Mary Carroll Moore's Blog, page 9

Working with the Magic of Threes

My new novel, Last Bets, is out in the world! “Readers will get lost in Moore's beautiful prose, her impeccable plotting, and her outstandingly relatable and multi-layered characters. Beautifully wrought story of two women artists outrunning their demons,” said Booklife/Publisher’s Weekly who made it an Editor’s Pick. Order your copy today. With my BIG thanks for the support.

Photo by David Herron on Unsplash

Imagine a pool table with two balls sitting on the green felt. One ball has to be struck. Eventually it will hit the other. Not too many options for getting that result.

Add a third ball. The options grow exponentially.

Two’s company, three’s a crowd—but that’s a good thing to make a game more interesting. It’s also a key element in writing conflict. Add a third element, get that crowded feeling of not enough space, and break everything wide open.

I most often get stuck in scenes with two people. Two can go back and forth endlessly. It becomes a rhythm of stasis. Comfortable or not, it’s way too predictable to move story forward.

Add a third. Where do you look now? It’s no longer a straight-line back and forth. It brings in more questions. Who holds the power overtly or secretly? Who will align with whom, leaving an outcast third?

Avoiding stasis

Stasis is just another name for a nicely balanced state, a status quo where change is neither sought nor necessary. When we’re all doing fine on the page, a story stops moving forward. A new upset must arise to dissolve the stasis.

I’m not saying: avoid any moments in story where two characters are doing well with each other. This has to happen. But it creates something other than momentum. Maybe it’s a moment of resolution. Or a tiny rest to assimilate and review what’s happened before moving forward again.

Just watch out for staying too long in this stasis. It’s an unchallenged situation that will eventually stall out your story.

Who shared this great piece of advice? I can’t remember where I read it, so if you know, please post a comment. (It might have been Andre Dubus.) But here it is: If your character is in the same room for more than one page, get them out.

How brilliant is that! A simple way to scan for stasis and note tendencies. Then correct them.

Bringing in the third

Often, the twosome starts the story. In Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, two sisters survive the aftermath of the poisoning of the rest of their family, shunned by the town but quite content to live alone. There’s a third character, the elderly uncle who also survived, but because of his illness, he doesn’t shake up their created status quo. It isn’t until a third person arrives—a supposed lost cousin—that the story begins to move forward.

In House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III, a woman loses her home due to a paperwork snag. She aligns with a cop who tries to help her get it back. The third element that rumbles constantly in the background is the family who has taken over her home and lives there. Dubus is very skilled with how he develops the reality of this takeover and the family’s life independent of the woman who hates them, so that we never lose track of this trio.

What else makes up a threesome?

I find it’s easiest to create movement with three characters. But many times, you can use other elements to create movement. The key is that the third element has to have the same emotional weight as a person has. In other words, it has to mean a LOT to at least one of the twosome.

The goal is to create friction because of the third element. In Peter Heller’s The Dog Stars, the main character’s beloved dog is the third element for a large part of the story. The narrator lives for his dog. His co-survivor at the abandoned airstrip is not keen on the dog, always hinting at what he might do if the dog is left alone. This creates an effective tug of war, with one person protecting and the other threatening.

The idea is to make the third element something of value the twosome either want or fear or hate—an element that creates a strong emotion.

In The Stars and the Blackness between Them by Junauda Petrus, two girls form the basis of the story, and while others circle around them—friends, family, schoolmates—the third element is definitely the terminal cancer affecting one of the girls. The cancer becomes a character they battle.

Sometimes a place or an object makes up the three. I recently re-watched the Masterpiece Theater production of Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier’s classic. The ghost of the murdered Rebecca haunts the household at Manderley, and this creates the unbearable tension between the newlyweds. As the story brings her and her death into sharp relief, as the third element causes more and more tension, the heat definitely increases.

Increasing the heat

I played with the magic of threes in both my recent novels.

In Last Bets, I created a classic romantic triangle of Elly, Rosie, and Trevor. (Elly is on the island to paint Trevor’s portrait. Rosie is a teenager working for Trevor to pay a debt.) I didn’t mean to create this triangle, but when I put the two women on the island, each with their own troubles to work out, the scenes fell flat. When I decided to have Rosie crush on Trevor, the fire started.

Trevor has the new challenge of what to do with this crush (Rosie is an underage employee). And because of the crush, Elly becomes the rescuer she never was, during her young sister’s tragic encounter with a high-school teacher. Trevor, as the third element, ups the tension of every scene.

In A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue, I also started with two women. Estranged sisters, both pilots, Kate and Red are reuniting under dangerous circumstances. I wanted to play with a trio in each of their lives. Red’s trio became the man who was pursuing her and the woman she loved. Kate’s was her daughter and husband. I wove these trios together until they overlapped at the crucial moment of the plot. All sorts of trouble came from that writing decision.

Often, in early story drafts, I don’t see the stasis. I don’t notice the trouble a threesome could cause. It’s only in revision that I notice the characters who are still in the “same room” of their comfortable lives and need a third element to shake them out of it.

Conflict is essential to the mechanics of change in story. While we may love to live without perpetual tension, our characters need it to keep from getting stuck in stasis. Have you ever encountered this in your writing?

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Your Weekly Writing Exercise

Find a scene with only two elements—two people, for instance—and play with adding a third. What is in the landscape that might become a character? Is there someone else in the scene (or another part of the story) that could come into this interaction? See if you can make a combination of three and notice if the conflict or tension accelerates.

Share your thoughts!

Leave a comment

I’ve started a new First Sunday newsletter for paid subscribers that addresses your most gnarly writing and publishing questions. This month’s post was about choosing freedom and leaving behind restriction in your creative life. If you’d like to receive First Sunday once a month, a yearly subscription is only $45. For it, you get access to the 700+ archives, the monthly Q&A of First Sunday, a safe space to ask questions, and my writerly gratitude for helping me continue to write this newsletter.

Subscribe now

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.

Podcasts as the "New" Book Promotion Tool

My new novel, Last Bets, is out in the world! “Readers will get lost in Moore's beautiful prose, her impeccable plotting, and her outstandingly relatable and multi-layered characters. Beautifully wrought story of two women artists outrunning their demons,” said Booklife/Publisher’s Weekly who made it an Editor’s Pick. Order your copy today. With my BIG thanks for the support.

Photo by Soundtrap on Unsplash

I wish I looked as relaxed as this woman in the photo when I encountered my first podcasts. I likened those to my first television interviews, several decades ago, when I was promoting another book and the publisher had booked me on morning shows in my home town. I was petrified about being on camera, I dressed completely wrong, and I talked over the interviewer. The only grace note was the shortness of the interview. Later, I remember my mom watching the broadcast, saying something like, “I wish you’d looked more yourself, dear.”

Trouble was, I didn’t think “myself” was good enough to offer a television show host. I loved my book but I mostly wanted to hide behind it. Who would be interested in me, the author? Well, as it turns out, readers!

They want to know authors more than ever, hear about their journeys, hear about the reason they wrote this book.

So when I began interviewing on podcasts, I initially faced the same dilemma. What did I have to say, in the first place?

Didn’t my book say it all?

What the author can offer

These days, readers are super curious about the author behind the book. Maybe it’s our fascination with reality shows, the social media that reveals all about a person’s life, the way authors promote books by sharing intimate details of their process. I thought I was immune to this as a reader—who cared about anything but a good story?—but the other day I noticed I had flipped to the acknowledgements page at the end of a new-to-me book to learn more about the author before I began reading!

I guess I’m curious too. I wonder if this is why: do I want to get a sense of who exactly I’m about to spend many hours with? What is their world like? What purpose did they have in writing this book? It seems odd, but it hit me—there’s more to engaging in a story now than just following the plot and characters.

So what can the author offer, without crossing personal boundaries? What are the best mediums to share who you are, in a comfortable way that feels meaningful to both you and the potential readers?

Yes, television is still an avenue of promotion for authors but my feeling is that podcasts have stepped up big time.

There are SO MANY out there. They offer a conversation between the person who wrote and the person who might read. I’m finding them a prime way to promote a book.

But there are certain things to know, before you jump into them.

Learning to relax

I’m nowhere near a podcast expert, but by now I’ve been a guest on 20-25 podcasts and I can definitely say my number one lesson was to learn to relax.

I’ve been interviewed by hosts across the U.S. and Canada (and even Europe) about not just my novels, but my writing life, my creative goals, my gardening, my art, my cooking career (everyone wants to talk food!), and my personal history and how it intersects with all of this. Like me scanning the acknowledgements pages or the author’s notes in a new-to-me book, the hosts are curious about who I am and why I took the big risk to write and publish these books.

This can be terrifying for an introvert.

At first, the whole idea of speaking freely about these personal subjects, plus being recorded in audio and video, then the recording being out on the internet with whatever gaffs I might make during the conversation, felt like way too much.

Don’t get me wrong: I can speak in front of people, I have taught huge audiences, I have years of experience being onstage. But I always prepare heavily for such gigs. I have notes, I do all kinds of “performer-prepares” steps beforehand. I still get tummy jitters, but I know how to do this.

Podcasts are spontaneous conversations, or so I thought. And the huge risk was that I couldn’t prepare as much. Hosts could take the conversation all over the place, right?

And being a writer most of all, I prefer writing my thoughts over voicing them. I have to write to figure out what I think, to paraphrase Joan Didion.

Plus, what about how I look as I spoke? Most podcasts now record on video as well as audio. You have to not only sound friendly and interesting and intelligent, you have to look good. Memories of that early TV show still haunt me.

Could I prepare in advance, to the point of being able to relax and actually enjoy the interview?

What questions are typical?

The quick answer was: yes, I can prepare. It only took four or five podcasts interviews to see that most hosts ask fairly predictable questions of authors launching a new book. When I listened to past episodes for each host, a great way to prepare, I also could note the typical questions that host asked everyone.

Midway through my podcast tour for my second novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue, last year, I had a pretty solid list of the questions I usually get asked:

What was the inspiration for this book?

What’s your writing practice like? How often do you write, where, etc.?

How long did this book take?

What obstacles did you encounter? How did you do your research if you wrote about something you didn’t have personal experience with?

Why would a reader be interested in this story—what do you hope a reader will take away?

How does the story intersect with your own life? Do you do the same things these characters do?

Any advice or wisdom for other writers?

Most of the podcast audiences are specific, too. You can tell from the past episodes, both subject matter and guest’s background, whether the host gears the discussion towards newer writers (writers in process with a first book, for example) or more experienced writers. I was on both, and because I listened ahead to past episodes, I could begin to tailor my answers to that invisible audience.

A good thing to realize—because I’ve taught writers of all experience levels, from beginner to professional, what I share will vary according to the person receiving it. A good host knows this too.

How I prepared once I knew

Having a good list of typical questions in hand, I began to prepare my answers. I still checked out three or four of each podcast’s past episodes a week or so before my interview just to verify that I was on the right track.

I also wanted to get a sense of the host’s approach, so I chose a variety of topics in that episode research, and I got to hear and see how the host interacted with very different guests. Did they talk over the guest (some do!)? Did they take the conversation in directions that had nothing to do with the guest or their book (yes, occasionally!)?

I also looked at how the guests responded—did the host put them at ease, did they seem to enjoy themselves? How real were they, how much did they reveal?

Previewing several episodes gave me so much information! I felt more relaxed as I got to “know” the host and their particular way of interviewing.

Some hosts like to be the star, so the guest can’t push any agenda at all. That’s not as much fun, truthfully, but it happens. Some talk about all kinds of topics that have nothing to do with the guest’s book or writing—it feels more like a morning drive-time radio talk show than an interview, especially if there are several hosts. This can be fun but only if I have zero goals for the podcasts and just want to get my book’s name out there on their show notes.

Some hosts won’t even mention the guest’s book until the very end! They want their show to be about a topic, not about promotion of a book. I was a guest on shows that focused on midlife life changes, on creativity (hosted by a visual artist), and on risk. Nothing to do with writing or books. But I still felt I got valuable marketing for my launches, because my titles were listed on the podcast’s website.

The golden ones were hosts I really could connect to. I liked their questions, I liked how they made me think and feel about what I was offering the world.

Script—why use one to get started

Preparing answers, in a variety of ways, for typical questions gave me a huge leg up. For my first dozen or so podcasts, I wasn’t comfortable with spontaneous back-and-forth. I couldn’t share about my books easily yet. So I spent hours before each podcast writing out answers, creating a kind of script.

I opened Zoom or whatever video recording platform the host used (they always send a link so you know ahead of time) and created a horizontal split screen. I adjusted the margins of my script in Word so that it stretched in landscape orientation the width of the top of my screen, with the podcast window below it. My camera is at the top of my laptop, of course, so my eyes were reading the script and it looked like I was staring at the camera while I talked, rather than looking down at printed pages. I didn’t actually need to meet eyes with the host, after a few times practicing this. I could get everything from their voice.

I did check my “view” on Zoom ahead of time—the background and lighting were super important. (More on that below.) But after the hello’s, I didn’t take my eyes from the camera.

Ditching the script

All the podcasts last year were about my second novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue, which came out in October. After a handful of them went well, I felt comfortable answering almost any question. So I began not needing the script.

When I started podcast interviews for Last Bets, which got published in April, I felt huge panic—how would I talk intelligently about it? It was such a different book than A Woman’s Guide.

So I created a new script.

But I noticed something interesting—after three interviews on Last Bets, I wasn’t referring to the script at all. The questions were still those typical ones above, and I had answers prepared already, which applied to both books. Some hosts wanted to talk about both novels, so I wrote out some possible answers about the connections, or universal themes in my life as a writer, that appeared in both (or all three) of my novels.

After just three interviews, I felt I could ditch the new script too. I knew what I wanted to share about this new novel.

That’s when I started having fun!

All the experiences so far with Last Bets interviews haven’t been great, truthfully. This past week I was on a podcast with what I assume is a relatively new host. She texted me ten minutes before our show time to reschedule; when we did meet, she’d lost her notes and hadn’t even looked at my book. She also had so many technical problems, the recording didn’t work, etc., etc. I felt it was a waste, but who knows. If she’s good at editing, it might work out fine.

I had two others this past week which were the opposite—just lovely. The hosts had prepared well, they both loved my book, and they made me feel so at ease. I felt an uplift from just being with them. It brought out the best in me.

A good podcast host is supposed to bring out the best in an author. That’s my feeling. We both take time out of our busy lives for this conversation. The whole purpose, it seems to me, is to create warmth and naturalness and let the guest shine.

A good host knows how to ask questions that appeal to what their listeners are there for, but also show that they are genuinely intrigued with the process of creating this book. With how the book came to be. With the person behind it. I find this not only relaxes but engages a guest.

Ideally, the interview will bring out your own deeper levels of meaning. The more skilled hosts make me think in a deeper way. And I learn stuff about my own writing, my own story!

When it gets personal

Here’s something I learned right off: it’s going to get personal, and you have to decide what you are comfortable sharing.

Remember that these interviews have a long lifespan. They will possibly be on the host’s website or audio and video channels for many months, even years. If you have parts of your life that you want to keep quiet about, don’t share them. This is another reason for the script—you can create suitable responses that stay within your comfort zone.

A couple of examples:

My novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue, is inspired by my mom, who was a pilot. But it’s also inspired by my older sister, who died tragically when I was in my fifties. I wrote A Woman’s Guide to understand more about my mom but also assuage some of my grief about my sister. Stuff I’ll never resolve, just because she’s gone. In the story, two estranged sisters find each other under dicey circumstances.

Buy A Woman's Guide

Hosts always wanted to know why I wrote about this, so I thought carefully about what I’d share and came up with a few answers that explained my sister’s untimely death and its impact on me.

I knew I would be touching on this very personal aspect of my own history when I wrote about these estranged sisters. Some hosts just briefly asked about the inspiration but others wanted to dive deeper into my relationship with my two sisters. It took time and practice and a lot of journaling before I figured out how to talk about the older sister who died tragically and how I felt sadly estranged from her in the years before she died.

My novel, Last Bets, is about a portrait painter with second sight—she sees the future of her subjects as she paints. She’s forced to use this talent to win back her life during the story, in a kinda sketchy way.

Buy Last Bets

Hosts want to know: (1) do I have second sight? (2) do I gamble? (3) how do I feel about people who cheat?

I took a deep breath. I worked out answers. They became: (1) I am fascinated with the unseen parts of our lives, the stuff we can’t logically explain. (2) I am intrigued by why people risk, often big, and gamble in other ways. (3) I feel I have high ethics, but I write about characters who are still figuring out what they can get away with and who learn hard lessons, in the end.

These overlaps with your very personal beliefs and life can be hard. To me, it’s one of the more challenging experiences for an author in today’s publishing world, where readers are so curious. Luckily, I found ways to share deeply but still keep my privacy during these interviews.

So far, so good.

Looking good

About 80 percent of the interviews included video. The host posts on YouTube. So a guest needs to pay attention to how the background looks, as well as how you look and sound.

Again, I watched the episodes ahead of time, and I got to see the host’s background for video. How they looked on camera. How the majority of their guests looked. A wide range!

Authors appeared with the scruffy, just-out-of-bed look, believe it or not. Which told me they really didn’t want to be seen and they wanted their book to do all the work. Others appeared very slick and polished, almost corporate. That told me they were used to dozens of Zoom appearances in their work.

I wanted to be somewhere in the middle. So I worked on three main areas for video:

Lighting

Backdrop

My clothes and makeup

One of my favorite podcast hosts, Matty Dalrymple, has a wonderful page on her website that goes through many of the prep items you need to be a successful author on podcasts. She recommends a set of inexpensive lights to put on either side of your computer to make sure your face is clear and bright. I got them, after trying a few other ideas, and they have become my go-to. Some guests/hosts use a ring light, which can be adjusted. Matty has great suggestions.

Your background is important. Not only does the room need sound privacy, for a good audio recording, but what’s behind you creates a certain atmosphere that speaks to who you are.

I set up a rolling desk from Amazon. I put my laptop on a yoga block so it was at my eye height. I sat in front of a yellow wall and a pine bookshelf filled with my favorite books. Beforehand, I went on my own Zoom account to see how it looked. A bit too busy, so I took down a painting on the wall over the bookcase. A few weird book titles were right near my face in the view, so I changed them out for two of my books, face out. I added a healthy-looking plant to soften things.

Some authors use a curtain (a friend has a curtain that looks like a library shelf!). Some use a blank wall. Some have a credenza with a few objects or an interesting plant. The goal, I find, is to not make the background pop out more than your face; at the same time, it’s attractive enough to fit who you are.

Others blur or use one of the Zoom backdrops. As a viewer, I find this disconcerting. In the Zoom backdrop, if the guest moves, the edge of their face and body shimmers. I prefer to go with a real background because it’s just one more way I can interest an audience in who I am—and my books.

Always check out your view on Zoom before you go live. Log into your free Zoom account (www.zoom.us) and make any tweaks you need to for positioning the computer and arranging the background.

What to wear? Totally your call. I wear a bright colored top and a scarf. As I guested on those first few podcasts, I wore different tops to see what went best with my background.

The less to distract a viewer, the better. I learned a hard lesson from that television show, and I wanted to do it right this time.

Your Weekly Writing Exercise

My podcast guru, Michelle Glogovac, wrote a book with so many great tips. Check out How to Get on Podcasts or her website (click on her name above) for suggestions on how to show up, how to prepare, and how to use the interviews to help your marketing efforts.

Michelle herself was one of my favorite interviewers. You can listen to my podcast on her show, My Simplified Life, below. Her questions for me, and her way of being so at ease with her guests, may give you a sense of how to proceed with your own podcast bookings, if you’d like try them!

Have you been on podcasts? What did you love (or not) about them?

Leave a comment

I’ve started a new First Sunday newsletter for paid subscribers that addresses your most gnarly writing and publishing questions. This month’s post was about surviving creative regrets. If you’d like to receive First Sunday once a month, a yearly subscription is only $45. For it, you get access to the 700+ archives, the monthly Q&A of First Sunday, a safe space to ask questions, and my writerly gratitude for helping me continue to write this newsletter.

Subscribe now

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.

What Does “Well-Published” Mean to You?

My newest novel, Last Bets, became an Editor’s Pick with Booklife/Publisher’s Weekly, who called it a “beautifully wrought story of two women artists outrunning their demons.” Join me in the celebration by ordering your copy here.

Photo by Shubham Dhage on Unsplash

Back in March, when I was still awaiting the pub date for my new novel, Last Bets, a good friend sent me a link from Seth Godin’s blog. The title was “How to Be Well-Published.” I admire Godin’s work and it was perfect timing to receive this post, because I did and do want to be well-published. To me, that means some measure of success out in the world, right?

Godin had a very different take on it.

Publishing has nothing to do with printing. It’s the act of taking risks to bring a new idea to people who want to embrace it.

It’s the head of the lab who works behind the scenes to be sure the talented scientist gets a gig at the right conference. Her talk propels the work forward.

It’s Bill Graham ‘publishing’ the Grateful Dead on stage at the Fillmore.

It’s Jean Feiwel orchestrating the bookstore success of Harry Potter…

Godin’s definition of being well-published was refreshing. To me, it acknowledges the absolute lack of control we authors have over what happens to our creative work once it’s out in the world.

We try our very best to control this: where the book goes, how it’s reviewed, who sees it first. We want to control how our baby enters the cold, cruel world; we want to nurture its transition from our love to whatever awaits it out there.

But, truthfully, there’s not much we can do after a certain point.

I’ve had my own nightmare experiences with what I assumed would be “good publishing” by presses small and large. What I assumed would be fair and enthusiastic representation by agents I signed with. What I assumed would be just reviews. I do my best for each book, but in the end, it’s not in my hands at all.

And I’ve had plenty of those small miracles you also don’t expect as an author, like when pre-orders shot both of my recent novels to bestseller status on Amazon. Who could expect that? One would hope for such gifts, of course, but never assume.

Godin puts all that in the right place. I encourage you to read the entire post—it’s short. And check out whatever else interests you on his blog.

What does it take to rise above the crowd with your book? I am learning this, slowly, and I’ve gathered a few good tools to help me along. But I wanted to share some very funny things that happened on the way. Stuff that proves, to me at least, that bestseller status isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Becoming a bestseller

There’s a lot of mythology around bestseller status in the publishing world, as discussed in this Kirkus Reviews article. I also liked this from Medium, about the various other myths that abound in publishing. Both are worth a read if you harbor, as we all do, any fantasies about what it means to be published. (We writers are often hopeful dreamers; we hear about the successes of others and dream even higher!)

But I had the whole bestseller myth hammered home again when Last Bets went into pre-orders in January. Because of a curious mistake in Amazon’s assigning of categories.

Categories are all-important on Amazon. A publisher creates them, then Amazon’s machine posts them. What if the second step goes wrong, though? A writer or publisher may not find out for a while, and in the meantime, some very interesting things can happen!

Setting up a surge of interest—the buzz

I coordinated my pre-order date for this new novel with three other key publicity events, to create enough buzz, enough surge of reader attention, to hopefully make s splash with those Amazon categories. If a surge of pre-orders happened within the surge of publicity, it might help Last Bets rise in the rankings for a few hours, days, or weeks. My last novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue, published in October, clearly benefited from this strategy: it became a #2 on several of Amazon’s bestseller lists and a Hot New Release for many weeks after pre-order.

So I repeated the strategy for Last Bets in January.

A cover reveal tour on Instagram: 18 bookstagrammers announced my book to their followers on pre-order day.

I sent an email to friends and family announcing my new book and asking them to pre-order.

I wrote about it in my weekly Substack newsletter and shared the pre-order link with you readers.

The next day, it happened. A friend texted me: you have the orange #1 bestseller flag! I looked on the Amazon page for my new novel and there it was. In two categories!! It seemed too good to be true.

It was.

After the first moment of thrill, I looked closer. I had to laugh. The categories were all wrong!

Here’s one of them: Art Portraits.

Art Portraits—well, yes, I could see how the algorithm chose that. Apparently, it searches for key words in the description, and Last Bets is about a portrait artist with second sight. The BISAC (Book Industry Standards and Communications) choices via my publisher weren’t anywhere near it, though.

The next day I got another orange flag, #1 bestseller. I was over the moon! Another one of those coveted bestseller markers—how could I be so lucky!

But again, I looked closely at this category. It read: Atmospheric Sciences.

Huh? Amazon’s algorithm had done it again. Somehow, it pulled the island location (and women in trouble on that island) and chose this nonfiction science book category.

Before I went into my Amazon author’s central account to correct this craziness, I shared the joke with my book-launch coach, , and he sent me this photo.

We writers long for this kind of acknowledgement. But the universe was having a joke on my particular longing.

What does “well-published” mean to you?

Now we are a few weeks after publication. The categories are changed to something more reasonable. I’m happy to say that Last Bets is still getting that #1 orange bestseller flag, and I feel comfortable about celebrating that authentically now.

There’s a considerable time lag with calculating book sales. So just a few weeks after publication, it is nearly impossible for me to tell if those earlier, mis-assigned categories made any difference. I have to hope the stellar reviews made the real difference, or the fact that the novel was selected as an Editor’s Pick by a major trade reviewer. Or that I am still receiving emails, messages, and texts from satisfied readers all over the world.

So, even if I don’t have hard data yet, I have to say: This book feels “well-published.”

Here’s why:

I worked much smarter (not exhaustingly harder) on the promotion, using what I’d learned from my second novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue, that was released last year. I came through stronger and healthier than even I expected.

My launch team supported me hugely and I felt a lot of love for the book from them.

My virtual launch was beautifully attended and great fun—everything I would’ve dreamed of, thanks to huge support here as well.

I have many, many podcasts booked for the next few months, where I will share more about my book and what it was like to write it—the journey isn’t over!

When I look at the cover, read through the chapters again, think of it anytime, I feel very satisfied and content.

“Authenticity” in publishing

Authentic is a word that’s used a lot these days. What does it actually mean, when it comes to releasing a book? To me, it means aligned with who I am, which includes my preference for honesty and good ethics. I don’t like to cheat to get what looks like success.

So if I were to look back, I could say honestly that I’ve had several “authentic” bestseller experiences in my fairly long publishing career. My first book (1988) was the top seller for its publisher that year and it won a major award. Another of my nonfiction books also sold a hefty number of copies, as I found out from the publisher a few years after its release. And as I mentioned above, my second novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue, reached bestseller status again and again on Amazon during its pre-launch months.

After all the false highs for Last Bets, with those inauthentic bestseller rankings, they got corrected. And now it has reached just as high, which is a very good feeling.

Amazon is on the same page—which also felt right. When I went into my Amazon’s “author’s central” account and requested a change in my book’s categories, it was granted immediately. I wasn’t about to mislead serious science readers that Last Bets would teach them more about the atmosphere—other than what happens on a tropical island among a small group of troublesome characters trapped there during a hurricane.

My early “bestseller” status is now logged in my publishing history as a good lesson in what I really want from this often-crazy journey. It’s a funny anecdote to share with you this week. But also to remind myself how unsubstantial all of this is.

Really, it is. If I take it too seriously, I definitely should wear that t-shirt (see above).

How often life conspires to humble us and make us laugh. Right?

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Your Weekly Writing Exercise

Read Seth Godin’s article. Consider how you feel about his ideas of what it means to succeed as an author or creative person.

Take fifteen minutes and jot down three things that would make you feel “well-published” when your book or other creative project goes out into the world.

Shout Out!

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

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

Steve Hoffman, A Season for That: Lost and Found in the Other Southern France (Crown), July

I’ve started a new First Sunday newsletter for paid subscribers that addresses your most gnarly writing and publishing questions. This past Sunday I wrote about creative regrets and what they really mean. Interested? Get First Sunday once a month and build your publishing toolbox! A yearly subscription is only $45. For it, you get access to the 700+ archives, the monthly Q&A of First Sunday, a safe space to ask questions, and my writerly gratitude for helping me continue to write this newsletter.

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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 (for real) 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: Sometimes You Just Have to Quit (to Get a Second Chance)

Welcome, new paid subscribers! Thanks for your support.

In my “First Sunday” newsletter, we discuss your most gnarly writing and publishing questions. If you missed past topics, as a paid subscriber you can access the archives. If you’re not yet subscribed to First Sunday, a yearly subscription is only $45 or $5 a month. My wish is to create a safe space to ask questions and discuss the writing and publishing dilemmas we all face.

Q : I’ve had a rough year, with my writing. I don’t like to think about the mistakes I made, all the opportunities I should’ve said yes to. I was afraid—of looking stupid, of getting stuck in something that turned out worse than I thought. I played it safe, which is not always the best move. It worked, but it also stifled me. And I see now what I could’ve done, achieved. The regrets are piling up. For one, I wish I’d spent much more time learning about podcasts and setting them up for my new book, way in advance. But my launch has come and gone, and the book feels a bit dead in the water.

Do we get a second chances in publishing? Can I still reach for my dreams, even now?

A: What a terrifically honest question —one that took courage to even send me. Takes a lot to admit mistakes like this. So many of us have them.

Publishing is never predictable, and rarely easy. Efforts are never guaranteed to succeed. But worse, I feel, is to end up with more regrets than satisfaction after your book is in the world. Regrets eat at you. For a long time. And books are out there a long time.

This is one reason I advise writers to never hurry the process. Ten years from now, you still want to be proud of your book and what you achieved, right? But sometimes it’s not that easy. There are pressures all over—financially, socially, in your writing career—that push you to produce. How many books a year? How many social media platforms? How many followers?

It’s not about the numbers, though, when it comes to looking back and feeling those regrets. It’s about the satisfaction of your process, your decisions, your sense of accomplishment. Whether what you had in your heart and mind actually got received by the world, by your readers. That’s what counts, in my view. That’s what nullifies the regrets.

I want to applaud this writer for doing something so many of us wish for: finish a manuscript, get an agent, get the book in reader’s hands. That’s no small feat today. Yes, this writer wanted a lot more from the process. Yet there was a lot achieved, and that’s worth noting.

But we have these war stories, and we make mistakes because we don’t know better. Or we depend on someone or some aspect of publishing we trust that doesn’t turn out to be 100 percent what we wanted. We pass through terrible times, when hopes turn sour. It’s all very hard. (Fear of this happening—all that for naught—causes some writers never to begin.)

This is not going to be an entirely downer post, by the way, because there are ways out. There are second chances. And I think this is what my questioner is asking about: can you go back for a redo?

Read more

The Book-Writing Toggle

My new novel, Last Bets, is out in the world! “Readers will get lost in Moore's beautiful prose, her impeccable plotting, and her outstandingly relatable and multi-layered characters. Beautifully wrought story of two women artists outrunning their demons,” said Booklife/Publisher’s Weekly who made it an Editor’s Pick. Order your copy today. With my BIG thanks for the support.

Photo by Arthur Mazi on Unsplash

Getting stuck is totally normal during the book writing journey. In fact, it can be useful—a time when the pace slackens and new ideas pop in. You get tired of the story, you abandon it and consider a new direction. But I don’t like it.

One easy way to allow myself to avoid being stuck is to toggle. Even when it all blows up, the writing life gets messy and ugly or becomes a dull slog, I keep writing.

What’s the toggle? A new kind of dance for creatives, perhaps—artists have used it a lot. That’s where I learned it, when painting. That way I don’t equate a manuscript’s current mess with my own inability or my life. I don’t take the low points as personally.

To just keep writing. Such an ideal to strive towards, right?

Toggle!

I own two easels in my art studio. I practice having two paintings in process at any one time. This does not work for everyone, but I find great relief in being able to toggle. I always run into blocks when painting—I get tired, I get bored, I get frustrated. So then I switch to the other painting, work on that for a while. It demands a different part of my visual brain, it presents different problems to work out.

When I learned this toggling technique in art, I immediately wanted to try it in writing. I decided I’d toggle between what I call the gathering and structuring stages. They are very different, not unlike two paintings on two easels. For the gathering stage you use certain writing tools. For structuring, completely different ones. They each employ different parts of the creative brain, too.

Here’s how I toggle: I’m drafting, ruminating on ideas for the new book, sketching out characters and locations, researching. That’s all gathering, like putting things in a big basket. I can do this for a while, then I get ancy. All this stuff! How’s it ever going to make sense to a reader?

That’s when I know to toggle. I switch to structuring. It uses a completely separate part of my brain, loves analyzing what I have and creating a flow. I locate the holes to fill.

After a while, new ideas start flooding in. It’s very natural, and it turns on the other part of my brain—so I toggle back to gathering!

What stage are you in now?

Here’s the way to make this work: know what stage you’re in.

If you know, you can relax! For instance, if you’re gathering, you know you don’t have to make sense of anything structure-wise. A total relief, to just being able to write and explore without creating any linear logic.

A few road signs that alert me—if these feelings or tasks appeal, I know I’m gathering:

I’m playing around with an idea or two, not sure where it’s going to go, and that’s fine—I like the openness of not knowing.

I’m free writing a lot, getting those ideas into very rough scenes.

I don’t feel ready to edit yet. I want to keep it loose.

I have research or interviews yet to do. I’m putting in placeholders to remind me (like the journalist’s TK which marks a place that needs more).

I’m resisting the idea of structuring my book yet. It even makes me mad, sad, or anxious.

I honor gathering. So should you.

I’ve watch thousands of writing students move through this stage, and I honor it because it permits our less linear and more subconscious self to feed a story. It operates without censorship and without knowing sequence or logic. Hooray for random!

You’ve experienced this, I’m sure: a nudge to write down a cool idea, that character who won’t leave you alone, some body of information you really want to share. Or maybe an experience that changed you. I start many books with these kinds of inner prompts—it’s the gathering part of myself saying, Get to it! A story awaits!

I allow this stage to be unformed and free. And my books benefit. 

So many readers have written me that the endings of my novels, especially Last Bets, is so unexpected! Where did that come from? Gathering. I didn’t know the ending either, when I started.

Are you comfortable with this kind of randomity in your writing?

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If you’re a plotter . . .

Some of you prefer starting with a plan. You love the solid outline in hand before you begin to write. You like to ruminate through complete scenes, know your ending, have a clear idea of chapter 1.

Maybe you’re like my student who was an MIT professor writing about his love of math. He took over three long tables at one of my writing retreats, wrote his gathered ideas on index cards, and arranged them into a flow.

The ideas came first.

I love plotters. I sometimes—although rarely—receive a book idea more fully formed and can chart its path easily before I write it. But more often, and this has been true of my students too, I need to explore. I have to gather ideas in a random way to let my books surprise me, go out-of-the-box.

Islands—gathering tool #1

I believe good books have both an inner and outer story.  In other words, there’s an outer plot, a sequence of things that happen or points being made. There’s also an inner meaning for each plot point, what it changes in the character or (if nonfiction) the reader. Gathering allows both to grow.

I am talking to those who believe the great plot or brilliant research is everything. Not so. It has to have meaning to your reader. “Outer story” information is crucial, but it’s only half the picture. 

The beauty of gathering is that the meaning, the inner story, emerges almost organically.

I write in islands.  Islands, a term coined by Ken Atchity of A Writer’s Time, are single scenes, or snippets of information, or a setting description, or a character sketch.  They do not necessarily have a beginning, middle, and end.  Writers who let themselves initially create in islands rather than via an outline include the inner story more readily, I’ve noticed.  Why? Because islands are not gathered in a linear fashion.  They appear in random bits. That’s how inner story works too—it’s rarely linear.

If I can free myself from having to write my book in sequence, or chronology, islands can be tackled in any order. To me, this is the real beauty of islands. If I feel like drafting a scene for chapter 10, even if it’s not the next chapter up on the outline, I can do it.

Brainstorming list—gathering tool #2

I love the Brainstorming List.  It’s my favorite way to counteract writer’s block. I keep track of any and all ideas, questions, and concerns about my story. I try to add ideas to it each writing session. If I have enough, it’s money in the bank. I always have something to write about.

I keep this list in my writer’s notebook or on my desktop. Or on my phone, then transfer to the main list.

Each writing session I choose an item from the list. I set a timer or a page count goal and begin. I write islands around that item from the list, but I often expand to other ideas. One scene leads to new understanding about a character’s backstory. Another leads to needed research about location. It keeps it fun.

I try to write one challenging item and one or two lighter ones each day.

When to toggle

In the early months of writing a new book, it’s not a bad idea to stay in the gathering phase for a while. Mine it as deeply as you can. Usually there’s a moment of frustration that arises, even boredom. Like in my art studio, I recognize this as the time to toggle.

In my writing life, it tells me I’m ready to structure.

Sometimes it can come as overwhelm: the sheer number of ideas! All those pages! I get a craving for organization. 

Here are my signs that I’m ready to toggle:

I begin to wonder, What’s the point of this story?!!

I get overwhelmed: too many islands, ideas, chapters, research, or information. No longer fun to keep accumulating.

I get curious. Maybe I wonder how to start the book—what chapter 1 will be. Or what I might design for the ending.

I get a visual of a clear way to put pieces together.

I’m flummoxed about the murky middle and I need to test ideas on a storyboard.

I realize (horror!) I have more than one story here. I wonder if I can include all of it in the same book.

Letters, journal entries, or important backstory (history) is waiting to be used, but I’m confused as to where these could slip in.

My favorite structuring tool is the storyboard. Here’s my video describing how I use it. Storyboards help you play with possible structures.   

Do you enjoy structuring?

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I often use outlines as a starting point, maybe because I’m hardwired from all those college classes. But the danger with an outline is this: our linear brain gets ahold of the book and decides the imposed order of the outlined topics is set in stone. 

It becomes very hard to change. 

Storyboards give me the freedom to not know the entirety of my story yet. They allow me to play with ideas and a possible structure before I commit to it by drafting hundreds of pages. 

A good time- and energy-saver.

Storyboards are used by publishers as well as screenwriters.  As a book doctor and editor, I was often hired to take a manuscript and analyze its structure.  One project was for an agent in New York City.  A fifth novel by a well-known writer (someone whose name you’d recognize) had been shopped to twelve major publishers.  They all rejected it, saying the structure was not strong and the characters were interesting but didn’t evolve.  So I came in as the structure analysis.  I storyboarded her book and voila, the problem emerged.  Two of the four characters had narrative arcs (inner stories) which stopped mid-book.

I’ve also been hired for storyboard sessions for nonfiction books written in house. A publisher will gather a dozen writers in a room for a day and we’ll storyboard the entire book project from ideas on a list (Brainstorming List!).

If you’re not already a storyboard fan, check it out. Storyboarding is a fast way to discover what’s working and what’s not working with your book. Even after it’s past drafting and fully revised, I use a storyboard to double check my structure.

Honor this stage too. Writing islands forever will keep you isolated from the joy of having a completely structured manuscript that others will also love.

Your Weekly Writing Exercise

Use the markers listed above to think about the stage you’re in right now, with your writing project. Are you sailing along? Are you stuck, ready to toggle?

If you feel adrift, maybe it’s because you’re standing at the gateway of the next stage. You simply have to pick up different tools, a different approach, to walk through and begin.

And here’s a bonus this week: just for fun, an interview with one of my favorite writers, Tobias Wolff, about his experience writing his novel, Old School.

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 earlier this month, 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.

Renegotiate Your Agreement with Time

My new novel, Last Bets, is out in the world! “Readers will get lost in Moore's beautiful prose, her impeccable plotting, and her outstandingly relatable and multi-layered characters. Beautifully wrought story of two women artists outrunning their demons,” said Booklife/Publisher’s Weekly who made it an Editor’s Pick. Order your copy today. With my BIG thanks for the support.

Photo by Diego PH on Unsplash

I’ve long wondered about time, our use of it, our agreement with it—conscious or not. So many feel they never have enough time to do what they really could do with a creative life. Many wonder, even more these days, where the time goes.

So this post today proposed a radical idea: You have the power to renegotiate your agreement with the crazy maker called time.

I got this idea from a very creative friend who, one day, told me, “I’m renegotiating my agreement with time in my life.” I’d never heard of such a thing. Weren’t we all victims of time, all the time? Weren’t we subject to its whimsy? The days we never get anything done versus the days we sail through—do we really control that?

When I retired from teaching and coaching full time two years ago, I thought I’d have more space in my life, more time to write and paint. Ha! That’s when I naively decided to re-enter the publishing world and release two books, back to back, within six months of each other. So instead of lots of time, the opposite became true. There was so much more to take care of, if I wanted to do these releases well—which I did. I became a slave to time, in a way, as my writing life delivered so much more input than it ever had.

Many days, it felt like there was no way to keep up.

But that eventually became the key: Once I accept that I’ll never keep up, a kind of relief comes. I step back. I give up the angst of doing it all. And I take a look at my relationship with time, specially for this new goal in my writing life: learning how the publishing industry works today and doing full justice to my new books.

What time DO you have?

I’m a super responsible person and I have always been told I do the work (read: accomplish the goals) of ten people. Our culture, especially in the US, is all about accomplishment. I’ve felt proud of my drive and reaching my goals, yes. But one thing I learned in my two book launches these past months is that there’s always more you can do.

The information streams are endless. If we’re attempting something new, if we feel we must keep up with what’s happening (because that’s what any intelligent citizen/creative person/responsible being would do), it’s a doom scenario, in my view. The streams become rivers become oceans, faster than you can blink. We can easily drown.

If I follow my friend’s idea of taking charge of time, and this isn’t all about intense scheduling, by the way, it comes down to choice.

First, not trying to do it all. Second, being super aware of what’s really important in the time you have. She suggested a time log as a next step. Yuck, I thought, where’s the fun in that? And who has time for it, anyway? But . . . she was good at this time thing, so I tried.

Have you ever made a time log? I don’t mean a calendar of events and duties you have to show up for, but an actual accounting of where you spend your time. Every day, every minute.

I have to say: It was eye opening.

I’ll share a tiny peak at my log for just one weekday these past six months, as I prepared for the book launch:

Write down my dreams (2 minutes)

Journal (I was doing The Artist’s Way again as a way to reinvigorate my creative practice) (45 minutes)

Do my spiritual practice (20 minutes)

Get dressed (5 minutes—I’m rather minimalist about this)

Get breakfast (15 minutes or less)

Read emails from my publicist and coach and respond (2 hours)

Prepare Canva graphics for a Goodreads giveaway and to repurpose podcast interview quotes (1-1/2 hours)

Be interviewed on a podcast (2 hours, including prep)

Walk my three miles (1 hour)

Work on promotion for the launch (2 hours)

Draft and begin to revise my next Substack, including research (3 hours)

Text a friend who is ill, arrange to bring her homemade soup, make a big pot of soup (2 hours—done between other things)

Respond on social media (30 minutes)

Post on social media (45 minutes)

Make the dogs’ meal (5 minutes)

Research and respond to emails about new podcast invites (45 minutes)

Shovel out the backyard (snowstorm) for the dogs to go out, let them in and out (20 minutes shoveling, constant door opening)

Water houseplants (15 minutes)

Think about lunch, do breakfast dishes; clean up the kitchen (20 minutes)

Look through my novel for excerpts to read for the launch (45 minutes)

Practice reading those excerpts out loud (20 minutes)

Respond to one of my writer’s group (45 minutes)

Catch up on social media again (30 minutes)

Put away the Whole Foods delivery (25 minutes)

Dinner prep (40 minutes)

Read a book during dinner (1 hour)

OK, deep breath—whew. Don’t do the math.

It totals an impossible amount, which, when I realized it, made sense—I wasn’t getting enough sleep. Trying to be a good dog mom (my son is grown and out of the house now), writer, student of the coach I hired, housekeeper, friend, spouse, and a healthy person. Not working.

Good reasons for every single thing I chose to do. Even the social media scrolling and liking and commenting was key to building the community I would need at publication. No way I could skip time with my family. Or eat. Right?

Five at the most

I joke with a close friend about our “plates in the air.” She’s managing health problems, a leadership volunteer position in her community, an elderly mom, her kids and partner, and a thousand other things she loves. But she’s got too many plates spinning in the air above her head. She’s constantly overwhelmed.

The first thing I realized from the time log was that each task felt equal in priority. I had not chosen those that meant the most to me and made them the most important. I also hadn’t separated the tasks that required a learning curve from those that were routine.

Everyone triages in some way—deciding what to do first, for instance. But triaging consciously lets me separate tasks into types. Some required that start-up energy, the learning curve mentioned above. These took a certain kind of time, and fresh brain power, and often emotional stamina. Too many, and I wore out faster.

Then there were tasks I could do in my sleep (like making that soup).

My time-aware friend said, “Have only five of the learning curve tasks at one time.”

Examples: when my son was having trouble at school, it necessitated family meetings and more intense homework help. When I began working with my publicity team, I had so much to learn about today’s publishing world. Starting or restarting a new exercise program or changing my diet meant that task became a plate in the air for me. Definitely more time-consuming, because it was new.

My friend said, “To control your time, limit the amount of those particular plates in the air.” Routine tasks do not count, because they require so much less effort and energy.

When I looked at my log, above, a few activities jumped right out, as my “plates in the air”:

Expanding my journaling time (doing The Artist’s Way again)

Preparing responses for my publicist and coach

Substack writing and revising (I love writing these to you each week, but they take a LOT of time)

Walking again—restarting my exercise

Learning Canva

Everything to do with the friend who was ill and needed soup

Everything to do with my new presence on social media

Promotion for my book launches

Why were these plates, to me?

The journaling was a great idea at the start of the year. A revisit of The Artist’s Way, a journey I’d loved before. I wanted to invigorate my writing practice, not completely lose it to marketing time. I’d decided to do the three morning pages, a weekly artist’s date, and as many exercises as I could.

The publicity work was brand new—definitely a plate in the air. Each idea, each task, required so much thinking, research, and design work. I had to ask lots of questions.

My walk was an attempt to get back into exercise at least three times a week after a hiatus. It always takes energy and attention to start something again, even if it’s familiar.

Promotion has never been a happy thing for me. As I figured out my new way to share about my book, it also took a lot of thought too. As well as emotional stamina.

I was happy to help my friend in the hospital. I know how to make soup with my eyes closed, but the extra time went into the delivery, the texts and emails about the delivery and how she was doing, and all the internal worrying that I tried to keep to a minimum but couldn’t, truthfully.

Posting regularly about my book on socials made me mind-numbingly anxious some days. I hated “pushing” anything at my followers, and I studied how other writers did this, so easily and effortlessly, trying to learn. I followed them, read their posts, noticed the toll, emotionally, then tried my own. Remembering to post regularly was difficult—the time went by and I forgot.

I had eight plates, according my time guru friend. Wasn’t that OK? Just a few over the limit. Nope, she said. You have to make room for the unexpected. And, of course, something happened to prove this. I got covid. Totally threw me out of the lifeboat.

Not an easy lesson. But I learned the wisdom of that margin of flexibility. Her five plates allows for that, for most humans. And talking to others about this, as I researched this post today, I learned about other kinds of crashes that can happen:

getting sick

getting injured (human or animal) and the resulting health visits, PT, whatever

financial troubles, such as tax time

major or minor repairs needed (one friend had a washing machine, their septic system, and their well pump break one after another in two weeks—that effectively put everything else on hold)

a health practitioner says you have to lose weight or change a diet

bad sleep for a few nights, which crashes everything else

an unexpected social event—someone’s birthday, retirement party

kids or grandkids needing emergency care

a vacation or unexpected travel for work

Doesn’t matter if the “plate” is good or bad—like vacations or kid time, which can be a delight—both kinds take up room in the air.

What about time-management techniques?

I love time-management techniques. I’ve tried so many. A few of my favs:

A friend told me about the tomato (pomodoro) technique of 30 minute intervals, back by the science of best productivity and creativity, and I was so convinced I got a tomato-shaped timer. (Emma Gannon, a favorite Substacker, uses a sand hourglass set for 30 minute intervals and told her subscribers, “I bought a new gorgeous pink sand-timer — this time for 30 minutes and it is really helping me focus at the moment. I’ve felt a bit scatty lately so I’ve been doing 30 minutes emails, 30 minutes writing, 30 minutes admin — really helps chunk my time with no distraction or multi-tasking.” It was great to try for a while—this tomato timer technique—but I found myself ignoring the timer when it went off! So much for that. I was too into my writing and didn’t want to lose my train of thought. Know how that is?

Time of day was another time management technique I tried. Find the time of day (morning, afternoon, evening) when you feel the most productive and creative, when the words (or art) flows easily. Then schedule your most important creative work then. I’m best in the early morning, almost right out of bed, and I still use the practice of writing first thing, but it didn’t seem to help me get more done, in the long run.

I loved the master list technique and still use it. The idea is to write everything (every single thing) you have to do on one sheet of paper then color code or triage the tasks. Each day, do one difficult and two small tasks from the list. This helped me get more done, but the list kept growing, so overall . . . not sure. I do like having everything in one place, though, compared to jotted in journal, on sticky notes, in the margins of desk notes or laptop desktop.

Sticky notes and other tech assists also intrigued me, but when I open my laptop, I really want to get right to writing, so I didn’t look at them very regularly.

Accountability partners are a wonderful helper for accomplishing more with writing, if you are deadline oriented like I am. I’ve worked with one other writer for many years—we send each other material weekly when we’re both deep in a new book or story. Some accountability partners just report on accomplishments that week or day, no sharing of writing, and this is also great.

Tons of techniques, and all of them work. (Here are some more! An older post on Medium. Another from The Writing Cooperative. And one from Writers Write. All good ideas.)

But in the end, they are just Band-Aids, to me. I needed something more radical to shift my relationship with time.

What about timing?

A good friend is incredibly generous; she says yes to practically any request. When we talk, she is usually swamped with what she’s doing for everyone else. She’s not getting her own goals met, which (given her generous nature) rides along OK for a while. Then I hear her intense frustration. “I have to stop this train,” she rages, and she does so, often abruptly, leaving detritus and hurt friends in her wake. Why did she suddenly disappear? they wonder.

Generosity makes the world go right, so no dissing that. But it’s all about timing. Whenever we say yes to a new activity, enthusiasm wipes out our sense of timing. Of course we can do it! But poor timing choices means we automatically add a plate to the air. It’s new, we have to make room for it, for the energy it will suck up. For a while at least, anything we’re busy inventing will shoot us out of our normal routine and require extra attention.

So, I’ve learned (the hard way) to train myself out of an automatic Yes! I began to practice stepping back, taking a day to assess what’s required if I do say yes, and what’s already in the air above my head.

This goes back to the idea that we’ll never have enough time, unless we consider our precious energy and resources.

Some examples from my list above: The Artist’s Way revisit was wonderful, happy, and terribly timed, and although I convinced myself I could shoehorn it in, not a chance. Making and delivering the soup was another joy spot, at first. I make really good soup. But delivering was intense—my friend lives about 2-1/2 hours south. (Eventually I realized I couldn’t do it. So I arranged with someone closer to my ill friend to receive my soup in Mason jars to store in her freezer and help with the delivery.)

It’s so hard to choose. It comes down to what you most want to get out of your time.

Fasting

Sometimes, renegotiating your relationship with time means fasting from anything new. At least for a while.

In these more extreme moments, I focus on one or two plates that I really want to take care of. I say no to everything else.

Recently, I got six invitations to speak or present workshops. I was also booked on over a dozen podcasts. The invites to speak involved travel. I decided I couldn’t do both, but which was more effective for my book promotion? I ended up saying no to all six invites. Unless they could be over Zoom, I couldn’t do them.

I hate this. I am not fond of the rigors of fasting—it reeks of deprivation. Lack of freedom.

Another example, a little closer to my heart, was my garden. I’m obsessed with my very big organic garden. Mostly the flowers and fruit. Like kids, most of the time, the plants need constant attention. But looking at my book launches last April, I knew I had to say no to the garden in some way. I couldn’t totally fast from it but how could I change my approach?

Renegotiating time

The contract I’d made with my garden fifteen years ago, when we moved here, said that I would give it my all. I would allow new ideas. I even would tolerate increased size each year. But more is not always better. My garden became a monster, albeit a beautiful one.

It’s on an acre of former farm fields adjacent to land trust property in the southern New Hampshire mountains, about 90 minutes from Boston. The land sweeps me off my feet with its beauty, and I created a 3500 square feet area of cultivated flower, fruit, and vegetable beds, in full sun, plus a small orchard and greenhouse.

It’s a commitment that makes me very happy. It also demands constant attention. Certain months demand even more, such as early spring when all the clean up and planting begins. The fruit trees and berries also need early attention and the greenhouse needs daily watering.

Last April, all the book launch work began. It was a huge plate spinning in the air above my head. I asked myself, what could not happen in the garden this spring? I decided to ignore all the perennial flower beds, just lay compost right on top of the winter debris and do zero weeding or cleanup.

I also asked for help—a good friend came for a few days to shovel compost and get the vegetable beds ready for planting.

Instead of my do-all approach to the garden, I let go of any perfection. In May and June, as the perennials began emerging, the garden looked messier than usual. By July, the perennial growth covered everything so completely, I couldn’t even tell I’d skipped a step. Of course, this spring, a year later, I’m reaping a certain amount of karma from that decision with very happy weeds. But it was necessary at the time.

Time is illusive

What did I learn from my year of time renegotiation? First, time is an illusion. It’s totally subjective (just think of times you are waiting for someone and it drags, versus times when you are rushed and it speeds up). I can’t be a slave to an illusion—I have to take back control of my creative life.

Second, I can’t do it all or do it perfectly. Hard lesson for me—maybe you too? I have to sometimes skip the weeding and trust the flowers will survive and thrive anyway.

Third, more than five plates in the air at any one time is what makes me a madwoman. It’s not the individual tasks, it’s how many there are.

Fourth, I have to choose. I have to say no in order to say yes to what means the most to me.

Looking back on this past year, with both my novels now launched and successful, I feel very good about my time choices. No one died or even got hurt. I still have my friends and family, I completed my big milestone goals, and I feel great about them. I was able to put my all into these priorities, because I said no to others.

And now, it’s a beautiful day. I’m going out to the garden to tackle some of those weeds.

Your Weekly Writing Exercise

Time is a bandit. Cramming writing into a full life of parenting, eldercare, job, healthcare, fun, whatever fills your day, seems impossible sometimes. But time is also subjective. If you want to get a reality check on how many plates you have in the air right now, try the list I used above.

It’s kind of like making a food diary, writing down everything you eat for one day or one week.

Track your activities—everything you do. You can approach this just as a list of types of tasks or activities. Or you can get into portions, how much time each takes.

Once you have your list, consider which activities require creating energy—reinvention or design or development time. Versus routine or maintenance time. Consider how many of those plates you have in the air.

This is especially helpful if you’re trying to make your writing a priority.

My 2023 novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue, is available at bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, and amazon. My just released novel, Last Bets, is also on all online booksellers.

Buy Last Bets

I’ve started a new First Sunday newsletter for paid subscribers that addresses your most gnarly writing and publishing questions. This month’s post was on how to get endorsements (blurbs) prior to publishing your book. If you’d like to receive First Sunday once a month, a yearly subscription is only $45. For it, you get access to the 700+ archives, the monthly Q&A of First Sunday, a safe space to ask questions, and my writerly gratitude for helping me continue to write this newsletter.

Subscribe now

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 earlier this month, 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.

Ingredients for a Happy Book Launch

Photo by Edu Lauton on Unsplash

Time’s strange. Seems like months ago that we arrived home from our winter camper trip, my “in between book launches” recovery time. It’s been just over a week. A Saturday late afternoon, after we’d driven about 400 miles from southern Pennsylvania, we pulled in and sat staring at the early spring beauty of April in New England. So different from anywhere we’d passed through in the last two months.

Ahead of me, only six days away, was the launch of my third novel, Last Bets. Unreal to contemplate. I didn’t even know where I was located in my life anymore.

We emptied the van fridge and grabbed pillows and dog bowls. Headed into the house we hadn’t seen in over two months.

The book launch had been on my mind for all that time, of course, because how couldn’t it? A lot of planning goes into the moment when a book meets the world. I’d done it before, in October. I had decided to streamline the in-person part, make it virtual. To my astonishment, almost 100 people had already registered. I’d watched the number climb all week as we drove home.

I was lucky in my support team—as well as those who came to the event. AWP-award-winning author Ginger Eager, and my writing partner, Rachel Eve Moulton (her newest book made a New York Times “ten best” list this year) were my buddies for the launch. Ginger sent me a list of questions for her interview, which I found quite profound, and Rachel handled the audience Q&A’s which are always my favorite part (a total surprise, what people want to know and what comes out of my mouth as answers).

I didn’t sleep that well all week. I distracted myself by cleaning up winter debris in the garden and our tiny greenhouse, each day outside for four or five hours, getting very dirty. Almost convincing myself I wasn’t the same person as the one about to be on camera.

Ginger and I had a long call mid-week. We talked about the questions, chose three excerpts from the book that I’d read, and worked out the logistics of timing and recording.

As soon as we finished, I went back out to the garden.

I needed the distraction, big time. Not sure why I was nervous, but it’s all about giving birth, I guess. Hoping your baby makes it out OK, is loved, looks good too. We didn’t empty the camper that week; maybe a quick getaway would be useful? And it took many days to get used to being in a house—ours isn’t large but so many rooms! Our two dogs followed us around for days, trying to herd.

I guess you could call me testy that week, and my shoulders ached not just from all the driving but the tension of the launch.

It all went so well. I loved seeing all those fellow writers, past students, family, and friends crowded in the pages of my Zoom screen. I loved all the emails and texts I got after. I loved reading out loud the excerpts from my book, and I loved having to be prepared yet spontaneous about my responses to questions.

Last Bets has been out a week. Today it’s back on the Amazon bestseller list in two categories. It’s getting daily posts on Instagram from the bloggers on the tour I booked. And reviews are getting posted.

Looking back, here’s what I learned. What made the launch successful, in my view.

Steps to prepare for my book launch

I started early, imagining what kind of celebration I wanted for this book.

I wrote a “presume” or future resume: I imagined myself the evening after the launch and what I’d love to feel about it. I wrote it as if it had already happened. It’s a simple form of visualization and it works well to calm my nerves and help me focus on what outcome I most want.

I thought about who to ask to be my support team and what they might do. As one of my past launch team members said: My job is to celebrate you and your book. That’s it. I knew Ginger and Rachel would do that, totally.

I asked Ginger to sent me her ideas and possible questions early so I could think about answers. I wrote the answers down. I let them sit a few days then tweaked them. This would be my backup if words failed me in real time.

I created the launch event link in my Zoom account (I have a pro account so I can host long meetings). But my wifi in the country here is a bit spotty, while Ginger’s in Atlanta is excellent. So she agreed to open the Zoom meeting and use her wifi for the signal. She made me a host and Rachel one as well, so we could access all the features.

Once I had the Zoom link, I created a launch invite graphic in Canva and posted it on social media. I also sent emails to past students and family/friends. And I invited all of you, here on Substack. I think the attendance was evenly divided between all three outlets.

Ginger and I had that great phone call to discuss the flow of questions, when we’d insert short readings from the book, which readings we’d use, and when we’d have the audience Q&A’s.

Rachel and I talked about her jobs—handling the waiting room as registered attendees logged on then reading the Q&A’s that attendees posted in the chat.

I opened the event about 10 minutes early so I could say hi to everyone—that was lovely (people came from all over and from all points in my life).

The invite said to come for a hello, an hour, or the entire event. About 40 people stayed for it all. They posted their questions and comments in the chat, an ongoing conversation that was so lovely and supportive. I saved it, of course. It’ll be like a very positive review for me to read months from now to remind me of this day.

I made sure my lighting was great, the background was cheerful, and Last Bets was prominently displayed. I had water and tea at hand, a comfortable chair, and I tested the video view a good half-hour before we opened, just to make sure it looked good. With all those people, my thumbnail was tiny, but I knew folks could switch to presenter view (just me) so I wanted it to be worth looking at.

We offered two giveaways. Rachel drew a name from the hat for a book bundle, including signed copies of our (my, Ginger’s, Rachel’s) latest novels. The winner was thrilled. I also offered signed bookplates to any attendee who had purchased a copy of the book in pre-orders and wanted one. It felt good to give gifts!

This might be woo-woo for some, but I appreciated Prune Harris’s energy prep for being on Zoom, before and after, here and here. It does seem to help with Zoom fatigue. But I also made sure I went directly out to the garden afterwards, to refresh my eyes, do some far-seeing.

I also made sure to thank everyone. Especially my team.

We got a pretty decent recording of the launch. I wanted to share the audio of it for those who wanted to attend but couldn’t. The audience Q&A’s are especially worth the listen!

And if you’d like to help me celebrate this week, you can buy a copy of Last Bets. I’m very grateful!

It's Here! A Special Birthday Gift for You Lovely Subscribers

My book launch is happening today. We’ve arrived at celebration time.

Join me at the launch party!

If you haven’t already ordered my book, find it here in paperback, ebook, and, very soon, audiobook. It’s a page-turner, say my advance readers. A complex story about female ambition and morality, how women save each other, and how an escape to a tropical paradise was trouble!

If you’ve been following my journey these past months, you know how much work it’s been to bring this book to the world. It hit bestseller status during pre-orders in January. It got Editor’s Pick from Booklife/Publisher’s Weekly. All huge thrills for me.

Now it’s out in the world and I’m asking: Did I do enough? What really worked, what felt the most authentic, what wore me out? We writers prepare for publication day for months, even years. Yet it can arrive with a sense of . . . well, anticlimax.

Heavy lifting is done. I’m feeling a routine now with the podcasts and interviews and bloggers sharing my book. I’m finishing up some giveaways and starting others. I have no idea how long to keep talking about this book, though. Yet I want to celebrate its advent into the world.

Parties stave off any sense of anticlimax. Writers don’t do this alone. It makes sense to share the celebration with those who helped get you here.

Virtual party: Sunday, April 21, at 2:00 p.m. eastern, on Zoom. Ginger Eager, a favorite fellow author, will be discussing creative risk and asking me questions about how my book came through its passage of risk to publication and bestseller status.

Register here to get the link!

Photo by Kira auf der Heide on Unsplash

Because it’s my book’s birthday, here’s my gift to you. It’s an excerpt from my novel, the opening chapter where Elly Sorensen, a portrait artist with the unusual gift of seeing her subjects’ past and future, arrives on beautiful Bonaire island to finish a portrait commission for a wealthy man, only to find him missing.

I hope it keeps you on the edge of your seat!

Last Bets by Mary Carroll Moore excerpt: Chapter 1

Decision-Making 101: Keep It Creative But Effective

My new novel, Last Bets, is publishing in three days! If you’re drawn to novels set in exotic locales with women heroes who stumble a lot before they get to be such, get your copy today. Still time to register for my free launch party on Zoom, Sunday afternoon, April 21.

Register here!

Photo by Florian Schmetz on Unsplash

How do you make big decisions in your life—especially your writing life? To go back to school for an MFA. Decide you’re ready to query agents. Join a writer’s group or find a writing partner. Submit your stories or essays to lit mags or online sites. Or accept an offer from a publisher or agent. Quit your job to write full time. Or decide to self-publish. Up your marketing skills to promote your latest book.

Been there. Struggled through all these decisions myself, some agonizing and stalled from fear, some perfectly timed to move forward now.

I’ve decided fast and intuitively. Slow and deliberately. The way I make my best decisions has morphed into a combo of intuition plus rational analysis. I don’t go for off-the-cuff decisions anymore, without weighing pros and cons. Because decisions carry more weight for me: Each affects my future. I have less future to play around with now. Each affects people I live and work with. I care more.

I approach decisions with a mix of thought and feeling. Most of the time, they work out pretty well. This week I want to share a story about a very hard one I recently made, and how I went about it.

Happy birthday to me

I just celebrated my seventieth birthday. We were at a campground in the Shenandoah mountains of Virginia, a place of supreme beauty, returning from our months-long trip. This sacred time of healing, for me, my “in between book launches” recovery, was one of my best decisions. To celebrate feeling better than I had in a year, I enjoyed a homemade cake baked in a tiny tabletop oven on the campground’s picnic table, a few choice gifts, and a pint of coconut ice cream. I did gentle yoga outdoors, as I have each day of our time away. We walked the dogs, napped, talked, ate, and read (we’re finally reaching the end of our suitcase of books, so time to get home!).

Reaching this decade, leaving the amazing sixties, is a huge and scary milestone. But even more scary have been the creative seeds sown in the past year.

Seeds we sow

Robert Louis Stevenson once said, “Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds you sow.” When launching a book, you plant a LOT of seeds. Each one, you hope will yield. You may not reap the results for months, even years.

During this winter trip, I’ve had to live by that level of letting go. When I decided to release my next novel this month (in three days, April 21!), I had to sow my seeds many months ago, even while my last book was still launching. For an author, this can be crazy making.

In launching a new book, not to mention two, we really can’t count on any harvests at all, ever. Even if backed by a big publicity team, a book release is a investment of time, energy, and hope.

With experience, and a good team, we have more luck in choosing the right seeds to plant. Decisions are based on past experience.

I hadn’t published a book for a decade, so my past experience was a bit like writers marketing their first book. I hired experts who knew the current industry to teach me about social media, podcasts, launch teams, and book influencers. I researched and talked to other authors. It grew to a series of decisions based on research, what I felt able to gamble (money, time, reputation), and experts’ guidance. Always a big risk.

By the time my last novel came out in October, I had accumulated some marketing decisions that paid off, that offered data for the next book. I’d taken good notes but results were just coming in about sales. I had to take what little I knew from reader response, reviews, and how widely the word had spread and make decisions about the next book.

It made me nervous, though. As the launch window approached for Last Bets, a lot rode on my gut. I didn’t have enough data to bring in analysis and rationality. Which, over the years, I’d gotten to appreciate.

The intuitive approach and how it bombed

Back in my twenties, I made life-changing decisions so easily! If something felt right, I did it. Logical, back then, to choose marriage, a job, a cross-country move based on gut and heart response. No need to be scientific, even rational. I was an artist. I chose based on instinct.

Often wrong, as it turned out. But like many failures, I learned so much from these mistakes, these poor decisions.

Harsh learning arrived with my first real business. I wanted to open a natural foods cooking school. I had opened a school, ran it successfully, for a small restaurant in another state. My new husband and I were fired up about having our own.

Business is an unforgiving relationship for many artists. Good business is built on careful analysis and rational decisions. We knew we needed loans and we cobbled together a business plan to show our investors, but it was our enthusiasm that won them over. Good thing, because neither of us knew much about money.

We found a location, persuaded friends and family to help us build the school and small shop, created beautiful publicity. We were floored by the response—classes sold out in days. We had an amazing six months of big success, including national publicity. Carol Flinders of Laurel’s Kitchen fame attended one of my classes and wrote about it for her syndicated column. We had inquiries from Switzerland, Australia, Japan.

Then the 80s recession hit. Nobody had money for cooking classes. I branched out into catering, got great contracts, even one with DreamWorks (Lucas Films) who were shooting a movie on top of a nearby mountain. We desperately tried to keep the business afloat, but enthusiasm and hard work wasn’t enough. It folded three years after its inception.

Closing a business is not simple. It involves legalities, creditors, employees. To me, this dream dying felt like a hard slap in the face. For years, I questioned my right—and my ability—to make life-changing decisions.

Using a purely intuitive approach to launch this business, I’d neglected the rational responsibility that most businesses rely on. I naively thought that if nobody was hurt by a decision, go for it: try, fail perhaps, move on. But a business is a community, a consciousness beyond one or two people.

A friend once told me such projects are like babies. We can’t just do our best then leave them on the side of the road if it didn’t work out.

The rational approach and how I altered it

After recovering from that business failure, which rocked my world for a decade, I set myself the task of learning the rational approach to decision-making.

As I studied, (steps might include these from the Harvard Business Review or UMass Dartmouth) I realized I could never abandon my creative self, which contributes the gut and heart. I could mix the two, come up with my own version of the rational approach plus a little intuitive, which wouldn’t fly with the strict business approach but works for decisions with writing and publishing.

Here are my steps:

figure out the goal; what am I doing this for, exactly? what do I hope for?

With my new book, Last Bets, my goal was to, obviously, get it in as many reader hands as possible, but even more than that, my goal was to keep momentum going for me as an author, the good and useful momentum started with my last book. The way I would know if this book was received and my readers were satisfied was through reviews and responses.

get information about the possible outcomes, pro and con

I made a pros and cons list early on. The pros side was momentum, knowing how to launch a book and having that knowledge very close at hand and not in the distant past, having a team of volunteers willing to help, having a publishing team I loved working with, and already being somewhat savvy on social media.

The cons side was financial outlay so soon after the last book, my own exhaustion, and the worry that I wouldn’t be giving this new novel enough fresh attention.

look at other options—are there better roads to take? consider the consequences via future forecasting—brainstorm about what might happen with this choice or that one

I could’ve released the book in fall 2024, a year from the other novel. I could’ve waited until spring 2025. I could’ve put it off for two more years, even, until 2026. I wrote each of these three possible dates and listed the pros and cons of each. Big in my concerns were the growing cost of publishing (paper increases are being felt by the industry in a big way), the U.S. election in November 2024 and whether that would derail my and readers’ attention, and the general uncertainty of the economy. I knew where I was now, I didn’t know if a window would be available in the future. I also looked at my age, my personal stamina.

get experts to weigh in, talk with people who have done this before or work closely with the industry

I consulted with two or three experts. Opinions were mixed. Some said that the book would get better visibility if it was not tied to my just-published novel. Others said the opposite. I weighed all the opinions and realized this is where my rational thinking must cede to my gut response.

The inner nudge

Some days, when facing a big decision like when to publish this next novel, I long my carefree youth. How easily I decided life-changing things when I was in my twenties to mid-thirties. No sleepless nights or heavy lifting required. Just decide, do it, and find out what happens.

I can’t approach decisions that way anymore. My sense of commitment to anything I decide is much more serious.

After all my back and forth, analysis and research, I came up with equally positive and negative results: there was no one way to go. So I took the decision inside, in the end. Like I did when I was much younger, I waited for the inner nudge, a dream, a rightness.

What I got: let this book be published as your seventieth birthday gift to yourself, another bucket list item fulfilled.

When you publish, whether traditionally or indie, you don’t just say Bye! to the book and let it go out in the world. You have to shepherd it along. You have to introduce it around, not leave it alone in the corner of the packed party. You have to help launch it. So that required effort, time, and funds. Would I be able to generate all three in just six months?

Even though, at seventy, my methods of deciding something big are much more conservative than in my twenties, I still need that united YES! from heart and gut, that excitement that a clear path delivers.

In the end, I also had to accept that I might have chosen wrong. I would accept the fallout, if so. As long as I was OK with the decision in my heart and body, and that OK-ness comes more from the instinct and intuition than the absolutely rational, I would go forward.

My final steps were fairly new to this decision, so I wanted to share them in case you are facing a big one and want to try these.

I “made” the decision in my mind and heart, pretending I’d decided, then lived with the feeling for a few days. How did it sit? Did I get swamped with terror or unease or sadness, like I’d lost an opportunity? Then I “decided” another option, doing the same steps, living with it via my imagination as if the decision was made. Which felt right?

Once I got that sense of which decision would be livable, to me, I went back to my pros and cons list. I looked at the “cons” and brainstormed worst possible outcomes of each. That’s not a fun task but it does let some of the unanchored fears surface. I realized I could live with any of them—and we’ll see if that remains true.

Your Weekly Writing Exercise

Consider a decision in your creative life that’s on the horizon or on your plate right now.  Read back through this article and try one or more of the techniques that intrigue you. 

Then join the discussion below.  What are some big decisions you’ve made recently?  How did they turn out?  What’s your normal way to make decisions?

Leave a comment

If you’d like to help me celebrate, support me in this big decision I made about my new novel, or just want to say congrats to a fellow writer, consider pre-ordering a copy of Last Bets today.  Thank you to everyone who has already done so—the book hit Amazon’s bestseller lists in two categories when pre-orders opened in January.   

Pre-order Last Bets

Join me at my free launch party, where I’ll be in conversation with award-winning author Ginger Eager. Sunday afternoon, April 21. Details below.

Registration details here!

I’ve started a new First Sunday newsletter for paid subscribers that addresses your most gnarly writing and publishing questions. This month’s post was on how to get endorsements (blurbs) prior to publishing your book. If you’d like to receive First Sunday once a month, a yearly subscription is only $45. For it, you get access to the 700+ archives, the monthly Q&A of First Sunday, a safe space to ask questions, and my writerly gratitude for helping me continue to write this newsletter.

Subscribe now

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

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

You're Invited: Join Me on Sunday, April 21, at 2:00 p.m. Eastern, for My Book Launch on Zoom!

April 21, I’ll have my online book launch for LAST BETS, my new novel. My launch features a good, provocative conversation with author Ginger Eager about how this novel got started, the inspiration and the way it shaped itself, what changed midstream, and what happened during publishing.

Register here!

You’re warmly invited to learn more about what happens behind-the-scenes of a bestselling novel. Join me on Zoom, April 21, at 2:00 p.m. eastern, for a provocative conversation about all things writerly.

Ginger Eager, author of The Nature of Remains (Winner of the AWP award) and Georgia Author of the Year in 2021, will ask some wonderful (and possibly difficult) questions about how my novel, LAST BETS, came about.

From beginning idea to all the changes made in umpteen rewrites to the end result which will be released on April 21, we’ll explore how a book is made. It’s not all pretty balloons, by the way, and we’re going to get real about that.

When: Sunday, April 21, 2024

Where: On Zoom

When: 2:00-3:30 p.m. eastern time (please translate for your time zone)

What: Bring your writerly questions too—we’ll have a live Q&A at the end. And bring your own beverage of choice, spring picnic, cupcakes, party hat, whatever!

Bonus: We’ll have a drawing for a free signed copy of LAST BETS, for you or as a gift for a friend. Enter during the launch.

Here’s how to register for this virtual launch event:

Register here!

You’ll get an email confirmation from Zoom with the login and password. Then just join us on Sunday, April 21, at 2:00 p.m. eastern!

Look forward to seeing you there!

PS Pups are welcome, my dogs say, as long as they get their own cupcake and party hat!

Photo by Duncan Kidd on Unsplash