally.

For my writing life, I also scan for a few important things:

What patterns repeat over the months—what narrative have I been living this past year and how does this feed my writing?

Did my goals come true in the way I imagined—writing and other creative goals?

What am I still longing for that hasn’t yet come about—especially in my creative life?

Writing ideas—these are often sprinkled throughout, oddly, but I collect them during my review.

Pages that show these—or other useful things—are dog-eared or sticky noted to tear out when I do a reluctant weed and toss every few years.

What else?

Writing is not the only arena explored in my journals, obviously. They are rich with ordinary life stuff. There are clues everywhere, so I also note:

Dreams that feel important for my life, metaphorical clues

Inner experiences, like premonitions

Thoughts of people I want to reach out to

Unsolved problems that need a new approach (sometimes these appear in the patterns too)

In a 150 page journal, I might dog-ear twenty pages. Not that much. Most of my journaling is just blah blah release of thoughts and tension, worries that get solved on their own, stuff not worthy of rereading or saving. I’ve been enamored of Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages exercise (from The Artist’s Way) since it was first published in 1992, and it gave me huge permission to download whatever I needed in my daily journal. Nothing feels too precious to write down, not anymore.

Overview of my creative life

The annual review gives me a super valuable overview of my creative life. I like doing it in January, because of the New Year’s energy, the goal review and reset that typically happens now. Until I reread my journals, I don’t have a sense of real completion of the past year.

Often, I’ll note the learnings in my current journal, so I can study them and think about what’s next. This helps me get real about goals, too. If something was longed for in the past year but didn’t manifest naturally, do I want to pursue it now?

The emotions, memories, thoughts about this goal are laid out in the past year’s journals. I can evaluate that fully before I commit my new year’s energy.

Reviewing takes time. I dedicate this time, because I’ve found it so useful. I take it in small bites, though. Usually it sucks up a few focused hours, but it’s overall a very pleasant task. Especially in front of the winter fire.

When the reading of my thoughts makes me a little tired of myself, I take a break. Or skim! My eye is now trained, from all the years of annual journal review, to catch the gems I want to keep.

Weeding the collection . . . eventually

The collection of all these years fills an entire bookcase. Or more. I’m generating about six or seven new journals every twelve months, and I’ve been running out of space for a while.

So every few years, I set aside serious time to weed and toss. I’ve already dog-eared what I want to keep, and I tear or cut out those pages to keep as good ideas or reminders. The rest, I force myself to toss. It’s hard. I always wonder if there’s some snippet I’ll desperately want to refer back to.

But so far, that’s not happened. I’m just glad to get rid of the history that’s nothing much more than my worries of the time on the page.

When I’ve torn or cut out the sections of my past journals that I want to keep, I sort them into piles. Some are dreams or goals or visionary writings (to me, this just means ideas that are future plans or things I see for myself) and these get put into a basket to review again, because they are still fertile for my life now. There are writing thoughts, character sketches, ideas for another book or story which I gather into my current writing notebook (and when that gets too cumbersome, into a plastic tie-front folder). Other stuff—quotes I love and want to remember, memories to cherish, ideas to consider, resolutions from a challenge I have passed through and learned from—get sorted into my current journal or another folder.

All in all, I reduce the stack of old journals on one shelf by about a third each time. If you do the math, considering the number I add each year, I am just keeping up. But that’s OK.

The process of journaling is worth it, totally, and the process of review is worth it as well.

Your Weekly Writing Exercise

I hope, as a serious writer, you journal. It helps clear the mind for creative impulses, or so I’ve found.

And if you’re like me and did journal this past year, consider setting aside an afternoon one weekend for a read and review session. You can mark important pages with sticky notes or dog-eared corners. You might want to note some of them in your current journal, as a year-end assessment.

And I’d be very interested to know . . .

What kind of journals you like best?

What gift does journaling give your life and your writing?

Leave a comment

Shout Out!

A hearty shout out to these writing friends and former students who are publishing their books! I encourage you to pre-order or 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.)

Megan Lindhal Goodrich, Beyond Terminal: Processing Childhood Trauma to Reclaim Self (Wise Ink), September release

Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew, The Release: Creativity and Freedom after the Writing Is Done (Skinner House), October release

Robert Johns, The Fighters: A Trilogy (River Grove Books), October release

Morgan Baylog Finn, The Gathering: Poems (Finishing Line Press), November release

Ed Orzechowski, Becoming Darlene: The Story of Belchertown Patient #4952 (Levellers Press), November release

Mary Beth Spray, Imprint: A Woman’s Journey from Trauma to Freedom (Beaver’s Pond Press), December 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 15 books in 3 genres. My third novel, Last Bets (Riverbed Press), was published in April, after becoming an Amazon bestseller during pre-orders. My second novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue (Riverbed Press), was published in October 2023 also and became an Amazon bestseller and Hot New Release from pre-orders. 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.

A Different Way to Work with Writing Goals

What’s new in my writing room: My latest novel, Last Bets, was selected in December for Kirkus Reviews' Top 100 Best Indie Books of the Year! Kirkus reviews thousands of indie books, and less than 1% receive a coveted starred review (which mine did). Of those, only 100 are selected across all genres for the “Best of” list. Kirkus is (to many) the Michelin Guide to industry book reviews. A star is like a Michelin three star award. A Best of is way beyond! I’m humbled, stunned, delighted. Grateful to all who helped me get here.

We’re still cleaning up from the holidays—how about you? It’s been brutal weather here in northern New England, an Arctic front plowing through with fierce winds and temps that make everyone shiver. Luckily, we got the Christmas tree down and mulching the flower beds outside before it could blow away. Ornaments, collected over years, are wrapped back in their tissue paper and boxed and stored. The window candles, which I love for our farmhouse at night, glowing into the dark, are finally put away too. I keep the evergreen and holly wreaths up for a while longer. Just holding onto the cheer, I guess.

But it’s pretty clear: an unpredictable northern winter has begun.

This coming year also promises to be anything but typical. I’m sensing it will present some new opportunities, for me at least, to practice staying the course with my writing life.

Different ways to consider new year’s goals

On January 1, as is our tradition, we invited a small group of three other couples to spend the day together. One of our favorite New Year’s activities is a creative one, since everyone in our close-friend group happens to be some kind of creative artist—musician, singer/songwriter, painter, craftsperson, actor, or writer.

We spread a table with newspaper then the huge array of magazine photos collected all year. Plus plain paper, glue sticks, scissors, adornments. We listen to music and we make collages that speak to our goals for the next twelve months.

This year, though, the group wanted to crowd around the fire and talk. So our dreams for the new year took a new form—sharing stories of what meant the most to us in 2024 and what we could afford to hope for in the next twelve months.

I used to be a rather linear goal-setter. I made lists of what I wanted, divided them by month, set a chartable course. Checked off what I accomplished, mourned what I didn’t.

Lately, though, life has given me a new look at goal-setting. I’m more after qualities, not quantities. I’m more interested in satisfaction than accomplishments.

Surprisingly, this new method gives me it all, and more.

Starting with images

Even though my friends didn’t join me in the annual collage making, I spent time at the collage table after they left that evening. I had purchased four blank journals (I buy them online from ZenArt, because they are inexpensive and sturdy and I don’t have to keep them beautiful or neat)).

Although I love making wall collages, I now prefer collaging the cover of these blank journals. Since I write in my journal every morning, I see the collage every morning too. It reminds me of what I’m dreaming of.

Here’s my definition of collage: a collection of images and objects that speak to the heart and mind and soul, consciously or not, and resonate in some way with what the maker wants to bring into their life.

But do we always know what we want to bring into our lives? And in these unpredictable times, is it even worth making an effort to set goals which could be shattered by circumstances we can’t foresee?

What we don’t know

I’ve made a New Year’s collage for my writing/creative life for dozens of years. Sometimes as covers to these journals or a writing notebook. Sometimes built on bulletin boards to evolve as I watch them over the next twelve months—images taken away, moved, replaced. Sometimes pasted on foamcore board or matboard or just an ordinary piece of paper. Sometimes laminated.

One time, after I’d lived with my New Year’s collage for a full year, enjoying how the images actually came true in my outer life, I cut them into wind ornaments, laminated and beribboned, added a date and an inspirational quote, then I hung them in our backyard orchard. Our wedding guests took one home as a memento of the day.

Another time, I create a mural on a wall of my art studio of all the collages I’d made and still had on hand.

What always strikes me—now that I use a different approach to goal setting via collage—is how powerful the images become. I choose images that speak of qualities, not specific things. Qualities of satisfaction, rather than number of books sold. Qualities of pleasure and rightness in my life, of balance and well-being, rather than getting published in this or that venue.

Goal-setting for specifics, for things, can trip me up. What if there’s something much better, and I’m limiting my options by being specific? What if the timing isn’t right? I remember a writer in my classes long ago who told the story of traditional goal-setting with his job. He did all the steps and visualized the heck out of the thing he wanted—and he got it. Only to realize, once he was in the job, that it wasn’t really what he wanted. The quality he sought wasn’t present in this particular arena.

Setting goals for qualities is a much more powerful way of creating my future. It also lets me work in tandem with the universe, if you will, and stay flexible to even better options that might come along. If I allow what I don’t know to be a player, I can focus on the feeling, the quality, rather than having to know exactly how it will manifest.

There’s magic in what we know about our futures, and there’s even more magic in what we don’t know.

Not just goals, but desired qualities of life

I have a strong component of my personality that adores making lists. Lists of what I want to accomplish, avoid, test or try out. I enjoy crossing things off lists. I enjoy the pressure a list creates.

But for my New Year’s goals, I approach it slightly differently, as I described above.

Yes, I can definitely state specific things I want to do in the next twelve months. Places to go, things to try, daily word count to achieve, writing to submit. But beyond that, what’s more vital to me now is how I feel about all of it. I focus on those inner qualities I know I want instead of outer goals I think I want.

You might call this mental health or spiritual health or just plain satisfaction with your life. That, to me, is what I make goals of now. My desired qualities of life.

So for the new year ahead, I asked myself that first:

At the end of this coming year, looking back on my twelve months, what would I most like to have done, experienced, accomplished, and tried?

What happens next

Last January, I starting the launch for my third novel, Last Bets. I had lots of hopes for this book. I felt it was my best so far (my agent agreed). I wanted to put as much effort and joy into its launch as I could.

I sought reviews and blurbs, I booked publicity tours on podcasts and social media, I planned a launch party, I set up pre-orders, I built a street team of friends to help me. These were the specific steps I could take that were in my control. But mostly, I spent a few days on my collage.

I tried to express, with the images I selected, the ease and joy of this new book releasing into the world. How it manifested a long-held dream of writing about female friendships and female ambition. I chose pictures that showed the qualities I hoped for with this release:

joy

satisfaction

being proud of my efforts

touching readers

being well received in the world

I did this from a very intuitive place. If an image spoke to me, I used it in some way in the collage. I trusted that the nonverbal part of me would know better than any words I could find.

The collage helped me transition from the great effort of producing a book, the writing, revising, working with an editor and cover designer, seeing the book come into final form, to its journey out into the world to be shared it with readers. I was creating a shuttle run between two separate planets, in a way. So the collage was my translation, my attempt to cross over from writing to marketing, but without the soul-suck that marketing could become.

The essence of the collage, as I discovered after it was finished, was about having plenty of love and support for the process of launching the book.

Sure, I could’ve been specific about my goals for the launch. Yes, I wanted my book to being included in a “Best of” list, to be a bestseller on Amazon, to garner plenty of online reviews, to win awards. Those definitely were hopes and dreams, but my collage explored the qualities behind those accomplishments.

A year later, looking back, the novel achieved all that and more. I couldn’t have imagined it being chosen by Kirkus Reviews for its Best of 2024 list. Kirkus is the Michelin Guide of the publishing industry, to me. I would’ve fallen quite short on imagining such a high goal.

By focusing on the quality of intense satisfaction, I realized both the inner and the outer dream. Everything has come true.

Randomity

Working with inner qualities works a whole lot better, in my experience, than just making specific outer goals. Realistically, we can’t control outer life all that much anymore—too much can happen without any warning, upsetting plans. But if we focus on how we want to feel about it, that is something we can control.

I want to give a shout out here to who writes a brilliant Substack and many books on the subject of finding satisfaction in the creative life. I’ve learned a lot from her over the year about the value of randomity.

Time and again, I hear from my circle of friends how accurately these randomly-created New Year collages manifest so accurately. At our New Year’s collage party in past years, as they let themselves choose images that were not consciously a thing they wanted, but an image that somehow touched them, it’s not usually evident why the image satisfies them at some deep level. It’s only later that they learn its meaning and importance.

Looking ahead

The opening photo in this post is my collage table post-party, with my stack of collaged journals in process. I saw a theme emerging as I worked on each of them (there are four so far).

For this coming year, my emerging goal is learning. To become a student again, to learn new things in both my art and writing. I saw this as I let the gathering of images for my collages be random, completely intuitive. I couldn’t yet clearly see anything for the next year, because my book launch was off the table.

So I let myself gather and arrange and I didn’t analyze it until a week or so had passed. I could see the choices were surprising—and richer than my conscious mind could’ve imagined. I can’t wait to see how they manifest.

The collages have already spurred me to a first step, though: I applied for an advanced course in working on a short-story collection. Maybe my 2025 goal starting to speak?

Your Weekly Writing Exercise

Ask yourself these questions about your next twelve months:

What specific goals do I have in mind for my year ahead?

Is there something in my creative life that I need or long to do that I haven’t yet done?

If I were to describe the feeling I’d love to end my next year with, what words come to mind?

Collect images from Unsplash or Pinterest or other online sites. Or comb through magazines and tear out strips of color or shape or photos that appeal to you in some way.

It’s not important to know why these images fascinate you. Let yourself be drawn to them without knowing.

Arrange your images in some way that pleases you. Use a bulletin board or wall board or paper or table top. Allow yourself the week to study the images, add or subtract, rearrange.

When you feel satisfied, glue them into place on a board or paper. Laminate if you wish. Then post your collage somewhere you can watch its meaning evolve for the rest of the new year.

Shout Out!

A hearty shout out to these writing friends and former students who are publishing their books! I encourage you to pre-order or 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.)

Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew, The Release: Creativity and Freedom after the Writing Is Done (Skinner House), October release

Robert Johns, The Fighters: A Trilogy (River Grove Books), October release

Morgan Baylog Finn, The Gathering: Poems (Finishing Line Press), November release

Ed Orzechowski, Becoming Darlene: The Story of Belchertown Patient #4952 (Levellers Press), November release

Mary Beth Spray, Imprint: A Woman’s Journey from Trauma to Freedom (Beaver’s Pond Press), December 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 15 books in 3 genres. My third novel, Last Bets (Riverbed Press), was published in April, after becoming an Amazon bestseller during pre-orders. My second novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue (Riverbed Press), was published in October 2023 also and became an Amazon bestseller and Hot New Release from pre-orders. 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.

Revision Checklist: What I Use to Stay on Track

What’s new in my writing room: My latest novel, Last Bets, was selected in December for Kirkus Reviews' Top 100 Best Indie Books of the Year! Kirkus reviews thousands of indie books, and less than 1% receive a coveted starred review (which mine did). Of those, only 100 are selected across all genres for the “Best of” list. Kirkus is (to many) the Michelin Guide to industry book reviews. A star is like a Michelin three star award. A Best of is way beyond! I’m humbled, stunned, delighted. Grateful to all who helped me get here.

Photo by Jonas Jacobsson on Unsplash

Books move through our lives in distinct stages. First comes the wild idea. It grows gradually in the inner room of your creative self, until you can't ignore it. You have to get it down. This burst of energy propels you through an important starting gate— past ideas ruminating inside to ideas on the page.

Maybe these ideas are externalized for the first time, and they generate other ideas. You write for months, years, whatever it takes to shape your vision as the ideas flow in, pause, resume. I feel it’s like a river, and it keeps flowing as long as I pay attention.

The timeline for this initial stage is very individual.

If it's your first book, you may need a lot of time to dream and write those ideas and what they generate. Or, if the book’s been incubating inside for years, it all may come forth in a mad rush.

A songwriter friend talked with me this week about that mad rush. A song comes out in its entirety, and it works totally. That’s super exciting. Most often, for me, it takes time. Especially with a book.

The goal from this first stage is a rough draft. As writer Anne Lamott says, it’s a shitty first draft. Without it, you ain't got nothing, you ain’t going nowhere.

Finding the real story

Next task, after that river of ideas get on paper, is to figure out what the real story is inside all the words.

Many of you have been here. You face a 300-page document on your laptop or the printed pages piled onto your desk. You may be emerging from #1000 words or nanowrimo with something you hope will become a book. This stage is all about reworking, over and over. And feedback. And reworking some more.

For me, emotions come up. Resistance, too. And hate, passionate love (how amazing! how unique!), and the desire to toss it all away.

Eventually, I get to a place of neutrality. Where I can really see the work as it is, not as I hope it will become. How long does it take to get here? Depends a lot on your experience as a writer, if you’ve published or worked with an editor before, how you receive and use feedback. For newer writers, this clear vision can take years to develop. Sometimes, it’s faster. But the goal is to locate the real book within the initial draft.

The key to this step is moving from writer view to reader view. A writer must—I believe this so strongly!—release all personal attachment to the story. We must let it become what it is meant to be.

BTW, readers will not care if it's your precious idea. They want the book, the story, to relate to them, too.

Sometimes, in classes, I call this step “moving from the personal to the universal.” Finding what, in your personal vision or story, will speak to others and touch their lives too. It takes a lot, for most writers. Some never manage it. They are too attached to what they originally saw.

I say this from years of editing experience, working with publishers, helping writers cross this threshold. I say it with much compassion, because I have to do it too--and it's often a bitter medicine to swallow.

Essentially, you, the writer, must let go in order to see your story from a reader's eyes. You must absent your hovering presence and let that story speak for itself.

That's when you really can begin to revise.

Transitional drafts

Robert Boswell, author of The Half-Known World (highly recommend!), calls all our drafts to this point "transitional." The idea is that each time we rework, we transition the material to a higher, tighter, more accurate story. More accurate in that it expresses more of what we want to say.

I find Boswell’s term so true for all genres I’ve written myself and edited for other writers. Even prescriptive nonfiction, like how-to books, often work with outlines and talking points and much planning to gain this universal view.

It’s also a relief to tell myself that this version I’m working on is transitional. In other words, it will become something better as I rework it.

Some editors call this “developmental” editing, which means larger movement—maybe changing position of chapters or scenes, maybe adding or deleting large sections. We’re not into the fine-tuning yet.

Fine-tuning works best, in my view, after we’ve reached the place where we’re satisfied that the manuscript is telling the right story. It’s reached the place where we’re having a conversation with the reader, not just ourselves.

Then we're ready for the revision tasks that make it sing.

Four steps to fine-tuning your manuscript

I trained as an editor for eighteen years. Both as a freelancer for various publishers and a salaried manuscript editor for a small press in the Midwest, I worked with experienced pros who were steady, careful, and kind enough to instruct me. I learned there are indeed clear steps to take when polishing a manuscript. It's not a blind ride. Each editor has their own method, but many overlapped.

From my eighteen years, four main steps evolved. There are many more, but I'll share these with you today--maybe one will be helpful to your revision process.

Step 1: Find your editing method

First, find a good editing method that fits you.

Decide if you're more comfortable editing by paper or on screen. It's really a matter of personal preference. I tend to work onscreen until the document gets impossible to hold in my mind. Then I work with revision charts and printed pages.

It's important to find a method that lets you "see" the whole book, not just its parts. My charts check for three main features in each scene and chapter: (1) is there an outer event, (2) what is my intent for that scene or chapter as writer, and (3) what is the reader's possible take-away about the characters, narrator, or message of the book. I create a big Excel document or a chart in Word for this step then enter all the data for each scene, each chapter. Tedious, yes. Revealing, absolutely. I can immediately see where I slipped out of reader view into my own limited intent.

For more on these charts, which I call Structure Analysis Charts (SAC), check out my past post here.)

Step 2: Weed out the blahs

Even though your manuscript as a whole fits your reader view now, you may still have spots of less conscious language choices. One typical area is blah verbs. We choose verbs in haste when drafting, and we may overlook their weakness. Here's a short checklist that many professional editors use.

Scour out the verb "to be": search for "was" and "is" and replace with more active choices.

Remove "had" as much as possible. "Had" is past perfect and is really only needed in the first instance of a flashback. Then most pros slide into simple past tense. For instance: "She had been a chef years ago. She landed a good job at Circus Maximus." Notice that the "had" places us in the backstory, but after we are there, we can move to simple past, with "landed."

Eliminate "ing" verbs. Gerunds are useful but slow down the pace. Compare: "He wired the alarm" with "He was wiring the alarm"—fast, punchy versus languid. Occasionally, languid verb forms draw out tension, but if you search, you'll be astonished how often you've unconsciously used them.

Replace "walk" and "move" with more vivid actions. "They moved across the field" versus "They sped across the field." Quite a difference.

An adjunct to weak verbs is often the overuse of adverbs. Wipe them out as much as you can if you've opted for "ly" descriptors instead of punching up the verb choice. Adverbs slow down the pace. Use them cautiously; sometimes they are essential, but can you get rid of most of them?

Step 3: Continuity

Revision means making sure all details are consistent throughout your manuscript. Here are the three biggest offenders to double check:

Verify the movement of weather and time of day, chapter to chapter. Make sure these are consistent and evolve logically. We can't go from midnight to midday without notice. I make a chart and double-check it against my chapters. The SAC, above, can help enormously with tracking this.

List all major items in your story--vehicles, physical details, room locations, possessions--anything that appears frequently. Use the checklist to search for each. Verify that you've used the same descriptions. A man with flaming red hair in chapter 1 who is suddenly bald in chapter 10 needs explanation.

List all names--place and people. Check for consistency. One of my mom's pet peeves (she's a voracious reader) is the author who changes a main character's name from Elise to Elaine mid-book.

Step 4: Content checklists

If you still find yourself swimming in unease after these changes, you may need to go back to your content and upgrade it. Here are five small questions I ask myself, to bring content to another level.

Does each person in the story show inconsistencies? Humans do. We're generous and stingy. We're sweet and snarly. If your players aren't two sides of their own coin, stop protecting them. Show everything.

Are the places and peoples unique enough? I make lists of how each person differs from the others, then do the same with each location. Push this as much as you can.

Are there enough fights? Do they range in intensity? If not, add some. Conflict makes prose move.

Are there enough secrets? Do you reveal them too soon? Can you delay more, to build tension?

Does each chapter have a clear and definite purpose? If not, can you change it? Or eliminate it?

Your Weekly Writing Exercise

Pick one of the steps above. Try it out this week on a chapter or your entire manuscript. See how it works for you. Then try another, if you wish.

Slow and steady--most editors I admire have these qualities. It's something we writers may not come to naturally, but the revision process will certainly teach us better!

Shout Out!

A hearty shout out to these writing friends and former students who are publishing their books! I encourage you to pre-order or 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.)

Megan Lindhal Goodrich, Beyond Terminal: Processing Childhood Trauma to Reclaim Self (Wise Ink), September release

Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew, The Release: Creativity and Freedom after the Writing Is Done (Skinner House), October release

Robert Johns, The Fighters: A Trilogy (River Grove Books), October release

Morgan Baylog Finn, The Gathering: Poems (Finishing Line Press), November release

Ed Orzechowski, Becoming Darlene: The Story of Belchertown Patient #4952 (Levellers Press), November release

Mary Beth Spray, Imprint: A Woman’s Journey from Trauma to Freedom (Beaver’s Pond Press), December 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 15 books in 3 genres. My third novel, Last Bets (Riverbed Press), was published in April, after becoming an Amazon bestseller during pre-orders. My second novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue (Riverbed Press), was published in October 2023 also and became an Amazon bestseller and Hot New Release from pre-orders. 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: Is Your Writing Expansive or Contracted?

What’s new in my writing room: I’m still celebrating the big news that my latest novel, Last Bets, was selected in December for Kirkus Reviews' Top 100 Best Indie Books of the Year! Kirkus reviews thousands of indie books, and less than 1% receive a coveted starred review (which mine did). Of those, only 100 are selected across all genres for the “Best of” list. Stunned and delighted, here.

Photo by Ava Sol on Unsplash

I’ve offered this special monthly Q&A for over a year. Thank you to everyone who sent in their questions about writing and publishing and made me think harder and more creatively. Well, it’s happened . . . I’ve finally run out of questions to answer. So this monthly extra in my weekly posts will pause for a little break. Please check out my past posts—over 800 of them!—on my home page here on Substack. And if you think of questions for future posts, feel free to send to me via message here on Substack or by email to mary[at]marycarrollmoore[dot]com.

Q: In some of the writing workshops I’ve taken from you in the past, one of the most valuable insights I took away was about how clueless (my word, not yours!) many of us are about our natural tendencies as writers. We don’t know what we don’t know—until we run into the mirror of an agent or writer’s group or class feedback. Maybe this is good, because it protects us somewhat, allows us to create unimpeded. But I’m all for knowing what my unconscious shortcomings are!

Can you share more about the tendency to expand or contract? That’s one lesson I could use more about. Thanks!

A: My theory is that we all have certain natural tendencies as people living in the world—what we notice, how we feel about it, how we act or not. It’s part of being a unique human being, and it’s often something to celebrate as writers. It contributes to our individual voices and to our characters and setting and plot. Everything comes from who we are and how we see the world.

That’s my humble opinion, after years of teaching and editing.

The trick, though, is to get these natural tendencies to work for us, rather than against us. There are two steps to this. First, to become conscious of the way we unconsciously lean. And second, to consider what we need to do, to balance this.

How we are wired affects how we write

In my career as a writing teacher and editor, I found much to love. My personal goal with each writer was to honor their natural tendencies and celebrate what they did best. When those tendencies got in the way of the writing, though, I sought ways to point this out kindly and constructively.

Not to change the writer at all. But to allow the writer to grow past their tendency to overwrite or underwrite.

As a teacher and editor, I saw how each of us is naturally wired to either overwrite, or expand in our expression on the page, or underwrite, or what I call contract. I noticed this in almost every manuscript I read. (I also have to say that the terms overwriting and underwriting only touch a portion of what I mean by expanding and contracting. Each is a good school-level term to lean on, but read on to find out a bigger view.)

What are these extremes?

Here are my short definitions of these terms we learned in school.

Overwriting: Did the writer go on for pages about a beloved topic, to the point where it became tangential to the story? Did they dwell on setting so much, we lost the thread of the plot? Did the variety of locations, the crowds of people, or many multiple events blur the meaning because they were so numerous?

This showed me the writer has a natural tendency towards being an expander. They felt more was better.

Underwriting: In the opposite tendency, did the story feel so condensed that it flew by too quickly to grasp? Was the description super minimalist, and this (although fine otherwise) didn’t particularly serve to deepen the story? Was the character mostly inside their head, ostensibly alone for many pages?

This indicated a contracting writer, possibly, someone who believed less was more. Or who couldn’t think of what else to say! Or, often, was fearful of saying more—for any number of reasons.

I’d start with these basic definitions of what I was seeing on the page. As I got to know the writer behind the words, while working on their manuscript, I often noticed this tendency manifesting in their lives as well, also unconsciously.

Whichever it was, it brought them some happiness. It also could make their writing lives more challenging.

Balance of both

In my thirties I wrote a weekly food column for the Los Angeles Times syndicate. My job was to tempt a reader to try a certain food or a recipe. I loved lyrical food writers like Laurie Colwin (Home Cooking is one of her best; check out this review in The Guardian if you’re not yet familiar with her work).

I learned to explore the meaning of food in our lives through its sensory details (taste and texture, for example). Some of my editors also called my writing “lyrical” and I loved that. Some just wanted the list of ingredients, the recipe, no description of the meaning of the food I was creating!

To stay in business with both kinds of editors and their readers, I learned how to limit my love of the lyric. I let my drafts be wild expansions on the page. But my revisions always reined in my tendency and created the balance that worked better.

(It helped that my columns were only 600 words each week. Only so much you can say, even if you’re an expander!)

It wasn’t so much overwriting, in that I went on too long about irrelevant things. It was that I felt the meaning behind those things was equally important. And I wanted the reader to feel this way too.

My editors helped me see exactly how much I could get away with, before I lost the reader (and my job) as well. This was highly valuable education, for me as a writer.

Luck of a good teacher (or editor)

Fast forward twelve years. I decided to move into fiction. Here, I thought, I can really let loose and live my natural love for lyrical writing.

Then I met the wise head of the grad school I attended. He knew better. He saw that my education would further benefit from working with a skilled novelist who was a minimalist at the core. For two years, she was my adviser. I got my writing hand slapped whenever I ventured into too much expansion.

She forced me out of my box! I read minimalist authors (I hated this at first). I found a new way to write that both incorporated what I loved and balanced my tendency.

I didn’t really appreciate these editors and teachers until later in my career when I began teaching myself. It was clear to me how many of us are blind to our own tendency towards either expansion or contraction.

Or we use both, alternating through a piece for no real reason. I learned that this creates even more problems: a jerky prose that feels too much and too little at the same time.

Maybe you have had to face your tendency as a writer, via rejection or good instruction. Do you know whether you’re expansive or contractive? Can you tell the difference on a page of your own manuscript—or, as a starting point, on others’ work? Maybe in your writer’s group or class, when you give feedback, you feel the two extremes—most of us do. But have you ever gotten trained in seeing them in your own writing?

How can you tell?

Here’s a fast way to tell what you do naturally.

Take a paragraph from your current writing—any paragraph will do.

Expand it into three paragraphs. 

Then condense it back into one, but different. 

Which is harder for you? Expansion—did it come easily? Were you able to write more, without too much trouble? Contraction—could you condense back, using different words but retaining the meaning?

This might hint at your natural tendency. The more experience you have working with editors, the more you publish, the more feedback you’ve gotten, the more balanced you’ll likely be with these two extremes. But this little test can show you where it’s still innate in you, as an individual.

Placement of camera

Here’s another way to look at it: If you are the eyes in your scene, how far is the camera zooming in or out?

Looking at a scene in your current writing, pretend you’re the eyes looking through a camera viewfinder, studying this scene on the page.  Using your camera’s zoom feature, get closer to the scene, then further away. Which is easier?

When you zoom in: the movement of the scene gets slower, steps are very detailed, we go deeper into meaning. Pace can be slow.

When you zoom out: everything speeds up, we flash by huge vistas, time passes quickly, we don’t pause for meaning. Pace can be fast.

Out gives a distant overview, in gives an emotional punch.  If you want, mark in the margin where you zoomed in and where you zoomed out. Can you tell? Is there a back and forth of these two, creating a balance within the scene? 

So that’s step one: the awareness. I found, in the response from my editors and in my MFA program, that I learned to tell when a writer was expansive or contractive. I knew I loved lyrical and I wrote it intuitively. But I also began to see in my own writing, thanks to my study of other writers, where I needed to pull in or contract. Where the pace needed to be faster, to serve the story. Where long lyrical descriptions of setting or character, for instance, were boring to everyone but me!

Step two: learning to balance tendencies

It took me a number of years and wide reading and good feedback to recognize when I let my natural tendency take over. At first, it was hard. Truthfully, I didn’t want to change how I was. But I did want to get published.

Because this mattered to me and because I also wanted to learn new skills as a writer, I tried to let go of the preciousness of my tendency and embrace other ways of writing.

Reading was the best way to get there. Because of my adviser, I read a lot of writers from other cultures and saw many more approaches to telling a story. Although I naturally gravitated towards writers who loved setting and character as I do, I let myself read widely, trying to learn from everyone.

Balancing tendencies is part of maturing as a writer, I found. Letting go of what I referred to above as the “preciousness” of how I saw the world and wanted to write about it. Of course, I kept ahold of my uniqueness, my individual voice. I didn’t let that fade, if I could help it. But I did learn to see when I was being unconscious or too attached to my way, and it was not serving my story.

Working with hundreds of students, I counseled time and wide reading and being open to feedback. None of this comes easy.

Pain of change

You may understand this: it’s hard to change our natural tendencies. We get mad when someone suggests it. We cling tightly to who we are. But over time I realized, for myself, that my writing tendencies were just a learned way of seeing the world. And that can change as we grow.

To ease my students into this idea, I suggested these two exercises. They come as step two, after the writer gets a glimmer of their tendency. Here’s how to practice another way to see.

Two ways to change your tendencies

If you’re an “expander” by nature, you might benefit from this exercise, which my adviser gave me back in the MFA program.

Take a page of your story and condense each paragraph to one sentence.

Copy the sentences onto a new page.

Do any of them duplicate the purpose of another? (Sometimes I’d find, to my horror, that all the paragraphs said essentially the same thing!) Can you eliminate those paragraphs?

If you’re a “contracter” by nature, here are two ways to balance this.

Find a scene that feels too tight.  Add one of these items: body sensation, memory, future fear or longing, gesture

Looking at a whole piece that you might need to expand/develop, first free write for 10 minutes and list questions that a reader might ask. Then from those questions, begin to list scenes, people, or descriptions that might develop this section.

I’d love to hear your thoughts, what you might try from this, what you’ve learned in your own writing life.  

Leave a comment

“First Sunday” Q&A is where we dissect and discuss your most gnarly writing and publishing questions. You can send them to me via message on Substack or to my email at mary@marycarrollmoore.com. Your subscription supports me continuing to write my free newsletter each Friday since 2008. I’m grateful!

Entrainment: What You Hold Close, Creates Who You Are

Last in a series of four weekly posts, specially crafted for this time of year and time of the world, when chaos is at its height, on how to regain your interior momentum and inspiration as a creative person.

What’s new in my writing room: My latest novel, Last Bets, was selected this month for Kirkus Reviews' Top 100 Best Indie Books of the Year! Kirkus reviews thousands of indie books, and less than 1% receive a coveted starred review (which mine did). Of those, only 100 are selected across all genres for the “Best of” list. Kirkus is (to many) the Michelin Guide to industry book reviews. A star is like a Michelin three star award. A Best of is way beyond! I’m humbled, stunned, delighted. Grateful to all who helped me get here.

Photo by Hadasa Sisu on Unsplash

Imagine a roomful of pendulum clocks. Left alone, each will begin to entrain with another clock, until they are all ticking in concert. Way back in 1665, a Dutch scientist named Christiaan Huygens found that two pendulum clocks on the same wall eventually swung in opposite directions and in perfect time with each other. This synchrony is something we can apply to our writing lives, or so I’ve discovered.

I learned about the concept of entrainment from a dear friend who passed away a few years ago. We’d have long discussions via letter about how to learn skills later in life.

With youth, he’d say, teachers abound. Influences are everywhere. Everything looks interesting and exciting, fresh experiences. Plenty of time to experiment, to choose poorly, to make mistakes.

As a young person, I often studied with teachers who took me off my most natural track as a writer. Now I’m much more careful: Mistakes in choosing who influences you might not matter as much when you’re twenty as it does when you’re seventy. Fewer years left, pick more wisely.

Age gives me a bit more experience and mistakes have taught me to choose wisely. No more so than right now. What do I let into my life, into my vision? Whatever is around me, creates my view of the world to some extent.

When we consider the natural phenomenon of entrainment, where oscillating bodies tend to vibrate in harmony, even lock into phase with each other, it brings caution to the table.

Mentors and mistakes

Who are you allowing to influence you right now, in your creative life? Do you have a sense of what you might need, differently from what you’re allowing yourself to absorb?

It takes time and mistakes to learn how to choose the best influences, creatively. I’ve spoken before about my catastrophe years attending the Iowa Summer Writers Workshop. I went for three years when I was in my forties. I selected instructors and their workshops based on their renown. Sometimes I read their writing, but mostly I looked at awards and distinguishments.

I never considered what I needed, at that time. I was stuck in my creative life, not moving forward, so I naively thought that sitting at the god’s or goddess’s feet as a literary aspirant would teach me everything I wanted to know.

A costly mistake, as it turned out.

The first two years, I suffered through each course I chose. I came away with even more stall-out in my writing life. Often, I didn’t recover for months.

The third summer, a friend wanted to come along. We talked about our goals, and she said she didn’t care about the teacher’s credentials. She mostly wanted inspiration and momentum, qualities I hadn’t considered before.

We landed with a superb teacher who was relatively unknown by the literati. She was inspiration personified: I couldn’t wait to get to class each morning, to try the exercises. I wanted to entrain with this person, to absorb her unique and fun approach to the writing life, and by the end of the week, my skills had grown enormously too. Was it because she helped me tap into my ability to leap forward? I don’t know. I just know I gained new perspectives on a story I was working on and eventually went on to publish it.

What do you really want?

It’s taken me a lot of years to say no to the news, to social media scrolling, when I’m in a fragile place, creatively. Or when the world is ungentle, as it is now. I don’t want to absorb and align with that ungentleness, not right now. What I really want is to be inspired to create.

Whatever we are close to, we begin to mimic. Consciously or unconsciously. Many writers and artists are very sensitive to this.

What I read, listen to, talk about, obsess over cements the entrainment of my creative self. Do you find that when you read amazing books, you become a better writer, somehow? When you watch a really skillfully created film, you take away the unconscious rhythm of great dialogue? When you walk through an art exhibit or a beautiful garden, there’s something that changes in your visual perception, and that translates later into your own work?

It’s a great time, right now, to decide what you really want from your writing life this next year. And to look for others who have qualities or skills or points of view that you aspire to, with this realized goal. To begin to entrain with them in some way.

A first step, for this week, is to examine the sources of inspiration you have around you.

Sources of inspiration

I renovated both my writing space and my painting studio this summer, because I realized I needed to bring visuals of my dreams and goals into closer proximity. Whatever I align to, I become. I put quotes by writers I admire, books I love, paintings that make me soar inside.

I also wanted to align with more open space in my creative life. It felt like a metaphor for becoming a student again, for learning more than knowing. One of my big goals for the new year is to learn.

I examined the accumulated stuff from my years of teaching and editing—beloved professions I no longer do. I asked myself about each item: Who am I now, as a creative artist, and does this reflect it fully?

I started a pile of what didn’t. I found good homes for the books and study materials and furniture and art that was the past me, not the present me. What I see around me now, in these renewed spaces, is slowly teaching me who I am becoming. And I like it.

This week’s exercise is all about dreaming your creative space and your next step in learning from those whose skills you admire. You may not have time or energy this month to do anything about changing it, but you can begin now.

The concept of entrainment assumes that we have freedom of choice, but it also gives us the warning: if we want to become something new, we need to change what we have around us as reminders. Very helpful to anyone who feels stuck or who is reinventing themselves after a publication, a job change, a move, a loss.

Entrainment is all about proximity. To me, it’s an immutable law. It affects us whether we’re conscious of it or not.

Your Weekly Writing Exercise

As the new year begins, here’s an interior-and-exterior renovation exercise in two parts. You’ll be considering (1) your writing space and (2) your writing mentors. Each part of the exercise asks you to dream a little on any changes which might align with what you want to become in 2025, as a writer and creative person.

Part 1: Your Ideal Writing Space in 2025

If you were to design your writing space to better reflect what you want to entrain with at this point in your creative life, what would you keep, move, replace, discard?

Make a drawing or list. Doodle ideas on paper. Write a description of your ideal writing space, even if it feels far in the future.

What qualities do you most need, in order to become your full self?

Part 2: Your Ideal Writing Mentors in 2025

Who teaches you, right now? Who are your mentors in your creative life?

You may find them in books, online here and elsewhere, in classes. What qualities do you feel you’d like to entrain with this coming year?

I learn the most from skilled writers who are also aware of how they create and can distill it into a system for others. Who is that, in your life?

Again, jot down some skills you’d like to add to your toolbox. They might be in tech areas, in specific craft skills, in accountability. Who comes to mind, who might help you with one of these?

Leave a comment

Shout Out!

A hearty shout out to these writing friends and former students who are publishing their books! I encourage you to pre-order or 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.)

Megan Lindhal Goodrich, Beyond Terminal: Processing Childhood Trauma to Reclaim Self (Wise Ink), September release

Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew, The Release: Creativity and Freedom after the Writing Is Done (Skinner House), October release

Robert Johns, The Fighters: A Trilogy (River Grove Books), October release

Morgan Baylog Finn, The Gathering: Poems (Finishing Line Press), November release

Ed Orzechowski, Becoming Darlene: The Story of Belchertown Patient #4952 (Levellers Press), November release

Mary Beth Spray, Imprint: A Woman’s Journey from Trauma to Freedom (Beaver’s Pond Press), December 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 15 books in 3 genres. My third novel, Last Bets (Riverbed Press), was published in April, after becoming an Amazon bestseller during pre-orders. My second novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue (Riverbed Press), was published in October 2023 also and became an Amazon bestseller and Hot New Release from pre-orders. 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.