Dear Friends,

It’s been a week.

If you couldn’t tell from my references to “neediness” in Tuesday’s post about the cost of a writing life, I am living through one of those chapters of being intensely needed in life.

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Every week, I aspire to use this newsletter to offer a lesson or pose a question that will help lifelong learners live better.

But this week, I’m coming up short.

As I write this, I’m lying in bed beside my sick husband, who seems to have passed along a lingering sinus infection. Everything that could have possibly gone wrong at work today did, and these are the first creative words I’ve drafted today.

But sometimes this is what it means to be a writer.

At the heart of everything I share here is a tension between my creative desires and my responsibilities as a mother, educator, caregiver, friend, daughter, and community member. There’s rarely a moment in the day I’m not needed by someone, if not 3-12 someones simultaneously.

How to balance it all?

I don’t.

Some days, I’m killing it in one area. Most days, I’m giving solid B- performances across the board.

If I’ve ever made this juggling act look easy, I can assure you there is a heck of a lot of effort on the other end — and not nearly enough time binge-watching Below Deck.

That’s what I want to dive into today: the real cost of a creative life.

“How do you make time for your writing?”

One of the most harmful and prevalent beliefs I struggle to let go of is the fantasy that I can do it all — without making sacrifices.

If, like me, you have a job and a family, it’s not easy to squeeze creative pursuits into a day that is rigidly fixed at 24 hours.

The real answer to that question is this:

• I miss out on a lot of relaxing.

• I work every day of the week (including long Sunday stretches).

• I skip time with my kids.

• I get up early.

• I don’t watch much TV.

• If I can escape for 24-48 hours, I do.

There’s a lot of ouch in this list.

I rarely feel triumphant when I wake up early to write. I don’t enjoy saying no to social events and time with my kids. And I begrudge missing out on beautiful Sunday afternoons when I’m sitting in my windowless office.

The sacrifice isn’t theoretical. It’s real.

No fast and friendly tips. No short corners. Not a nugget of gold for anyone in that hard reality, except…

And, what if, instead of contorting our minds and bodies in search of an impossible solution to prove we can do it all without sacrifices, we accept the deal as it is — and start talking honestly about it?

To commit to a writing life is to throw logic out the door.

After all, who says, “Hooray! Sign me up!” for less sleep, less family time, less relaxation, less reality TV, and little money?

This is why writers like call it a vocation — it’s because we’re driven to it, cast under its spell, and unwilling to accept a life without it.

Given the choice, we’d choose creativity over so many other things of high value. We accept the sacrifice (albeit sometimes miserably) because it doesn’t really feel like a choice at all — the work calls to us, a relentless master.

The grief is real.

The hardest part of the sacrifices isn’t usually what I’m missing out on; it’s the stubborn, persistent feeling that I’m doing it wrong because I have to make a sacrifice at all.

Unless you are an independently wealthy hermit with no pet or relative to speak of, you probably relate to this tension:

Truth #1: The people you love need you.

Truth #2: You need something that isn’t them.

Holding these two truths is painful. Our desire to be everything for everyone in our lives is often at odds with the desire to make ourselves whole, especially if we…

• Believe we should be able to write seriously without sacrificing rest.

• Believe we should be able to pursue our ambitions without occasionally disappointing someone.

• Believe there should be enough of us to go around.

Grief is the result of life smacking rudely up against our false beliefs. But no amount of time management, organization, or discipline can change the very real human limitations we all face.

The sacrifice is not evidence that we’re failing — it’s evidence that we’re choosing something that matters.

Every meaningful life asks something of us.

This is not a sob story. Nor do I wish to discourage anyone from following their creative ambitions. But I hope by acknowledging the challenges, we can dispel the myth that creativity is effortless — or that its pursuit is free.

Anything worth having is worth sacrificing for, especially when it’s the work that makes us whole.

These books are such celebrations — and revelations — of language that it’s requiring every bit of discipline not to escape back into them during the work day. I am swooning, actually swooning, over these two reads.

The Children by Melissa Albert: Orphaned and estranged siblings, raised in a spooky farmhouse in Vermont by their mother, a children’s author who featured them in her series of popular books, this book checks off every gothic suspense/magical realism square on my bingo card.

Beyond being enraptured by the premise, I find myself wanting to annotate the entire book as I read. Albert crafts sentences with such figurative richness that each one deserves a moment under the microscope.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak: Another masterpiece of craft, Zusak’s imaginative narration (Death tells the story of a young German girl during the height of the war) and creative form prove that the most memorable writing is often inventive. Again, I am pausing to devour specific sentences and lively verbs (“The bubbles ate her tongue,” “In the uneven circle, the minutes soaked by”), trying to resist the urge to pause and marvel, and to allow the story to carry me like a current.

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Dear Friends,

I’m so grateful for your thoughtful responses to Tuesday’s post. Your comments made it clear that I’m not the only grown-up in the room who has stressed over and avoided the world of financial literacy.

My mention about growing up in a house where we didn’t really talk about money had me worried about offending my mother (one of my most devoted Substack readers and a truly wonderful parent!). When she left a comment on the post, I thought, “Oh, ****! I better text her with an apology!”

But what followed was a gracious and enlightening exchange.

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This week we’re talking about money.

Why?

Because I reaaaaaaally don’t want to. Like a lot of women, I’ve spent decades successfully avoiding the topic and plugging my ears anytime it came up.

And for good reason!

Money invites a host of unwanted emotions: envy, greed, overwhelm, shame. When you couple those yucky feelings with an education system that woefully fails to help young people become financially literate, it’s easy to understand how we’ve arrived at a moment of rampant spending and unprecedented debt (an average of $154,152 per household).

It’s an area of learning that we desperately need to face head-on.

I came to that realization last spring, after making a series of unfortunate (and avoidable) financial mistakes for which I was too damn old and wise, but which forced me into an uncomfortable conversation with myself about why I’ve been avoiding this work.

Since then, financial literacy has become a central pillar of my lifelong learning journey. And I’m inviting you to come along, too.

Understanding your money biography.

When Dr. Maya Angelou said, “You can’t really know where you are going until you know where you have been,” she may not have been talking about credit card balances, but she was certainly emphasizing the importance of biography.

Our relationship with money is formed early in life and greatly influenced by the examples we witnessed in our families. Think back:

• What were the first messages you remember hearing about money?

• What spending behaviors did you observe?

• How were you taught to value money?

I, for one, didn’t grow up in a house where we talked about it much. I knew we had enough to live a nice life, but not so much that there’d ever be a vacation home in play, and I felt satisfied by this rudimentary understanding.

As an adult, I recognize what a privilege it was not to worry about money. But I also see how my lack of curiosity put me at a serious disadvantage in preparing for adulthood.

When I got my first credit card at 19, before studying abroad, I made great use of it. It didn’t occur to me that someone would be stuck holding the bill at the end of the month, nor was I familiar with compounding interest.

It took a few embarrassing bailouts before I got the picture.

My years of thoughtless spending elicit enough shame that I’d love nothing more than to put these memories in a boat and send them out to sea, a la a Viking funeral.

Alas, they’re part of the story. A story I now understand involves undiagnosed ADHD (hello, impulsivity) and a family tradition of not talking about money.

And understanding that story has been instrumental in learning to rewrite it.

What are you scared to find out?

One version of my money biography is that I really didn’t care to learn. Another is that I was scared to learn.

Peeking behind the curtains meant diving headfirst into a world I didn’t feel smart enough to understand: one of 401(k)s and Roth IRAs, high-yield savings, and brokerage accounts.

It also meant facing my past financial mistakes and the grim possibility (OK, probability) that I was living outside my means.

And WHO ON EARTH WOULD WANT TO GO THERE??

Many people, especially women, avoid learning about money for exactly this reason. But the risks of not educating ourselves are even greater.

As someone who entrusted my spouse with our finances early in the marriage, I learned how dangerous it is for one person to hold all the cards. After my husband’s brain injury, I had to do some serious forensic accounting to understand what was happening with our money. Not only was I locked out of important accounts, but I also couldn’t ask him any questions. I’ll never forget repeatedly explaining to the Bank of America representative that my husband couldn’t get on the phone because he was in a coma. And while I don’t wish to repeat that experience, I’m glad it forced me to take the reins.

What I’ve learned from each chapter of my financial education is that the scary stuff is rarely as scary as we imagine — and it helps to name it.

Writing down our fears — the things we’re afraid to know — may just give us the courage to begin asking the hard questions.

It’s never too early (or late) to learn.

If I’ve learned anything from this journey, it’s that financial literacy should begin early and be discussed often.

A few years ago, we set our kids up with Greenlight accounts, and they’ve loved watching their savings and investments grow over time. The app allows them to track their money, connects chores to allowance, and boasts interactive games that my daughter enjoys stealing my phone to play.

As a family, we’re working to be transparent about the cost of living. We want our kids to know what’s involved in going out to eat or replacing that 15th lost water bottle. They’re small things, but I hope they’ll contribute to a broader understanding of how money functions and how to be strategic with it.

It’s never too late for the grown-ups to learn, either. A lifelong spender and nearly professional shopper, I find myself these days geeking out over a good deal and any opportunity to earn airline miles. (Also, taxes! Who knew??)

I may not be the next Suze Orman, but a little curiosity and some self-compassion have helped me come a long way in facing my old nemesis and building my confidence about finances. I’ll shout it from the rooftops:

Empowering yourself around money is one of the most important endeavors in lifelong learning.

How to Be a Rich Old Lady by Amanda Holden: Where am I thirty years from now? Why, enjoying a glass of Sancerre at an outdoor cafe on the bank of the Seine, of course! But if we’re working backward from our rich old lady dreams, this book is an excellent place to start and will reinforce that anyone can become savvy about finances.

Financial Feminist Podcast

There’s nothing my 15-year-old son loves more than our drives home from school, in which I force upon him the nuts and bolts of investment via my favorite money podcast.

JK, he’s definitely being held against his will. But if even 10% of the conversation trickles into his developing prefrontal cortex, it will all be worth it. This podcast does a great job of illustrating how money is tied to behavior, trends, trauma, and so many other facets of living.

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I live in a little house. Normally, this does not bother me. I’ve lived in little houses for most of my adult life, and little houses are much easier to keep clean than big houses, which is a plus when you are your own housekeeper. Which I am.

But last week, we stretched to make room for one more. While my father-in-law is receiving medical treatment in D.C. over the next month (he was recently diagnosed with leukemia), my mother-in-law is staying with us.

And our little house suddenly feels very little.

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If you’re deep in revisions right now — moving scenes around, second-guessing everything, and wondering whether you’ve lost the thread entirely — kindly remove your head from the brick wall upon which you’ve been banging it, pull up a chair, and heat up that mug of lukewarm coffee.

It’s time to chat about revisions.

After a month of tinkering, rearranging, improving, and (worsening) my middle-grade novel, I’ve learned an important lesson about this work:

The fastest way to flatten a story is to start forcing it to behave.

Many writers find revision to be frustrating for exactly this reason.

A first draft is constructed with passion, the second with practicality — and marrying these ingredients is rarely easy. At some point in the revision process, many writers complain that they’ve lost the emotional thread. They worry that the story they poured their hearts into no longer has a heart itself.

Learning how to fine-tune the architecture of a story while preserving the magic of the first draft is a little like renovating a historic home. No one wants a slanted floor or termites in the attic, but they sure as heck don’t want to part with the crown molding or the ornate mantel. Let’s not throw away the baby with the bathwater, shall we?

A strong writer finds a way to deliver both the magic and the flow.

1. Distinguish quick fixes from structural changes.

Some revisions are quick and easy; others require careful deliberation and structural adjustment. Playing up a character’s love of old stamps might be resolved as easily as adding a line of dialogue. But giving that character a sinister new backstory that alters their motivations is a different beast, as are changes to timelines and events. Bucketing your revisions can help you prioritize them. I usually try to tackle the big stuff first. If a line of dialogue I was planning to revise ends up getting cut later on, I’ll be glad I didn’t waste time perfecting it.

2. Anticipate the domino effect.

Who knew that one small change to a manuscript could tear a hole in the fabric of the universe? Of course, I’m kidding, but as I revise this mystery, I’ve been surprised by the chain reaction of adjusting one element in the story. On many occasions, I’ve set out to make a simple change and discovered I had to revise a hundred other things to make it work. This wouldn’t be such a big deal if I had incorporated the following tip first:

3. Resist superimposing the new on the old.

Writers tend to be fiercely protective (we’ll talk about our precious darlings in a moment), but our loyalty to the first draft can be cryptonite in the revision process. In this proect, I’ve found myself stuck anytime I catch myself superimposing the new story over the old one. In practice, that’s looks like retaining the sequence of events and just making the characters say and do different things in each of those scenes.

It doesn’t work because that’s not the story I’m telling anymore. And trying to box new characters into the same moments as their predecessors is akin to wearing my husband’s nightguard — it simply doesn’t fit (and ew, gross).

Revision isn’t just tinkering with what you’ve already got on the page — it’s about letting your story boldly venture in a new (and improved) direction.

4. Protect your “darlings".

OK, OK. This advice must seem hypocritical, but it’s really not! Protecting our darlings is not about preserving every scene and small moment — it’s about preserving the magic I mentioned earlier. The crown molding! The foot-wide floorboards! Your darlings might be the quirks of a particular character (can you imagine Eleanor Oliphant without the social awkwardness?) or the spooky atmosphere (Rebecca without Manderlay??), but whatever it is, it’s the reason you sat down to write in the first place. And it’s why your readers will find you. Define those darlings and hold them dear.

5. Trust your gut.

If something doesn’t feel right in a new draft, it’s usually because it’s not. Structure eluded me during the memoir writing process, and I remember turning in one draft to my editor that definitely didn’t work. I knew it as I was forcing that draft onto the page, and I felt it again when I pressed “send.” So I was not at all surprised when my editor agreed. Revisions take time. Better to try and try again than blow your one shot with the publishing gods on a draft you know isn’t it.

Revision is hard — there’s no way around it. I’ve delivered this bad news to more third graders than I can count, and still, no one is more disappointed by it than me.

But revision is the fertile territory in which great writers are made. And lucky for us, more than a few others have paved the path with useful advice.

My personal favorite? Refuse to be Done by Matt Bell. Matt takes the overwhelming process of revision and breaks it down into three drafts—each with a specific purpose. If clear and defined tasks are your meat and potatoes, don’t sleep on this book. It will remind you that you can do it, and it will show you exactly how.

For the “pantsers” like me: Story Genius by Lisa Kron. If your first draft was conceived in a fit of artistic passion or a perimenopausal sleepless night, perhaps revisions have taught you that a little reverse engineering is necessary in shaping your brilliance into something that better resembles an actual story. If so, Lisa Kron is here to help you understand the finer points of effective storytelling.

If you’re in the midst of revisions and would love the support of a community, join the #WriteWithMe chat for daily updates & inspiration.

Friends,

Today, I’m writing about simple joys — in part, because it’s been an enormously stressful week.

In a series of events that freakishly resemble my intense period of caregiving ten years ago, multiple family members are dealing with health issues. As a unit, it’s spreading us thin — hospitals once again a daily feature of life, and uncertainty permeating all decisions.

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In 2023, I left my job as a public school teacher to pursue writing full-time. And then a funny thing happened: I became a businesswoman.

I couldn’t have predicted how that mindset shift would change everything I thought I knew about success — including my creative life.

Let me start at the beginning.

For years, I’d tried to manage it all: a full-time job, writing on the side, and raising two young kids. But any educator will tell you that classroom teaching is really more like 5 full-time jobs. The summers are amazing, but the nine months during which every ounce of cellular energy is zapped from your body before 4:30pm are grueling.

Most nights, I came home too overstimulated to even chat with my own kids, let alone to sit down and create art. It triggered a cycle that would trap me for years: stuck in the false narrative that I should be able to do it all — write, teach, parent — and failing every day to meet my own expectations.

Something had to give. And naturally, it had to be the thing that demanded the most of my energy, creativity, affection, and executive functioning.

My job.

Before we go any further, let me be clear: I do not recommend quitting one’s day job to support their art (we’ll talk about my new full-time job in just a minute). Leaving behind a generous pension and a secure position was no flip-of-the-coin decision. In this day and age, with AI, inflation, and so much general uncertainty, a job is a blessing.

(So, please don’t go telling your boss tomorrow that I told you to quit and focus on your knitting.)

What I do recommend is trying on a different hat.

A month after leaving the classroom, I was approached by a local business owner about joining the team at her small education company. The invitation surprised me.

Sure, I knew about teaching and kids. But I didn’t know anything about business, let alone how differently a company operates from a school.

I quickly discovered that while the nuts and bolts of business are easy enough to learn, it’s the mindset that requires the most growth — and has taught me the most along the way.

Three years later, I am now the COO of that company. The lessons below are among those that have helped me get out of my own way and start claiming my creative dreams.

Lesson #1: Learn to be your own best cheerleader.

Many women excel at teaching because it’s closely aligned with the other roles we fill in life: daughters, caregivers, mothers, women.

As someone who checks every one of those boxes, I learned early on that the more I pleased others and the fewer boundaries I claimed, the more praise I received. Every “good job” or “thanks for accommodating me” reinforced the belief that the strongest tool in my toolbox was making others happy.

It wasn’t until I left the classroom that I could see how that belief upheld a system that exploits unpaid female labor. Or, that by masking my desires, I was self-sabotaging my sacred work: writing.

I discovered this the hard way after my memoir was released. Throughout the 18-month publishing process, I was so pinch-me ecstatic to have the opportunity that I followed my tried-and-true playbook of going with the flow and not asking questions along the way.

I didn’t understand just how much self-advocacy would be required until it was time to promote the damn thing. And then it was like stepping onto a stage for a role I’d never prepared for: my own best cheerleader.

Buy. My. Book. Three words I’d rather eat live worms than utter.

The audacity! I thought. You can’t just say nice things about your own work! It wasn’t humble. Or demure. It was what loud-mouthed, disagreeable women did — the kind of women we’re taught to fear like the plague.

But anyone who knows anything about publishing or business in general knows that you don’t get anywhere if you’re not willing to push your own product.

In business, excess humility is a roadblock, not a virtue. When you put your name on something, you should be proud enough to scream about it from the rooftops. You can’t just wait for the universe to recognize how “nice” you’ve been along the way and do you a solid by spreading the word.

After all, if you won’t be the head cheerleader of your own life, who will?

Lesson #2: Make the ask.

I have learned so much from my colleague, friend, and Amore Learning founder, Chloe Kaplan. Chiefly, that no one will send you to the gulag simply for asking! In my previous life (the one where I’d rather eat worms than talk up my own book), I couldn’t think of anything more fear-inducing than asking for what I actually wanted.

And then I watched a miraculous thing happen. And happen again.

In conversations with clients, potential partners, and collaborators, I watched Chloe unapologetically make the ask. Then (with shocking frequency), as it was granted.

In the writing world, there are a lot of asks to be made. Will you read my pages? Will you blurb my book? Will you please mentor me?

For a solitary practice, it’s a community-based career, one in which you won’t get far unless you find your tribe. Which means, you must get comfortable with the vulnerable practice of asking for what you want.

(Of course, there are polite and authentic ways to go about this, as well as cringe-inducing, inappropriate ways, but that’s a conversation best saved for another day.)

Only now, in my reformed people-pleasing era, can I embrace the familiar saying, “The worst someone can say is no.” And that’s because in my business experience, I’ve been on the side of “no” enough times to discover that I actually will survive it.

Rarely are “nos” personal (rarely is anything in business personal!). And the more practice you get hearing it, the more skilled you become at learning how to turn the “no” into a “yes," or even a “yes, please!”

Lesson #3: Enthusiasm begets creativity.

When you love what you do, it’s easy to make others fall in love with it too. I love serving children — I mean this with every fiber of my being — so to continue that work on my own terms has been a great gift. Our business has grown exponentially over the past few years, largely due to the enthusiasm of our leadership team. We love our clients. We love our team of teachers. Yes, there are headaches (there are headaches in every job!), but I feel lucky to have found a job that fuels my energy instead of depleting it. And this has impacted every part of my life, including my writing.

Oftentimes, energy for one feeds the other (which is another reason I don’t recommend quitting!). Two summers ago, I was struck by inspiration while sitting by the lake. As I began working on what would become a middle-grade mystery, I had an “OOH OOH” moment. Maybe I could take my newfound interest in detective work and get real kids on board. When I got home, I developed an afterschool class called Mystery Solvers, one of our company’s most popular offerings.

Your hobby doesn’t have to become your job. Nor does your job need to feel like a hobby. Think of them instead as a marriage of two kick-ass individuals, two complementary outputs of your energy. Whatever excites you will likely excite others. Follow that enthusiasm — it will grow in directions you never expected.

For those (like me) who can do hard things but can’t get dressed in the morning.

Next month, we are launching our first Lifelong Learner series at Amore Learning. In you’re in D.C., consider joining us for The Style Edit: an evening with the wise and wonderful Vanja Amodeo, beloved image and fitness coach (not to mention, Dr. Jill Biden’s beloved barre teacher!).

For Vanja, image isn’t about luxury brands or optimizing the body. It’s about identifying a personal style that’s authentic to the chapter you’re living, and resisting the pressures and habits that keep us stuck. This intimate conversation promises confidence, clarity, and intention for every woman.

Join us at Amore HQ on Tuesday, June 2nd from 7-8pm

I’d love to see you there.

Yesterday, the world lost an enormous human. I’m sad to say I never got to meet Dr. Edith Eger (she was actually my friend’s grandmother), but she changed my life immeasurably, along with millions of others.

I read Dr. Eger’s memoir, The Choice, in 2018, shortly after it was published. A survivor of Auschwitz who endured horrors beyond imagination, Dr. Eger was the human embodiment of neuroplasticity — the brain’s power to heal and remake itself.

Dr. Eger turned trauma into healing, storytelling into transformation, and gathered admirers ranging from Oprah to the Dalai Lama along the way. It has been a privilege to place her book in the hands of nieces, friends, and fellow book lovers. And it will be a very special day when I share The Choice with my own children.

If you haven’t read it, I hope you’ll order it this very moment. You will not come out the same.

There’s a lot of noise in the world right now. A lot of absolute garbage on the internet competing for our attention. If the landscape had been as noisy in 2018 as it is now, there’s a chance I may never have read Dr. Eger’s book. Or that it might be sitting indefinitely on my to-be-read shelf.

On Threads, where I legitimately cannot sort fantasy from fact, AI from human beings, the world seems to be in a state of satirical peril. From cancel culture wars to drama manufactured for marketing purposes, I’ve all but given up on the idea of connecting with any real tribe.

Meanwhile, over on Instagram, my family has been glued to the account of a certain lifestyle influencer who owns a gaudy, all-white estate in rural Pennsylvania and dresses her children like Victorian dolls. Try as we might, we can’t look away. We’re mesmerized by her dead hydrangeas and her children’s giant bows (why can’t I get my daughter to wear a bow? Why can’t I even get her to brush her hair?).

It’s fascination, machination, and a whole lot of imagination going on at the same time. I try to remind myself, “This is not real life. This is a game in which we’re all pawns.”

But what is “real life” these days? And how do we get back to it? How do we turn down the damn noise and find meaning?

To start: We have to Marie Kondo the content in our lives.

Turning down the noise

Take a look at your inbox.

How many of those emails have nourished you in some form? How many have raised your heart rate?

I can only speak for myself, but I am oversubscribed. To clothing brands, to group texts, to delivery alerts, and yes, even to Substack newsletters.

I am one human. And one human cannot read 50+ newsletters, hundreds of emails, full-length books, and The New Yorker’s fiction section each week.

Life is full of choices. We either make them OR risk waterboarding ourselves with content.

Turning down the noise means prioritizing the most important content in our lives. Is it a daily podcast? A book club commitment? Email correspondence with relatives?

Whatever it is, it’s time to pare down.

This week, I am ruthlessly unsubscribing to 5 publications each day. Some choices are easy — I won’t miss the bombardment of retail companies. Others are harder — ideally, I’d love to support every writer on Substack!

Instead of, “Does this spark joy?” I’m asking, “Does this content align with my goals?” If it’s not book research, reading that brings me pleasure, or information to help me get better at x, y, z, it’s not a priority.

Relish the quiet

Less content means more time to tune into the inside of our own brains. More opportunity to digest what we’ve read and turn it into meaning. Last week, I was reading 7 books simultaneously. Seven.

This was a lot of noise during a week when I was thinking through major revisions to a manuscript I’m querying. I needed to get my head in the game. Instead, I felt myself pulled in a dozen directions at once, and at a loss for what to prioritize.

What I needed wasn’t another book. I needed a walk.

Be your own curator

Listen, there are some major stakeholders at work here vying for your attention. They want you enraptured by the influencers, brimming with self-doubt, and constantly distracted. They want you coming back for more, not creating your own content-free bomb shelter.

But here’s the thing: no one else is going to do this work for us.

No one else is going to give us permission to opt out, get clear, and seize the torch. We have to grant it to ourselves.

Your (optional) homework:

1. Do a content inventory. What are you looking at in a single day? How much of that content is moving you forward? How much of it is sticking in a meaningful way? (How much of it is making you feel “behind” in life?)

2. Click unsubscribe. It could be 5 times today; it could be once. But find one source of information to eliminate (yes, it could even be this newsletter 🥹, but we’ll miss you if you go).

3. Spend 20 minutes in quiet. Go on a walk, lie on your bed, draw. But commit to 20 minutes in which you’re not taking in new information. See what happens. Let the creativity marinate.

#WriteWithMe: Checking in with the writers out there! How’s it going? I love catching up with you in the chat, and I’d love to know about your progress.

Are you a writer looking for community and daily accountability? Join us.

This week I’ve pared down to TWO books (this is a personal win). On deck is Courtney Maum’s newest novel, ALAN OPTS OUT (out in June), and the audiobook of YESTERYEAR by Caro Claire Burke, the “tradwife” novel everyone is talking about.

I’m reading these books because I LIKE THEM and I need to know what happens next. These are very good reasons.

This week, a small group of us did something deceptively simple: we showed up and wrote. Each morning at 7am, we touched base via the chat, hunkered down for the time we had available, and offered virtual high-fives to celebrate progress.

Here’s why that’s meaningful:

• We showed up (even if we didn’t feel like it).

• We stayed accountable to ourselves and each other.

• We let the work be messy.

It didn’t matter whether someone missed a day or spent their writing time staring at a blank page. The point is: they showed up.

And in doing that, something shifted — writing stopped being something people wanted to do, and became something they do.

This week’s #WriteWithMe experiment was a reminder that growth mindset isn’t about doing things perfectly. It’s about coming back to them—again and again. It’s messy repetition. It’s finding your way back in, even when the work feels hard or unclear.

In On Writing, Stephen King shares the story of being hit by a car while drafting the book. Laid up in the hospital with a collapsed lung, broken ribs, and a leg fractured in multiple places, the once prolific daily writer stopped writing. When he finally returned, something had crept in: doubt, resistance, the question of whether he could still do it.

A psychology many writers know all too well.

Whether we’re managing a period of trauma, caregiving, or ordinary life demands, we know what it feels like to try and find our way back to the page after a hiatus. Daunting is an understatement. This is why so many writers advise touching the page daily.

This week reinforced that idea—but it wasn’t just about writing. It was about reclaiming a part of ourselves that’s easy to sideline—our creativity, our focus, our willingness to begin.

What we accomplished this week is something I want more of, but before we decide what comes next, I want to hear from you.

Transparently, I don’t want this to just be a one-week experiment. I want to build something that actually helps you keep going. I want to cheer on your projects and see you cross that finish line.

If that’s something you want too, I’d love for you to stay in this with me.

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*Parvi, Jerrine, Amy, Wendy, Abby, Allison - I loved being in community with you this week. Please drop links to the places we can find your writing in the comments!

Your (optional) prompts for today:

New writers: Write for 10 minutes about something you’ve been thinking about but haven’t written down yet.

Project writers: Pick up wherever you left off in your current work. Don’t reread too much—just write forward.

Remember to give a 👍 or leave a comment so I know you’re here!

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Many of us would agree that the hardest and most important element of being a writer is this: actually sitting down to write.

Writers experience plenty of other challenges, of course — writers' block, isolation, finding an audience, managing criticism — but, for me, these are smaller potatoes. As a working mom, the greatest hurdle to my writing life has always been carving out time to do the work and learning to protect it.*

When folks ask how I found time to write my memoir, I wish I could play a video montage so they could see the absurdity of that process. I typed most of Love You Hard on the couch with a baby in one hand. At the time, I was teaching third grade, parenting two young kids, and recovering from a multi-year stint as my husband's caregiver. I wrote in spurts — sometimes locking myself in a room while my family ate dinner, or eking out an overnight at a hotel and pounding the pavement for 24 hours straight. At no point did my system feel organized or relaxed. It was pure anarchy, and the anxiety made me cuckoo at times. I’m still in disbelief that I pulled it off.

But as they say, where there’s a will, there’s a way. And when people want something badly enough, they make it happen.

Now I find myself in a less demanding chapter of life, with a much reduced appetite for procrastination and burning the midnight oil. These days, I need writing to feel calm. My nervous system won’t tolerate more abuse.

The good news? I’m not up against any deadlines.

The bad news? I’m not up against any deadlines.

Which means my current challenge is carving out a true-blue practice for the thing I say I value above all else.

Making writing a daily practice.

Every time I pick up a craft book or interview about writing, I’m dying to learn about the author’s writing routine (how often, when, for how long, etc.). Maybe that’s because rituals, discipline, and daily routines do not come easily to my ADHD brain — a frequent source of shame.

Sometimes I convince myself that if I just stumble upon the right piece of wisdom, the secret to a daily writing practice will unlock itself, and BOOM, like a wormhole in the time-space continuum, a block of holy protected writing time will appear, waiting to be seized.

On the days I don’t write, I tend to feel like a failure. Instead of giving myself credit for all I did accomplish that day, I self-berate — rehashing my decisions or bemoaning that I didn’t get up at 5am, as I’d proudly insisted to my husband I would.

Unsurprisingly, this cycle does not set me up for success the next day. Instead, it creates a negative feedback loop in which expectations take on additional weight, and self-worth becomes tied to production.

Not exactly a healthy way to approach the work one loves.

Time is finite.

One of my dear friends is a full-time writer who regularly pounds out 3K words a day. As a caveat to her progress, she offers a kind reminder, “I don’t have children, Abby. And this is my full-time job.”

Unless you’re Freida McFadden (who seems to have located that wormhole in the universe), time is a very real, finite resource. There are only so many hours in a day, and this is not a reflection of anyone’s efforts — it’s just a fact!

Folks like me, with a job and a family, are pulled in a hundred different directions from the time we wake up until the time we rest our heads. Sure, many of us could be better about managing our time, but when life is life-ing (as it’s known to do), we simply don’t have the luxury of retreating into the quiet corners of our minds for hours on end. Sometimes it’s enough just to keep one’s head above water (and everyone’s lunch in their backpacks).

It’s important to acknowledge that life is demanding. I am not a bad person if I can’t write every day, nor am I less of a “writer.”

And neither are you.

Who needs accountability?

Me! (Waves hands furiously).

Who hates to admit it? Also ME!

It’s a heck of a lot easier for me to carve out writing time if someone else is counting on me to do it (let’s hear it for those people-pleasing instincts). Two years ago, I had the most lovely writing weekend with a friend during which we glued ourselves to her couch for 48 hours straight. The other’s presence was enough to keep us from straying into other work or responsibilities.

The accountability was wildly simple: I sit, you sit. And it worked.

I love a good writing retreat, but most of us can’t carve out 48 hours of writing time, let alone 60 minutes. Instead, we need daily small doses of accountability (think, “I sit, you sit,” but for 20 minutes remotely), which is why I’m eager to do a little experiment together…

Write With Me.

Here’s my goal: for the next 5 days, I want to establish a daily writing practice. And I’m inviting you to join me.

In the spirit of “Keep it simple, stupid,” here’s how it will go:

The evening before, I’ll shoot you a quick message in the chat. It will say something like, “I’m sitting down to write at 7am. Who’s with me?”

If you can carve out the time to join, shoot me a quick message or emoji. If you want to join asynchronously (perhaps your work schedule conflicts or you’re in a different time zone), that works too. Just drop me a note.

The next day, look out for the two prompts I’ll drop into the chat. There will be one for new writers and one for folks working on an existing project. But as my yoga teachers like to remind the class, feel free to do your own thing! These prompts are just suggestions.

Visibility via accountability is key here.

I want to know who’s with me, and I want to celebrate your progress. I won’t be nosey — if you want to keep your project top secret, that’s A-OK. If you want to shout it from the rooftops, let’s shout together.

In the spirit of visibility, I’m working on completing the first draft of an upmarket gothic suspense novel, which I describe as,

Haunted house + NYC modern art scene + Gaslighting spouse + History of female hysteria

(As you can see, I’m far from nailing my tagline.)

But I want to emphasize: this challenge is not just for folks interested in publishing. I know plenty of people who are working to make morning pages or journaling a daily habit, and the Write With Me experiment is a great way to get started with those goals, too.

Five days may not get us to the finish line of a big project, but it’s plenty of time to prove to ourselves that we can be daily (or near daily) writers.

Who’s in?

Looking forward to writing together tomorrow. (And, if there’s someone in your life who keeps saying they want to write, please share this post with them and invite them to join, too.)

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*Protecting one’s writing time is possibly a harder task than finding the time! Once it’s on the calendar, how do we ensure no one’s needs will encroach on that time? How do we become our own writing bodyguards? We’ll work on this together during the Write With Me experiment.

Every few weeks, I look my husband dead in the eyes and issue one sober command: “DO NOT LET ME GET AN MFA.”

A perpetual student (hello, other lifelong learners!), I have no trouble romanticizing the acquisition of a real writing degree. Years spent in classrooms discussing craft? The chance to learn from skilled wordsmiths? Externally imposed deadlines?? Sign me up!

But not so fast. I already have two graduate degrees, a full-time job, and two kiddos at home, so, at this point, it’s hard to pinpoint the value of an MFA beyond the literary street cred it provides.

Mostly, I just dream of being in rooms where the only conversation is about writing. Lucky for me, there are lots of ways to accomplish this without signing on for another degree, which is how I found myself among a gaggle of local writers, eyes and ears glued to two literary icons: Anne Lamott and her husband, Neal Allen.

Their latest book, Good Writing: 36 Ways to Improve Your Sentences, is a staple for any DIY MFA candidate like myself. While I love a craft book that functions like creative ketamine, infusing the reader with motivation to chase their artistic aspirations, I’ve always hungry for a book that addresses writing on a line level. Moreover, one that will make me a savvier editor.

Get to know your bad habits, so you can break them.

Becoming a strong writer is the same as any skill: you can’t improve until you crack the code on your own bad habits. And, boy, do I have many (including starting every third sentence with the word “and”).

I loved that Anne and Neal spoke about their envy for other writers - Barbara Kingsolver (Anne), Cormac McCarthy (Neal) - and their ability to craft a sentence so uniqely captured that it serves as a reminder that each word on the page must live up to the heavy-lifting required of it.

A few big/humorous takeaways from the conversation:

• Don’t show off (or we’ll feel contempt for you). These are Anne’s words directly, and she’s talking about our instinct to peacock our literary feathers in an attempt to impress the reader. Fancy vocabulary and extended clauses may seem impressive, but often irk the reader and distract from the story.

• Be a writing dominatrix. Here, Anne looked directly at a member of the audience (someone I assume she is mentoring). Writers need community to grow and stay accountable to themselves. You may be someone else’s dominatrix and they may be yours, but great writing is rarely conceived in a vacuum. For me, this was a good reminder to put out feelers for a steady writing group (someone please adopt me!).

• Go into the shed with your self-critic. Beyond writing, Neal is also a writing coach. The author of Better Days: Tame Your Inner Critic, he spoke about helping clients identify and converse with the voice of their inner critic (he does this work, literally, in a shed in his backyard). “It’s you!” Anne has learned to say to that sneaky, self-defacing critic. Isn’t it interesting that the voice meant to keep us safe, protect us from danger, and mask our vulnerabilities is actually our greatest creative foe? Understanding the purpose of our inner critic is how we learn to co-exist with it.

I’m not going back to “school” anytime soon…

But every room I’m in is a classroom that shapes my identity and skill as a human writer. I’m loving the experience of cobbling together my DIY MFA, and I’d love your suggestions for podcasts, craft books, social media accounts to build up my “required content” list. Please share them below!

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And a little P.S. (for those who read last week’s newsletter): I’ve gotten two full manuscript requests and I’m still riding the buzz of being back on the market!

I’m writing to you from my hotel bed in NYC, where, despite the sunshine outside the window, it’s 20 degrees out, and I have decided to banish myself under the covers because I. Am. Done. With. Winter.

Despite my frostbitten toes, I’m riding an exhilarated high because I’ve just returned from the reading room of the NY Public Library, where I sent off MY FIRST AND ONLY QUERY LETTER EVER.

What is a query letter, you may be wondering?

Well, it’s the worst thing a writer will ever have to write (at least, IMO). It’s the email introducing yourself to prospective agents and outlining the scope of the project you’re trying to sell.

Get it wrong and never hear back. Get it right and sell a book.

NO PRESSURE.

Querying is all new to me because of the unusual, fast-track journey I had to publishing a memoir. For those who don’t already know this story, it’s one I hesitate to share with other memoirists because it is incredibly atypical. Basically, I wrote an essay. It won a contest. The prize was a phone consult with a well-known agent. And the rest is history.

Bypass weeks, months, years of rejection and head straight to GO. Collect $200 on the way.

There are far more advantages than disadvantages to a journey like that, but the downside is that I never got a chance to cut my teeth, to thicken my skin, or become skilled at describing my own work.

So, as I attempt to sell a project wildly different than my memoir, I find myself relegated to baby writer status, learning the basics of the querying pilgrimage and refreshing my inbox every 14 seconds.

I extend much thanks to my friends at The Shit No One Tells You About Writing for introducing me to this alien process and deconstructing hundreds of query letters as examples of what to do and what not to do. I also offer thanks to my kindred writing spirit, Reema Zaman, who reminded me to tuck away other people’s advice and trust my own instincts, and, moreover, voice first.

It’s never easy putting ourselves out there, whether it’s in relationships or at work, because there’s nothing that stings worse than rejection. But as Michael Jordan (the basketball player, not the hunky Oscar-winning Best Actor) reminds us, “You miss all of the shots you don’t take.”*

And as the other Michael Jordan reminds us (yes, this time the Oscar winner):

“I know you guys want me to do well, and I want to do that because you guys bet on me. So, thank you for keeping betting on me. And I’m going to keep stepping up.”

That’s what it means to be part of a community of writers. We’re all rooting for one another. We all feel invested in one another’s success. And I’m grateful to each of you for being a cheerleader on this journey.

I can’t wait to keep you posted on what happens next.

In the meantime, let’s chat about books written by people who are not me!

It took me a long minute, but I finally finished March by Geraldine Brooks, the fictional take on Little Women, told through the POV of their father, Mr. March, while he’s off fighting during the Civil War. Big takeaways:

• No one can write like Geraldine Brooks

• Marmie was one saucy, sassy abolitionist who we should all take cues from

• The Civil War was horrifically brutal and dehumanizing (please let’s never repeat)

As a palate cleanser from Virginia Giuffre’s heartshattering memoir of sexual abuse, Nobody’s Girl, I listened to Meryl Streep’s audiobook narration of Tom Lake, and, ohh, I really adored it. It was such a balm for the soul after several dark, heady books, and I’m not sure I’ve read a book that shone such a tender light on how we make sense of our mothers as actual people.

Here’s what I’m looking forward to diving into next…

I’m a huge fan of the uber-talented Allison Pataki, who never fails to showcase the life of historical figures in a way that has me rabid to learn more. If you know me, I rarely shut up about Pataki’s book, The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post (also, if you live in the DMV and haven’t visited Post’s incredible home, Hillwood Estate, it’s a must-must). Her latest novel, It Girl, is all about Evelyn Talbot, the first self-made American celebrity who found herself at the center of a murder of passion declared “the Crime of the Century.” Murder? Sensation? Fashion?? Sign me up!

Also on the nightstand is Juliet Izon’s debut novel, The Encore. Set at a Boston music conservatory, the story follows two young musicians as they form a relationship that is destroyed shortly after graduation, only to resurface when the child they put up for adoption reunites them and forces them to travel together on a rock tour bus for a cross-country journey.

*Have since learned this quote was misattributed to Michael Jordan. We have hockey legend Wayne Gretzky to thank instead.

**Since we’re talking about Oscar winners, I should share that Hamnet broke my husband. I fell asleep at the end of the movie and awoke to find him drenched in tears. We were both delighted that Jessie Buckley took home the Oscar for Best Actress, and her speech was as gorgeous as her performance.

I know we’re all reaching for deep breaths this week. The world, after all, feels like an increasingly uncertain place. And the urge to grasp for something sturdy is a trademark of being human, one tied to our very neurowiring and built-in radar for danger.

But what if certainty wasn’t the end goal? How would we act differently if we weren’t always chasing a guarantee?

Last month, I shared a book I was slowly making my way through: Meditation for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman. I love a book that insists you read only one chapter a day, thereby squashing the Type A instinct to devour it in one fell swoop, and ensuring you sit with the material long enough to absorb it.

One of the final meditations in the book centers on certainty. Flipping the concept on its head, Burkeman asks, "What could you unblock if you didn’t need certainty?”

Ouch. I felt the question ping-pong inside my brain, conjuring up a slew of difficult memories. The question struck a chord.

I thought of all the risks I hadn’t taken because I demanded certainty in the outcome:

• Moving

• Traveling

• Sharing my writing

• Sitting down to write

This is a non-exhaustive list, but it contains some of my most precious dreams. Did I really need to know it was all going to work out to pick up my pen each day? Did I really expect this life to come with some kind of money-back guarantee?

And, finally, what would I be doing differently if I had that guarantee? What if I knew, every time I chased something I loved, that it would all work out in the end?

This week, I’m posing these questions back to you. Not just because they make fantastic fodder for journaling (I see you Morning Page devotees!), but because, in order to chase dreams, every creative must address their relationship with uncertainty.

• Do you, like me, have a long-established habit of making uncertainty an enemy?

• Have you, inadvertently, bestowed it with great power, turning it into a kind of stop sign that prevents you from pursuing what you want?

Yes, the world feels unstable. Yes, the world is unstable. But the uncertainty of what comes next cannot (and should not) prevent us from taking action in the present.

When I signed my publishing contract for Love You Hard back in 2017, I remember thinking that its publication date of March 2019 was so far off that the world might be over by that point. Oh, what the hell, I thought to myself. At least I’d gotten a contract!

But March 2019 did, indeed, come. The fruits of my labor finally enjoyed their moment in the sun, and I was immensely grateful to all the pessimistic, discouraged past versions of myself who’d sat down at the desk and done the work anyway — without the guarantee of a desired outcome.

These days, I’m thinking of all the writers out there who log in to Substack just to be bombarded with intel proclaiming the demise of the publishing industry and the impossible chances of seeing their book in the world. With such a grim outlook on the industry, why bother sitting down and creating imaginary worlds?

Why bother with art?

I silently chuckle, imagining Da Vinci painting the Mona Lisa, whilst being gripped by paralyzing uncertainty. Oh, but what if no one likes my portrait of this close-lipped smiling lady? What if everyone dies of the plague before I finish painting it?

In fact, what we can learn from generations before us — those who overcame war, disease, genocide, etc. — is that the more uncertainty we’re faced with, the greater the urgency to create art.

There is no time like the present to capture the world we’re living in or to build imaginary worlds to help us escape it.

It’s true: no one is asking you to do this work. But please don’t let the uncertainty of the outcome — whether people like it, whether it will be published, whether it’s “worth” your time — stop you from creating it anyway.

And if the pursuit you’re chasing is a different kind of dream you’re hesitant about acting upon, I invite you, too, to consider the role of uncertainty and the unwarranted influence we grant it.

I invite you to ask:

1. What has this quest for certainty cost me?

2. What is it blocking me from doing?

3. What would I do differently if I were certain it would all work out?

February was a slower reading month, but mostly because after finishing Wuthering Heights, it lived rent-free in my head for two weeks, and I could not attempt to transport myself to a world other than Cathy and Heathcliff’s. If that’s not a sign of a legendary read, then I don’t know what is (and if you missed my WH recap (spoiler, I loved it), you can find it here).

Last month was comprised of one excellent novel (WH), one very good one about the life-changing power of a name (The Names), one brilliant nonfiction read (Meditation for Mortals), and one memoir about a rich white-lady divorce that I frankly found overhyped but devoured via audiobook anyway (Strangers).

This month, I have my nose in 4 books simultaneously (!!), with another one I’ll be blurbing waiting in the wings. I’m dying to jump into the audio version of Michael Pollan’s latest, A World Appears, which is all about consciousness (also the theme of Dan Brown’s latest thriller, The Secret of Secrets, which I’m slowwwwwly making my way through).

So, as you can see, it’s just classic ADHD book enthusiasm over here, which leaves little time for television (though my husband and I are deeply into the latest season of Paradise; thank you to Hulu for not allowing us to binge it all at once).

Share your favorite February reads below!

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Hello, Women’s History Month!

This week, my colleague Chloe Kaplan and I sounded off not once but TWICE on the topic of working mothers and the challenge of balancing it all (Spoiler: it takes a village. Spoiler: it's always messy).

As we kick off Women's History Month, I'm reminded how much we have to learn from the incredible women in our communities.

The most valuable intel we’ll ever have on young Emily Brontë, who died in 1848 at age 30, is what we can extract from her singular work, Wuthering Heights (I’ve since read a rumor that a possible second novel was thrown into the fire by her sister Charlotte, author of Jane Eyre — a reminder never to underestimate a fiery sister-fight).

Of course, it would be foolish to dissect any novel for hard evidence of an author’s lived experience. Though she suffered many a tragedy, I can hardly imagine that Brontë’s life was as dark and tortured as the characters she writes. Beneath them, however, is a profound understanding of human psychology — that which enrages us, oppresses us, drives us to violence, and lies unexplored.

From all accounts, Brontë was no social butterfly. She was a bit of a recluse, preferring the company of her imagination and the familiarity of the page over the uncontrollable conditions of the real world. If, during her short life, she ever experienced passion on the scale of Cathy and Heathcliff, it’s unlikely it was requited, let alone acted upon.

Hence, all writers’ love affair with the written word: a place to enact our unlived lives, to touch darkness, ecstasy, and every state between — and then safely retreat.

In the lead-up to the film, I gave myself a week to read the book. Wuthering Heights was never assigned to me in high school (in four years of AP English, we only read two books by women, one of them Jane Eyre), and I’ve always felt like a bit of a dope when it comes to the classics. There are so many I haven’t read that I’ve become a bit of a rabid dog, trying to catch up by following along with my son’s freshman English syllabus.

The first few pages had me stumped and bored. What was she even talking about? Who was narrating this damn story? But I stayed the course, switching to the audiobook for the first few chapters and allowing the narrator’s inflections and intonations to guide my comprehension. Soon, I was hooked. I alternated between the audiobook and my physical copy, and finished the book in front of the fireplace hours before seeing the movie.

Readers, it was no “romance.” It was the darkest, most psychologically violent story I’ve ever read.

And, still, I loved it.

I closed the book with mad respect for the legendary Ms. Brontë, a woman who was not afraid to dispense wickedness and torment on the page. Her writing was no small act of courage for a woman of the early 19th century, nor would it be for a woman today (Miranda July’s spellbindingly strange mid-life novel, All Fours, is an example of just how divisive “weird women” continue to be). Just as Catherine Earnshaw was suffocated by the conditions of her time, too traumatized and repressed to develop into a psychologically healthy being, July’s narrator seeks refuge from her own suffocating conditions. How to live in a world that determinedly refuses to explore female desire? A world in which men remain connected to their biological underpinnings, but women are expected to evolve beyond their feral longings?

This world knows not what to do with the weird girl truthtellers.

Enter Emerald Fennell.

As a huge fan of Fennell’s previous films (Promising Young Woman, Saltburn), I was ready to grant her a long leash for the film adaptation of Wuthering Heights. I did not expect (nor hope) that she would translate the book scene by scene. I hoped only that her creative genius would capture the dark and passionate spirit of the story. And I was not disappointed.

Fennell’s film is visually arresting. The contrast between dark and light, as juxtaposed by the sets of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, is something to behold (don’t believe me? Check out Robbie’s Architectural Digest tour below).

Likewise, the costumes are extravagant, quasi-representations of the Regency era that add breathtaking beauty to the film (they’re also responsible for the impulse purchase below).

Admittedly, I don’t have a lot of patience for the critics these days. With AI threatening to destroy our livelihoods and politicians rapidly defunding the arts, it’s no exaggeration to say that we are in the midst of a battle for our humanity. One can critique the casting of Fennell’s film, or any of her choices as an artist, but I’m damn glad she had the cojones to make it on her own terms, and I will stand staunchly behind every human-created art form, whether I “liked” it or not.

In this case, I just happened to love it.

Moreover, the immersive experience of reading the book and then watching the film has been a welcome distraction from the nonsense of the real world. Like Brontë, I feel compelled these days to hole myself up at my desk and let my imagination take over. It takes a gutsy and unabashed writer to dream up characters as large and unforgettable as Catherine and Heathcliff, names that live in infamy nearly 200 years later.

Brontë’s ruthlessness should be a reminder to us all to go there — to explore wild terrain.

I like to imagine she’s smiling at Fennell’s representation of her work, one that grants women (brief) satisfaction and paints beauty atop the stark and dreary landscape of her imagination.

If, like me, Wuthering Heights is your new personality and you can’t shut up about it, please share below. Hated it? I’m also intrigued!

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I found myself at the end of January, padding about the kitchen in a pair of sweatpants I’d been living in for 48 hours, the front steps to our home a block of impenetrable ice (not that I was planning to go outdoors), making coffee (my only real form of control in life), and pondering how to have regular conversation with my children, while processing the news that my dear friend with cancer is quickly declining, “Civil War” is trending on social, and innocent people are being executed in the streets of Minneapolis.

BE NORMAL, I told myself, a laughable ambition. And yet, aren’t we all feeling the same pressure? To carry on? To maintain productivity? To function as if these were “normal” times?

I’m sitting on several Substack drafts at the moment, always a calamity or tragedy intervening before I click “Publish.” Because what can I possibly say about learning, writing, or being a human that anyone needs to read right now? I’m just a lady in sweatpants trying to find the motivation to put in my contact lenses.

There is a counterargument to be made, of course. While sensitivity and awareness are noble pursuits, if every writer waited for world peace to share their words, we’d never have anything to read, let alone entertain us or help us make sense of the times we’re living through. Put that way, the conundrum we’re in is really no different from any other moment in history:

Amidst the noise, we must make art. We must protect our creativity.

My morning meditative reading this month is Meditation for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts, and in it, author Oliver Burkeman issues a permission slip for those of us whose minds are going berserk at the moment, trying to optimize for productivity as we digest more information and competing demands than ever before.

The book is organized into short daily chapters, each a “meditation” aimed at helping the reader become focused, realistic, and satisfied in how they spend their time.

As someone who feels notoriously disappointed by my own output, this book has been a gift in reframing my expectations. Burkeman reminds us that, YES, everything is as terrible as it seems. It’s not our imaginations. We’re not falling behind. The load is simply too heavy, and it’s a burden we have to learn to put down.

I find the pressures overwhelming on a good day: keep a clean, beautiful house, be consistently available as a mom, shine at work, maintain a fruitful creative life, exercise and eat healthy, prioritize my spouse. Meditate. Floss. Post on social media, etc, etc, etc. On a good day, I accomplish two of those things. On a great day, maybe three?

But when I take into account all the suffering we’re witnessing, it feels doubly overwhelming. How do I do all that AND make a meaningful difference in the lives of others?

Burkeman says you can’t. At least not every day. And when we fail to give ourselves credit for doing what we can when we can, we set ourselves up for perpetual letdown. We allow our self-worth to be dictated by our ability to optimize in impossible circumstances.

I could write a short Substack about each of the book’s daily meditations, but instead, I encourage you to read it yourself. I will leave you with one salient idea, however, and that’s how to choose our life tasks.

If, like me, you spin out from time to time, guilty that you’re not protesting in the streets of Minneapolis, volunteering at a local shelter, or campaigning for your local representatives, Burkeman invites us to reflect on our true life tasks:

1. What life is calling you to do.

2. What you can do.

I can’t be in Minnesota, but I could be in Boston last weekend, making soup for my friend, taking her children to the trampoline park, and helping her prepare for the end of her life.

I can’t serve every child who needs a great teacher, but I can help a few learn to love writing.

I can’t run for office, but I can instill integrity and kindness in my own children every night at the dinner table.

Our true life tasks are not lofty ambitions that require advanced degrees or capital investments. They’re right there in front of us, and they’re within our ability to execute.

We just have to start.

I finished 7 books last month, which was a huge accomplishment for me (one I chalk up to being very behind in television; though, don’t worry, I’m all caught up on the Heated Rivalry front).

These Summer Storms by Sarah MacLean: sexy, beachy, inheritance story

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson: classic horror

Finding Grace by Loretta Rothschild: griefy, compulsive, Sliding Doors-esque

Nancy Drew: The Hidden Staircase by Carolyn Keene: fun mom/daughter read

Siddhartha by Herman Hesse: hero’s journey / how-the-heck-to-do-life read

Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino: suspenseful, D.C. real estate thriller

As you see from the list above, I was in a bit of Gothic mindset last month. But my favorite read — the one that has been elevated to GOAT status — is Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier. Classic 1938 mystery involving a young bride, a sprawling English manor, and an ever-present ghost in the form of the dead Mrs. DeWinter. I combo listened/read this one and have to recommend the audiobook version on Spotify. Thanks to its brilliant narration, I now walk around using a British accent, spookily narrating our life at home.

Quick New Year’s Check-in: How are those resolutions going? Terrible? If so, don’t worry. Just read Meditations for Mortals, and you’ll find a manageable way forward. I didn’t set any resolutions this year besides trying to be nicer to myself in my brain, and actually, it’s going NOT BAD. Because I’m not being self-deprecating internally, I’ve stopped being as self-deprecating externally, and, as a result, I’m standing a little taller these days.

Channeling my inner Martha Stewart: You want a quick dopamine boost? Check out the Martha documentary on Netflix. She’s unapologetically ambitious and a complete straight-shooter, and I love her for it. As I stare out at my snowy tundra of a yard, I’m currently educating myself on climbing plants to transform a trellis this spring. Should I go with wisteria? Bougainvillea? Or something else? Is there a plant I can’t screw up?? Tell me!

Many years ago, when I was in the early days of becoming a caregiver to my brain-injured husband, I read something that struck me as categorically impossible: that most people have a happiness baseline, one that is largely unaffected by the conditions of their lives.

The idea that people’s happiness levels are mostly unchangeable seemed ludicrous. Here I was, 30 years old, taking care of a husband who’d been severely disabled by a violent crime, raising a 2-year-old, and unsure whether we’d ever be able to earn a living again. How could anyone be happy in those circumstances?

NOT ME. At first.

I was shocked and traumatized and grief-stricken, and eventually, depressed. It took months to begin adapting to my new normal. Fortunately, humor never left me (there’s no humor like dark waiting room humor, amirite?), and over time, my zest and signature pep (untolerated by my family before 9am) returned and carried me through that difficult chapter.

Happiness found me again. But was it because I’m a generally happy person? Or because I’d managed to rewire my brain around the vision of a new life?

My experience made me curious. It made me wonder what shapes resilient people — whether they’re born that way or whether it’s a muscle we can develop over time.

It inspired a mindset of lifelong learning.

If you’re new here, hello! Perhaps, like me, you’re an educator. Or perhaps a fellow writer. Perhaps you, too, found your way to the page after a traumatic life chapter and realized, “Wait, huh? Was I always a writer? Why didn’t anyone ever tell me??”

Perhaps you’re just a diligent student in the school of life, collecting life lessons like a collection of rare stamps, and eager to extract as much wisdom, experience, and passion as you can from your one wild and precious life.

In all cases, welcome. This is the community for you.

If you already know me well, feel free to skip this next part and keep scrolling for the good stuff.

If you’re wondering, “How did this chick end up in my inbox?, and “Who the heck is she?”, then here is your tidy debrief (hopefully you’re here because you subscribed! If not, some kind person in your life signed you up - lucky you!):

• I’m the author of the memoir, Love You Hard, which is all about that crazy life chapter I described above, but mostly about the human ability to transform ourselves in the face of unimaginable circumstances.

• I’m a former public school teacher turned business lady at a small educational company called Amore Learning. My “day” job involves collaborating with incredible teachers and inspiring kids to love learning as much as I do!

• I’m the mom to two kids (ages 15 and 9), and the dog-mom to a wild beast named Charlie, whom we adopted in Turks & Caicos.

• My list of obsessions includes: coffee (coffee and me were married for a good while during my caregiving years), crumbling New England homes with foot-wide floorboards, ghosts, and fireplaces in the bedroom (this is my very specific 10-year life plan), yoga (I’m a certified teacher, but mostly I enjoy being a student), reading (good god, I probably should have led with this), the idea of gardening (note: this is still theoretical; let’s reconnect come spring), dogs (see above), human rights (if this a problem for you, don’t let the door hit ya), and eating dessert for breakfast (preferably cheesecake).

• I’m currently at work on two fiction books: one for middle-grade readers (like my former students), and an adult gothic novel featuring (drumroll)…. a crumbling New England farmhouse! And a ghost! And a gaslighty, creepy husband! (It may be a trope, but it’s my trope.)

  Thanks for reading and for considering joining the small percentage of readers who are paid subscribers.

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Why solid ground is the key to a “happy” new year

I’ve written before that 2025 undid me. It was one of those messy years in which I had to shed a skin that no longer fit and grow a new one, all while living through a temporary and painful chapter of being skinless for a while (is this a snake metaphor? My son would be so proud).

I had to get really ungrounded before I had a chance of becoming solid again, but I’m relieved — and proud — to be entering this new year feeling upright, refocused, and full of faith (more on faith in a future post).

Normally, I salivate at the chance to set resolutions, but this year I’m taking a different approach: I just want to do a better job of monitoring my self-talk.

So, I started flagging the following:

• Self-deprecating remarks

• Hasty yeses (a people-pleasing reflex)

• Boundary violations

• Comparison making

Honestly, these are pretty significant domains to tackle, so in some ways, I’m approaching the new year with even more ambition than typical.

BUT HOLY COW, IT’S WORKING.

An example:

The other day, I was in a silent writing session with another writer. Usually, I tell myself a story about how I can’t write on command because I need more time, I need more coffee, I need less coffee, I need to wash my hair, etc., etc. (you get the point). Excuses are a way of avoiding my inner critic. If I can never find the time to sit down and write, I’ll never have to face her. And she is one harsh biche.

So, here’s what I did instead: I outran my self-talk.

I decided to type so fast, so furiously (oh, please someone, develop this offshoot of the franchise), my inner critic couldn’t keep up.

I pounded out three pages in 30 minutes, managed to say NOTHING self-deprecating about my progress or the quality of what I’d written, and then went about my day feeling great for having done it. Fast and furious is also how I approach my morning pages (I write these by hand, which is very helpful in silencing the demon in my brain).

Here’s the point:

The majority of obstacles in life are internal (us against ourselves). Operating from a place of solid ground means embracing self-kindness. It means responding from a foundation of a regulated nervous system. It means prioritizing ourselves first.

I’ve read a lot of chatter lately about how the new year is nothing but the continuation of winter, with the added burden of resolutions. But I think the new year is whatever you make of it. And I, for one, love an excuse to reset, reflect, hibernate with my goals, and come out swinging in the spring.

Mostly, I love that the new year and neuroplasticity symbolize the same belief: That humans are capable of change. And we deserve new beginnings.

Hopeful as I am this year, I also want to acknowledge that solid ground can feel like an eye-rolling ideal in light of recent events. As I write these words, my heart twists for the family of Renee Nicole Good, the mother and poet killed senselessly for using her voice to stand up for neighbors. Because I don’t want to see her name swept into the dustbin of the 24-hour news cycle, I am stamping it on the page with the hope that we don’t forget. More than anything, I don’t want any of us to lose our humanity during this dark time, nor our ability to grieve these atrocities.

That said, solid ground may be the most important place we aim for this year. We cannot be good for others if we’re not showing up for ourselves, and (if 2025 is any indicator), we’ll be tackling more punches in the months ahead.

Whatever you’re seeking in 2026 — whether it’s a repudiation of the previous year, or a continuation of a life that serves you well — I hope you’ll do us the favor of sticking around and sharing your journey.

I doubt I’m the only person who reads myself to sleep with stories about rich, white people acting badly. Throw in a private island in New England and an inheritance competition, and we’ve got Succession meets Elin Hilderbrand! These Summer Storms is keeping me entertained in those moments before I close my eyes, while Garth Greenwell’s 2025 Pen/Faulkner award-winning novel, Small Rain, about a health crisis, is leaving me breathless with its vulnerable honesty about our bodies’ relationship to the medical system.

Blocking out protected writing time: Whatever your creative passion is, do you carve it into your calendar? This week, I’m trying something new: instead of hoping for extra time in the day to write, I’m holding it firm on the calendar and not allowing anything to replace it (in full transparency, this is something I’ve attempted before, so this is more like a renewed commitment).

Learning craft from Elizabeth McCracken

Some craft books teach you how to write, others teach you how to sustain a writerly life. This one trends toward the latter, with 280 short observations/nuggets of advice that all possess some undercurrent of, “Do what works for you.”

As I make my way through McCracken’s advice, I can’t help but think, “But I’ve read some iteration of this before! Why hasn’t it stuck?”

The answer, put plainly, jumped out to me from the page:

“When it comes to fiction, there are some lessons we must never learn.”

Leave a comment

Let’s start with a highlight. Many of you recently found me through a story I shared about a former student.

I couldn’t have anticipated the outpouring of kindness from the Substack community, not to mention the inspiring stories about your own teachers and former students. I’m still making my way through the comments, verklempt as I go.

After a year that undid me in so many ways, this dedication was perhaps the most meaningful gift I could receive — validation of my impact as an educator, and moreover, as a lover of writing.

For those of you who are new here (hello, I’m so glad we found each other!), Beyond the Classroom is a community of lifelong learners. Many years ago, after my husband suffered a near-fatal brain injury, the concept of neuroplasticity changed my life. It gave me hope in his brain’s ability to recover, and in my ability to become someone new in the face of unimaginable circumstances.

I love learning. My mom used to call me a “school monster,” a term of endearment for those of us with an insatiable appetite for knowledge and information. And yet, when it comes to life, I’m also just a dumb human, subjecting myself to the same lessons time and again.

I’m gonna go out on a limb and say I’m not sure I’ve ever made as many mistakes in a single year as I did in 2025. Hopeful to shake things up in life and carve out a new, truer path, I set myself on an anxiety-riddled journey of repetitive mistake-making. As a result, I learned a lot of lessons along the way.

Many of those lessons I’d confronted before, but this chapter felt different. The branches of middle age shook around me, insistent that I resolve my deep-seated bullshit once and for all, and enter the second half of life unburdened by the conditioning that served me in the first half.

It was a full-out reckoning.

The kindnesses I’d long denied myself — namely, boundaries, privacy, and time to write — came marching forward this year, demanding acknowledgment. I’d been giving myself all away, exerting every ounce of cellular energy trying to be the perfect teacher, daughter, co-worker, neighbor, and friend. I’d been stewing in resentment over my own people-pleasing choices for so long, I couldn’t even detect the stench of it.

After years of teaching, caregiving, parenting, and eldest daughtering, I had no idea how to go about claiming something that was just mine. So, I threw a grenade into our lives and uprooted us to someplace new. I’d love to say, “No regrets!” but moving was one expensive, painful, and wildly ungraceful rollercoaster ride, so indeed I harbor a few regrets. Some lessons demand to be learned; I just wish I’d reckoned with them gently.

2025 was also a year of acute grieving. There were the notable losses of poet Andrea Gibson and humanitarian Jane Goodall, both idols and messengers of beauty and hope, whose words I leaned on to connect with what matters. Thrown off-kilter by a dear friend’s cancer diagnosis, I stumbled through the summer months trying to make sense of senselessness, wishing to freeze the hands of time. In a new setting, in a new house, I was in transition — perhaps, I still am — shedding one identity, one version of “home” while trying to establish another.

There was also joy. And pride.

I don’t believe 365 days of living can be characterized as all “good” or all “bad"; likewise, these final days of 2025 find me in a much softer place than where I began. I find joy in my many deep friendships (some of the wisest, proudest investments of my adult life), and in the strength of my family. My two children are navigating the conditions of this loony world better than I could have dreamed, including the months of uncertainty about our family’s next steps (please see my How Not to Parent manual, out next year). They are the best of friends to one another, and my ever-present sunshine.

All in all, this year was far too messy and nuanced for a Christmas card (also, we didn’t get a single family photo until yesterday), but I’ve been busy revisiting snapshots of small tender moments — dancing in the kitchen, reading together, dressing up the dog — and that’s the stuff I’m carrying into 2026. The magic of our ordinary lives.

With that said, I offer you my prayers for an abundant and growth-filled 2026. May some lessons not need repeating. May these words serve you, too.

• I pray to remember my impact and the value of my time and attention.

• I pray not to measure myself by anyone else’s metrics.

• I pray for health and to act as my body’s fastidious gatekeeper.

• I pray for simple luxuries (such as 9pm bedtimes, 5am morning pages, daily walks with my husband, and the perfect morning espresso).

• I pray for the wisdom to remember that the only choices I control are my own.

• I pray to conspire with the universe, accepting uncertainty as a natural feature, and working in conjunction to manifest my dreams.

• I pray not to abandon myself, to recognize that my loveability is not dependent on giving myself away to others.

Lastly, I pray to remain hopeful. History is a collection of stories we are writing as we go - you, me, all of us. We can choose to write it with kindness, laughter, humility, and forgiveness. We can choose to use our voices.

When my alarm went off at 5AM this morning, I did what I always do. I quickly shut it off to avoid waking my husband, then searched for excuses to keep sleeping. Normally, it’s very easy to find one — or three! Whether it’s the 70 lb dog lying on my feet, a late bedtime that’s left me groggy, or the warm comfort of my bed, I require minimal assistance in identifying a reason not to start my day early.

This morning, however, I woke up rested and nipped by cold, the temperature outside my window hovering at just below freezing. I’d slept a solid 7.5 hours, and the dog was happily snoozing on the other side of the bed.

I had no excuse but to get up and write. And, so, here we are.

I am, what author/editor Betsy Lerner would call, an ambivalent writer. There’s nothing I want to do more every day than write, and there’s nothing I avoid harder.

Lerner’s craft book, The Forest for the Trees, is for people like me — writers who persistently get in their own way of creating. Whether we’re ruminating on which idea to explore, chasing perfectionism in a way that makes completion impossible, or leaping from genre to genre, trying to carve out our place in the writing world, an ambivalent writer is nearly always in a state of despair over their writing life. When asked, “How’s the writing going?” we have to actively stop ourselves from simultaneously strangling our conversation-mate and bursting into tears.

Other hallmarks of an ambivalent writer (according to Lerner)?

• Being visited by a thousand brilliant ideas, and starting them all… or starting none

• Confusing procrastination with “research” (ouch, this one hit hard)

• Stressing over what’s selling in the “market,” instead of writing what feels true

And if you don’t feel seen yet, let me ask: What’s your personal response when asked how your writing is going?

Being called to this vocation is a bit like being strapped to The Machine (please see below). We may wrestle, unavailingly, with our relationship to the creative process, but there is no escaping the degree to which we are locked into it. However, the real torture, we must admit, would be a life without writing. To be robbed of this outlet is akin to a life without oxygen.

So, how do we manage this tenuous relationship? How do we become less ambivalent about the thing we despise most, which also happens to be our lifesource?

Step #1: Surrender to it. The truth is that this relationship will always be madness. For many, being a writer means persistently oscillating between ecstasy and existential dread, often multiple times during the same 15-minute writing session. Accept this as normal instead of searching for evidence that it makes you crazy. Or worse, not a writer. Magic and shit are two perfectly acceptable answers to the question about how your writing is going, so it’s best not to get bogged down in shame. After all, this rollercoaster does not make you unique. It’s just writing.

Step #2: Mine your scraps. What should you be writing about? The things that matter to you, of course. It feels like an obvious answer, but it’s easy to get sidetracked on this mission, particularly in a culture that consumes massive loads of content. I’d love to write a quippy romance novel or a literary masterpiece of Donna Tartt caliber, or even a viral tweet, but if I follow Lerner’s advice to retrace my steps as a reader and writer over the course of my life, the breadcrumbs point to a different trail. I’ve always loved suspense. I love upmarket fiction. I love page turners, ambiguous endings, haunted things, and twisty-twists. I also love writing about my family (but I’ve kindly decided to give them a break).

Step #3: Chase your energy (and your emotions). During the winter of 2020, I found myself in such a state of rage about the world and all of the inequities laid bare by the pandemic that I was seized by inspiration. The premise of a novel arrived fully-formed, wrapped in a rage-colored bow, and I set my sights on writing it. The idea for the book was really quite good, and I felt passionately enough about it to turn out a shitty first draft. But when it came time to revise, I twiddled my thumbs. The clock kept ticking, and as it did, my rage began to dissipate into apathy, until, eventually, I lost my resolve to finish it. This is not the first time great ideas have been sacrificed to the hands of time. It happens frequently (a quick skim of my 45 unpublished Substack drafts will validate this), and each time, I’ve been reminded of an essential lesson: Chase your energies as they strike you. Few of us have the patience, passion, or stamina to fuel an idea for years on end. Divine inspiration is meant to be enjoyed in the present moment.

Step #4: Shut up and do it. Oh, fine. There’s really no piece of advice more valuable than the stupid reminder to just sit down and write. A bazillion craft books and Substacks (including mine) on the subject, and the inescapable truth has been before our eyes — not to mention our shoeboxes — for eons: Just do it. For the Mel Robbins fans, this means 5-4-3-2-1’ing yourself into the seat and putting some damn words on the page. Extra points if the words are crummy and you let them exist there anyway. As an editor, Lerner encountered wildly talented writers paralyzed by perfectionism. Can you imagine the world without Toni Morrison’s faculty of language or Mark Twain’s humor? A world in which anxiety causes Homer to stay home, and there is no Iliad or Odyssey? Our drive for perfection is literally the most boring thing about us, so why give it all the main character energy we have to offer?

For me, winter is the ripest creative season. I love staying home, parked at my desk with a space heater beside my feet, getting lost in a project, or reading beside a crackling fire. As ambivalent as I may feel about writing, the temptation to go inward is never as strong as it is during these cold, dark months of winter.

So, this year, I am mining my scraps (is there anything quite as satisfying as stumbling upon a piece of old writing and remarking, “Wow, this is really quite good”?), hunkering down, and embracing the weird and wild reality of the writer’s life.

And if there was ever a doubt about the inescapable madness of this particular vocation, allow me to thank Betsy Lerner for introducing me to the short story, “How to be a Writer” by Lorrie Moore. I howled while reading it.

Other Craft Books to Cuddle Up With

On Writing by Stephen King: Officially the last one to this party. I know this book carries biblical status among writers, but I’ll admit that I’ve never actually read any of King’s books until now. What seems clear is that King’s voice is absolutely effortless and engaging. This book reads like a conversation among friends, one in which King, willfully persistent and dedicated to his craft, invites you to stop taking yourself so seriously and come sit on his side of the bench.

A Long Game: Notes on Writing Fiction by Elizabeth Cracken: I saw this one recommended on author Rumaan Alam’s Instagram a few months back (let us not forget the moment in which I tried, embarrassingly, to bond with him over our shared love of the Olsen twins), and I pre-ordered it right away. A Long Game is out today, and as I wait for it to arrive on my doorstep, I’m ruminating (Rumaan-ating?) on the idea of writing as a lifelong exploration. To accept this calling is to grow with it, to “play the long game,” so to speak. What a gift, to be doing this work in 30 or 40 years from now. A reminder that it’s never too late to get started — or to keep going.