I started this essay a few days before reading Lawrence Winnerman’s brilliant piece on how wholly unprepared we are for the impact of AI.

It’s a good companion piece to the following, especially if you are already feeling a paralyzing sense of doom about what AI has done and is doing to creative work. I don’t know that it’s exactly reassuring, except that it is honest, and I find honesty reassuring. We can’t even begin to figure out how to fix a problem if we don’t first admit the problem exists.

And humanity is staring down a pretty terrifying problem.

The other day I was talking to my son about my favorite things to do, and one of those things is going to see live theater. He hasn’t been to a lot of live performances (it’s not always something we can afford) and so I was trying to explain the difference between seeing a play and watching a movie in a theater or on TV.

Me: “When you’re watching a play, there are real people up on stage, and the story is happening right in front of you. There’s this interplay between the actors and the people in the audience, a special kind of conversation is happening. This is unique to theater. Even though the actors have memorized their lines, even though there’s a script, even though there’s a plan, everyone knows that anything could happen.”

Ten year old: “Anything? Really?”

Me: “Anything.”

I’m not sure I did it justice.

We need to have important conversations about what AI is doing to creators. So many of us are terrified we’re being replaced, that our ability to write books and perform music and create art is being stolen from us, and that fear is justified. Our music, storytelling, and art is driven by capitalism. We most frequently witness only the kinds of art that makes lots of money (big Hollywood movie productions starring the same ten actors who are in every other movie, albums written by already famous musicians who’ve already won multiple awards, etc). This type of art is cheaper and easier to create using AI. And it’s true that lots of people are losing their jobs and will continue to lose their jobs (see Lawrence’s essay for more on this). These conversations need to keep happening. However, there is a significant fallacy in the way we tend to discuss the problem.

We say that AI books, movies, music are missing something, and they are. We say they are missing a soul, and we’re right. Criticism of AI generated work is valid. But when we only talk about the validity and artistic value of what AI makes, when we only focus on the final product, we are missing the point. Art, music, poetry, story-telling, and performance do not exist purely for us to consume them.

It’s true that consuming art is something humans love. Especially those of us who don’t see ourselves as artists or musicians or writers. I’m talking about people who sing out loud in the car, but who would never risk singing in front of anyone other than their toddler in the backseat or the dude who pulls up next to them at a stoplight. I’m also talking about people who love coloring books but who haven’t let themselves draw a picture with crayons since 3rd grade, when a teacher or parent criticized the way they drew their dog’s ears. People who excel at telling a story so funny it brings their friends to tears, but who would never dream of trying stand-up.

We’re taught, somewhere along the way, that we only have the right to create if we can create something deemed good enough to spend money on. We’re also taught that the second we stop creating marketable products, we might as well stop creating altogether because our work no longer has value.

None of that is true.

Nobody was buying cave paintings of deer, or pocket-sized ladies carved out from rocks, or drums made with animal skins when humans started making these things. Humans have always made art, not just because we love to look at it and listen to it, but because making things we personally find beautiful is integral to who we are as a species.

When a child learns to play the trumpet, the primary reason she does so is not because lots of people want to spend money on trumpet music so we are fulfilling a need in the market by training more trumpet players. A child learns to play the trumpet because she’s intrigued by the way the brass reflects the light on the bell, by the way the buttons go up and down when you press them, by the way it sounds when someone else makes noises on it. She picks up the trumpet, learns what all those buttons do, figures out what sounds good, what sounds bad. She learns the importance of practicing to sound better, how to read and perform music written by others, how to write and perform the music she hears in her head, how to interact with an audience, how to write her songs down so other people can play them.

Most importantly, she learns how all of that makes her feel, what it does to her emotions, her memory, her intellect.

All of that is her birthright as a human being.

No matter how many AI trumpet sounds we create, no matter how beautiful those sounds may be, our desire to consume those sounds will never outpace our desire to be the one picking up that instrument and learning to play it.

Imagine you get a group of humans together in a room and take away their phones (and their TVs and their music streaming service and their e-readers). None of these people are professional artists, poets, or musicians—let’s say they’re all white collar workers (I wrote the previous sentence before reading Lawrence’s essay, and now it sends chills down my spine. Read it if you haven’t yet).

Tell them they’re going to be in that room for 8 hours (and let’s also assume this is voluntary not coerced). Show everyone where the bathroom is and where the snacks are, make sure there’s some paper, crayons, and a piano, then lock the door behind you.

Can you imagine what would happen?

I imagine that first, they probably start telling stories to each other. Maybe about the crazy traffic on the way in that morning, maybe somebody’s kid lost a tooth last night, or a funny thing happened on the way to the gym.

Then, as they get a little more bored, maybe somebody picks up the crayons and starts doodling, and someone else joins them. Maybe they talk to each other about what they’ve decided to draw. Maybe they draw each other.

Before you know it, somebody else is plinking out “Heart and Soul” on the piano, and someone else is singing along, and they’re laughing about how learning “Heart and Soul” is what my teenager calls a “cannon event.” Probably a few other folks ball up some paper and shoot hoops into the trashcan, or invent some other kind of game to play (even I haven’t yet made games and sports a part of this conversation, maybe they should be, as that’s it’s own form of creation and performance).

AI can never, ever take away our art, our music, or our stories—not because it can’t make things we like to consume (it absolutely can) but because it can’t replace our need to create and perform. Not unless we let it—and there’s no reason we have to.

In my town, there’s a lovely little space called Butterscotch Studios. It’s inside of an old house, and when you enter the space, you feel like you’ve just walked in to a good friend’s living room. They teach music lessons, host workshops (one of which I teach), host concerts, and sell local art.

After school gets out, the place is crammed full of kids carrying instruments in and out, and parents waiting while their kids take lessons. In the evenings, it’s full of people watching their neighbors and friends perform music. Once a month, it is a space where I’m doing my best to nurture and support local writers. It’s always full of art made by people in the community.

They created a place to create, and it’s always, always full. Even if something happened to this place, the people who fill it aren’t going anywhere. We’re going to keep learning to play instruments, keep paining, sculpting, and drawing, and we’ll keep writing down poems and stories and songs. We’ll keep sharing the things we create with each other, long after all the tech industry has devoured itself and made all our busywork obsolete.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t fight the way AI is being used. We absolutely should. We are stuck inside of capitalism and we need to survive, and many of us depend on people buying what we create or we don’t eat and can’t pay rent. Many of us are staring down the reality of losing our jobs, or our or parents losing our jobs, our kids graduating from college and being unable to find a job. That’s a massive problem and it needs to be solved. But there are ways to try and solve that problem without buying into the lie that AI will replace creators. It can’t, not unless we give up.

So please, please.

Sing a song today, loudly, in your car or in the shower or to your grandchild. Buy a pack of crayons and a notepad and make the colors do something that pleases your brain. Tell someone a story—something that happened to you, or something you made up, or something in between.

Make. Create. Perform. Not because the thing you are creating needs to exist, but because you need to exist, and in order to exist, to be fully real and of the world, not just in it, you must create.

They can never take that away from us unless we let them.

(And read Lawrence’s essay).

Other important things happening on Planet Erin:

• I was on a podcast! Me and my friend Suzy Vadori of the Show don’t Tell Writing podcast discussed creative burnout — what it is and what to do about it:

  

• I co-edited an anthology! Find copies of The Villain’s Club in all the online places where books are sold, and also in several small bookshops across the country (mostly in So Cal and the Boulder Area in Colorado. If your bookstore or library doesn’t have copies, you can request them!)

  

• I’m hosting a monthly local workshop at Butterscotch Studios!

• A short story of mine, “What the Tide Brings,” is going to be published in an anthology forthcoming from Twenty Bellows Press! They have been lovely to work with so far — more details to come, including preorder links, etc., as soon as I have them.

I think that’s it for now — but as always, take good care of yourselves, and KEEP WRITING.

~Erin

A few years ago, I went through a phase where I was feeling creatively stuck and depressed. It wasn’t quite writer’s block, because I wasn’t staring at a blank page. It was worse than that. Even the idea of sitting down to try and write filled me with dread and panic.

When I tried to describe this distressing feeling to my therapist, the best I could come up with was that it felt like my impulse to create was right behind me, but it disappeared every time I turned around to catch it. Almost like it was hiding from me deliberately. It was incredibly frustrating, even heartbreaking. 

I had a vague understanding that I was getting in my own way, but I wasn’t sure how, or how to fix it.  

I’ve since learned, from my clients and from my own experience, this sense of disconnect from one’s creative impulse is just one symptom of a specific kind of burnout, unique to creators. It’s similar to regular old burnout, but the burnout is centered around the creative process. So you might still have energy for other important tasks, but the idea of creating fills you with resentment, dread, and/or fear, when it used to feel, if not joyful and exciting, at least comforting and normal. Not only is it burnout of the creative impulse, which is bad enough, but the burnout is compounded with a sense of hopelessness and grief, a feeling that the ability to create has been forever lost. I’ve found that this type of burnout is astonishingly common in creators with neurodivergence, but it’s so clouded in shame that folks are hesitant to admit it. It’s so common, in fact, but also perceived as so shameful, that I had to come up with a name for it so I could discuss it with my therapist, and later, with my clients who were experiencing the same thing. I decided to call it creative despair.

At the time, before I had a name for what was happening to me, I figured I’d try to solve my problem way I always do — I read lots and lots of books about writing and creativity. Most of that was a wash (again, I had to come up with a name for this thing because no one was talking about it).

But even though no one in any of those books identified the precise sensation I was experiencing, I felt a spark of recognition in this quote from If You Want to Write by Brenda Ueland (which I first encountered in Ariel Gore’s Wayward Writer): 

I discovered that you should feel when writing, not like Lorn Byron on a mountain top, but like a child stringing beads in kindergarten–happy, absorbed, and quietly putting one bead on after another.

When was the last time I’d felt that? 

I decided to start there.

When I did, I realized that the last time I’d truly felt happy and absorbed in my creative pursuits was in my early 20s. 

I imagined myself at that time—always lugging around two or three books and a sketchbook shoved in a giant purse or backpack. Wandering around in libraries, and museums, either on college campuses or in downtown areas with good coffee shops and used bookstores.

Without kids, in and out of college, and often between jobs, I had what now feels like unending stretches of unoccupied time. One of my favorite things to do then was get a coffee and find a tree to draw, or find a comfy chair at a bookstore or coffee shop and get lost in a book for hours. 

This would have been around 2002-2008. I didn’t have a smartphone. I didn’t even have predictive texting. I called people, but only when I had to. (I bet you’ve already guessed where we’re headed but stay with me, I have a very specific point). 

During those long stretches of free time, there was nothing occupying my attention. My mind was allowed to wander. I had time to get bored. 

Not that I enjoy boredom (I actually have a pretty low tolerance for it) but it made me wonder — when was the last time I’d felt bored and hadn’t immediately pulled out my phone? 

Once I made this connection, my next step was to try and duplicate the experience of my early 20s as much as possible. What I needed were long stretches of uninterrupted time. While I couldn’t do much about the responsibilities of parenthood and working full time, I could do something about my reliance on my phone.

I started by deleting as many apps on my phone as I could. No social media at all, no games, no streaming. Nothing but email, calendar, and actual phone functions. I also set aside a few mornings, four hours minimum, with zero screens. No phone at all. No computer, tablet, or TV either. 

I called it Special Projects time. The rules were that I could write, but I didn’t have to. I could draw, read, take a walk, do a craft, anything to occupy my attention that wasn’t a screen. I only allowed myself to use my phone when I had to call or text someone. Otherwise, it stayed in my purse or in a different room.

In a startlingly short amount of time (less than a week) I noticed a huge shift. I spontaneously wrote a flash fiction story. I started drawing on the edges of my notebooks – something I used to do all the time, but that I hadn’t done in at least ten years. I learned a new knit stitch (although my knitting is still really terrible). I felt story ideas stirring. I hadn’t felt that in a long time. 

I also felt hope, and I hadn’t felt that in a long time, either. 

I had expected reducing my screen time to help, but what I didn’t expect was how immediate and dramatic the difference would be. It made such a difference that I was shocked, and when I thought more about that impulse to pull out my phone when I was bored, here’s what I realized: When I feel boredom, my impulse to “fix” it is natural, and that’s ok. What’s not ok is what happens when I use the phone to fix my boredom. 

When I fix my boredom with a book, or a walk, or knitting, I get something back from the fix. It’s difficult to define what the thing is, but it feels like my brain is doing something in the background. I’m daydreaming, worrying away at a problem, or having imaginary conversations with real or pretend people, but without intentional awareness. 

When I fix boredom with my phone, it gives me nothing back. 

All the daydreams, conversations, and problem-solving are drowned out by constant images and sounds. Social interactions skim along the surface with no nuance, subtext, or undertones. There’s no need for pondering, questioning, or imagining anything at all, because every question is answered, sometimes before I’ve even asked it. Nothing is required of me, but nothing is given back either. 

Plenty of research has been done on the negative impact of social media on mental health, but I found that any exposure to my phone was having a negative impact. Not just on my mental health, but on my creative impulse as well. 

Reducing access to my phone brought almost immediate, intense physical and emotional relief. The sensation of my creative impulse hiding from me, the feeling that I was getting in my own way? As it turns out, that sensation was coming from my resistance to giving up my phone, to giving up my regular fix for boredom. I didn't want to sacrifice my mindless scrolling time, even when I suspected it might help. Saying goodbye to unlimited access to funny videos, endless online drama, and an effortless way to avoid boredom was a little scary. This was natural. Scrolling on a phone feels good, at least at first, at least in the short term. But long term, losing access to my creativity felt worse, even though I didn’t feel ready to admit that right away.

I did not get rid of my smartphone (if nothing else, my sense of direction is abysmal so I at least need my maps), and I’m not suggesting anyone else do so either. 

I’m also not saying that reducing or eliminating screen time will cure your creative despair overnight. It’s just one strategy in a whole arsenal of strategies that I use in my coaching practice. But it is a powerful one, and one of the easiest to try out on your own. You might not feel ready right now, and that’s ok.

But if you think you might be experiencing creative despair, consider putting your phone away for a bit. Try two hours a day, four if you can swing it. Then stare out the window, draw silly faces on sticky notes, listen to music while vacuuming, go for a long drive, do some birdwatching, people-watching, whatever. Give it a day or two. See what happens. At the very worst, you’ll feel bored. At best, you may reconnect to something you thought was lost forever.

A few other important things happening:

The Villain’s Club reached #1 in Kindle sales for Fantasy Anthologies and Short Stories today, and we’re in good company (Hello M. R. Carey, Jim Butcher, and Brandon Sanderson!).

If you’re in Colorado:

I’m teaching a workshop! Come see me at Butterscotch Studios (register here)!

Mark your calendars for a book signing and conversation about The Villain’s Club with me and contributing author Jocelyn Wallen at the Boulder Bookstore Tuesday Sept. 8th at 6:30pm (registration is not live yet, but I’ll send an update when it is).

If you’re in the SoCal area:

You can meet my co-editor, Dr. Janina Scarlet, and about half of the contributing authors of The Villain’s Club (including Jonathan Maberry, Chance Kistler, Dennis K. Crosby, Dave Beaudrie, M. B. Bruce, and Robin Talamas) at a panel discussion and book signing event at Mysterious Galaxy Books in San Diego May 23, 2025 at 2pm.

Remember you can always shoot me an email if you have questions about creative despair, and/or creating while neurodivergent.

Take care and keep writing,

Erin

First, a check-in: do you know who I am, and did you mean to subscribe to my blog?

I ask because it’s been a hot minute since I last posted (don’t look at the actual date or you’ll embarrass me) but somehow I get a new subscriber about once a week.

So, before I continue, I want to make sure you meant to follow a kooky author and writing coach who writes about writing, ADHD, and also a term I made up, Creative Despair (a subset of regular despair and/or depression, and/or good old fashioned existential dread), and who also will update you when I have a new publication (LIKE TODAY! PREORDER LINKS ARE LIVE!)

If any of that sounds boring to you, please unsubscribe! The last thing I want to do it clutter up anyone’s inbox.

If you’re here on purpose WELCOME! I’m so glad you’re a part of my cozy little corner of the universe.

On to the big news for today, which is The Villain’s Club!

Ya’ll I am SO EMOTIONAL about this book. I didn’t know how much I would love being the editor of an anthology until the amazing Janina Scarlett invited me to be a part of this project. Selecting the stories, working with the authors, giving feedback on the cover — ALL OF IT. I will be eternally proud of having been at least partially responsible for bringing these stories into the world.

Here’s a quick excerpt from my letter from the editor:

The beauty of a well-written villain, or of any unreliable narrator, is that they illuminate the gray areas of life. They confront us with uncomfortable questions, like, what makes a person bad instead of good? Was it bad choices?

But what if there are extenuating circumstances that led to these supposed bad choices? When faced with lady-or-the-tiger style choice between a bad outcome and a worse one, are bad choices excusable? But then again, what if a bad choice goes too far? Where is the line? When faced with a similar choice, what might I do?

What is the difference between a villain and a survivor?

The villains in these pages are faced with all kinds of complicated, messy choices, and they respond in the messiest, most human ways. They are bitter, battered, and bruised. They wrestle with the complexity of their desires for love, connection, and the ways this desire conflicts with their equally powerful desire for greatness. In these pages you’ll find haunting whimsey, caustic sarcasm, the perpetual ache of loneliness, and the psychological aftermath of betrayal. Some stories are cackle-out- loud funny, some tastefully macabre, some rely on excessively satisfying gore to avenge their broken hearts …

EEEEEEEEEE I’m SO EXCITED FOR YOU ALL TO READ THIS!!!

(no pressure but I will be eternally grateful if you buy it and/or request it from your local library and/or share the link to pre-order please and thank you!)

A few other things I’m pet-the-cat-too-hard-excited about:

• I’m hosting a local workshop at Butterscotch Studios!

  

• I’m working on a collaboration with the lovely over at The Long Climb! More details to follow once we get our collective sh*t together, but if you’re not following her already, I highly, HIGHLY recommend her blog (especially if you are a young gen-x or old(er) millennial woman with a late diagnosis of neurodivergence who is constantly brimming with unbridled rage and you can’t tell whether to blame hot flashes or the terrifying state of the world. My money is not on the hot flashes, btw).

• I’m going to be a guest on the Show Don’t Tell podcast with Suzy Vadori! I’ve known of Suzy’s work for years but just got the chance to meet her last weekend at a retreat for book coaches. She is not only funny and brilliant, but incredibly kind and I can’t wait to have a lot chat with her about burnout (and how to begin recovery).

• A short story of mine, “What the Tide Brings,” is going to be published in an anthology forthcoming from Twenty Bellows Press! They have been lovely to work with so far — more details to come, including preorder links, etc., as soon as I have them.

I think that’s it for now — but as always, take good care of yourselves, and KEEP WRITING!

~Erin

First, a few personal updates:

After three years (three years!) I found a doctor who actually listened when I told her there was something seriously wrong with me — instead of half-listening and then telling me I was just getting old. This doctor performed a simple blood test and it turns out I have celiac disease (which would have been nice to know three years ago when I was still chowing down on Triscuits and Goldfish crackers all day long and wondering why my brain stopped working, my entire body hurt all the time, and I was having multiple migraines per week). Now that I’m vigilant about avoiding gluten, the difference in how I feel is astonishing. I finally have what I consider to be a normal amount of energy on most days, my migraines have decreased in frequency, I am only rarely in pain.

That diagnosis came just in time because, I also got married! And gained two sweet, beautiful step-daughters as part of the deal! One just started her freshman year in high school, and another just started her freshman year in college (and is close enough to sometimes come home on the weekends). In the past year, my household has more than doubled in size (not even counting the dog and chickens that were also part of the deal) and I love it — I wouldn’t change a thing — but WOW am I tired.

Next, some professional updates:

Earlier this year, I was invited to join Divine Feminine Publishing as an Acquisitions Editor, after working with Dr. Janina Scarlet on multiple book projects. Over the past few weeks I’ve been hard at work on our first project together — an anthology of short stories from the villain’s point of view. I am loving this work, and I so impressed with the stories we received! I can’t wait to share them with you (A quick note that if you are one of the writers who submitted a short story to our open call, expect to hear from me soon, possibly as early as next week.)

I’m also closer than I’ve ever been to finishing the first draft of a novel that I feel really good about. More on that later — as I get closer to finishing, I plan to continue posting about my creative process as a neurodivergent writer (as I’ve done in the past). I am also still working with coaching clients, including the 2025 Impact Award Recipient. (If you’re interested in working with me, I’m still taking a limited number of creative coaching clients, you can learn more about how to work with me here).

Finally, some fun news!

I was thrilled to recently hear from my dear friend (and former student) Stuart Wakefield about a short story he wrote in one of my classes that he decided to turn into a novella and self-publish.

From Stuart:

I just wanted to say thank you for the Short Story Summer program you did last year. Without it, I'd probably never have started Brain Dead Gorgeous - and now it's #1 on Amazon UK's YA Gay category and #1 on the Hot New Releases category, too!

CONGRATUALTIONS Stuart!!

I already pre-ordered my copy — I was lucky enough to read the short story version, and I immediately fell in love with the protagonist, and cackled out loud many, many times while reading it. I highly recommend you check it out!

Last, a reminder:

I’m still open to AMA (ask me anything) queries about how to navigate the creative process when you have ADHD, and I’ll publish your question (anonymously if you prefer) and my answer here on substack. This is an example of how I respond to questions.

Want to ask me something? Here’s how:

1. Go to my website’s FAQ and Contact Page

2. Scroll to the bottom of the page and use my contact form to send me an email. Use the subject line, “dear erinwritesmagic,” and ask me a question. What are you most worried about when it comes to your creative process? How can I help?

3. I can share your name or not — it’s up to you. Just let me know if you’d like to stay anonymous.

4. I’ll answer your question in a blog post, and I’ll reply to your email with the link once the post is live.

Thanks for reading, take good care of yourselves, and keep writing!!

-erin

For a sliding scale cost of $15.00-$50.00 writers could attend the call, or presubmit a question through a form, and ask anything they liked about how to best navigate the creative process (writing short stories, novels, poetry, memoir, etc.) with ADHD (or trouble with executive dysfunction for another reason).

The calls were never what I’d call super popular (at most I had five writers on the call at a time, and once only one person showed up) but the writers who did attend told me they found the sessions extremely helpful, and I enjoyed getting a chance to meet so many different writers working on all kinds of projects.

However, organizing and holding the calls every month created a bit more mental and emotional stress than I anticipated (there were plenty of tiny admin tasks associated with it that I hadn’t taken into consideration). I also had the Impact Award to work on, and a manuscript to finish up. So, as of March of 2025 I decided to stop doing the calls, and overall I think it was the best decision for me and for my business.

But I miss talking to writers about their work, and if hosting the Impact Award taught me anything, it’s that there aren’t nearly enough free/low-cost resources available to writers — especially neurodivergent writers.

So now I’m going to experiment with offering ADHD AMAs in a new format, here on Substack.

If you are a writer with ADHD (or one who is struggling with executive dysfunction for another reason), you can email me and Ask Me Anything, and I’ll publish your question and the answer as a post here on Substack.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Go to my website’s FAQ and Contact Page

2. Scroll to the bottom of the page and use my contact form to send me an email. Use the subject line, “dear erinwritesmagic,” and ask me a question. What are you most worried about when it comes to your creative process? How can I help?

3. I can share your name or not — it’s up to you. Just let me know if you’d like to stay anonymous.

4. I’ll answer your question in a blog post, and I’ll reply to your email with the link once the post is live.

For now, I plan to keep this service free for as long as I can. If I start to get a ton of questions, I may reconsider, but we’ll see how it goes.

In the meantime, take good care of yourselves and keep writing!!

-Erin

I’m thrilled to announce that the recipient of the 2025 Make an Impact Award is Nirupa Umpathy!

Nirupa’s pages were full of rich sensory detail, beautiful images, lyrical sentences, and evoked compelling emotions. I was also deeply impressed by the way Nirupa has built connections in her community, which exponentially increases her potential for reaching future readers, and with her strategic thinking regarding potential marketing strategies for her work once it’s published.

Congratulations Nirupa, and I’m so excited to start working with you!

I want to stress that EVERYONE who applied for this award was more than deserving.

Every application was compelling, imaginative, and has enormous potential. It is not hyperbole for me to say it was heartbreaking that I could only choose one person to work with this year.

If you are an applicant who is still waiting to hear back from me on additional free or low cost resources for writers, I have not forgotten about you! I’ll be in touch soon with a comprehensive list for you.

And on that note, if any readers of this newsletter have free/low cost writing resources for writers with marginalized identities, please share them in the comments below! If offering this award has taught me anything, it’s that there aren’t enough resources out there to support writers whose voices we need to hear.

I’d also like to thank you for your patience as I have gone radio silent on this newsletter to devote time and energy to this project. I plan to return to a more consistent publishing schedule soon.

Take care and keep writing!

-Erin

It’s cover reveal and preorder day for Bullets and Thunderstorms: A Holocaust Survival Pact; a book written by one of my first and dearest clients, Dr. Janina Scarlet.

I first met Janina back in April of 2021. I had only been book coaching for maybe six months, and Janina was referred to me by another coach at Author Accelerator. I looked her up and right away I was impressed, certainly because all the self-help books she’d written, but specifically because of this picture (from her website):

Right away I thought, this is a writer I would love to get to know.

Over the course of our time together, Janina and I have worked on at least five (that I can remember off the top of my head) manuscripts, all of which are in various states of completion, from published to still in development.

In our work together, Janina sometimes doubted her abilities, but she was also open-minded and determined enough to try every new writing or creativity exercise I threw at her, and was brave enough to speak up up when something I asked her to try wasn’t working. She has also never once, in four years of working together, missed an opportunity to tell me how much she appreciates me and my work. Being one of my very first clients, Janina is also a big reason I was able to build a successful book coaching business that fully supported me and my son.

I’ve had the privilege of witnessing Janina’s journey from a self-help author who dreamed of writing fiction but felt overwhelmed by the process, to a confident, seasoned storyteller with the skills, experience, and boundless imagination required to do justice to the stories she dreams of.

Bullets and Thunderstorms, which Janina has been working on since December of 2021, is especially dear to me. I have read this book at every stage—from messy first draft through two (maybe three?) revisions—and been present through Janina’s decisions to first query agents, then to self-publish, then to start her own small press*. I have listened as Janina told me captivating, heart-wrenching stories—about her family, her life experiences, and why this story in particular was so important for her to tell. The characters in this book have become viscerally real to me (I’ve even dreamed about them!) and this story permanently etched on my heart.

I have enormous respect for Janina’s sensitive soul, her grit and determination, and her sacred commitment, in everything she does, to fostering empathy, kindness, and making the world a safer, more loving place.

I’m privileged to know her and to work with her, and to have had a small part in bringing Bullets and Thunderstorms into the world.

In short — pre-order the book!

*full disclosure, Janina has asked me to be an editor for her press, and I’ve agreed — but more on that later, today is all about Bullets and Thunderstorms.

The post and the offer were born out of anger, frustration, hopelessness, and despair, which I was not alone in feeling. I was desperate to take action, any action, to do something. It was a decision made on an impulse—and I deliberately published the post right after writing it, because I wanted to use my impulsivity to commit. No wavering, no second thoughts, no getting busy and distracted and forgetting.

I don’t know how effective my offer will be, but in my experience, any action is better than no action.

Since then, I’ve thought about how best to structure this offer—worked at fine tuning the language, the requirements, and the timeframe. Depending on how many applicants I get and how everything plays out, I may offer this award again next year, or I may never offer it again. The book I end up editing, and the writer I end up coaching, may do big, exciting things in the world — or they may not. But dedicating the time and energy is worth the risk.

Here’s a quote from the program description I wrote, which explains the kind of book, and the kind of writer, I’m looking for:

But in plain language? I’ve done a lot of reading, listening, and thinking about how we got where we are today. I’ve listened to many intelligent people explain what led to this moment in my country. I’ve also listened to a ton of advice (often conflicting) about what we should be doing now, how we fix this mess we’re in. But nothing we’ve done so far has worked. All the theories and warnings and advice from all those intelligent people has gone unheard, or the actions they recommended haven’t worked (I’m so sick of being told to call or write my congressperson). Nothing helped.

In my imagination, there is someone out there (or many someones) who has a spark of an idea. Something that feels new, fresh, or different. Something that is primed to enter the zeitgeist in a way that we haven’t seen so far. I don’t know if this is true or even possible. Maybe there’s no way out of the mess we’re in, maybe we still have further to fall, and things have to get even worse than they are. But maybe there is someone who has an idea, a story, a new way of looking at things that can spark something new.

And maybe that person is also someone who doesn’t have the resources to get their idea polished enough to make other people take notice. Maybe they can’t afford editing, coaching, or help with querying. And maybe I can play a part in making their voice heard.

I want to be clear that I don’t expect this person to have all the answers. I don’t even expect them to think they have ONE answer. But I am looking for someone who thinks their idea might help things get better. If you think this might be you, I want hear more about why and how you think your idea might help.

Books take a long time to get published. Maybe the idea I find will be too late to change anything. Or maybe I’ll find a writer whose idea sparks something in me, but not in anyone else.

But in my fundamentally optimistic heart (it’s in there, just buried underneath a lot of angsty mistrust, disillusionment, and probably lots of black eyeliner) I want to believe that altering our current course is possible. That the right idea, the right story, the right voice, can help all of us before it’s really too late.

I think it’s worth devoting my time and energy into this award to find out.

So if you yourself think you might be the writer I’m looking for, please apply. Or, if you know a writer who fits the criteria above, please send them this link.

Thank you, and I hope you’re staying safe and taking good care of yourself.

xo, Erin

You can read more details about the award on my website, here. As of right now, I plan to start accepting applications on March 1st, 2025.

If you have any questions that aren’t answered on my website, you can comment below.

Take good care of yourselves!

-Erin

January is one of my favorite months. Not because I’m a fan of winter (I’m not), but because all the frenetic, anxiety-driven, completely unavoidable energy of the season is finally done, and everyone just goes back to doing their normal thing.

If your normal thing is writing, you might be just now trying to get back into your ordinary grove too, so I’m sharing another question from my monthly ADHD AMA group call that might help (reminder that as of now, you can register for January or February’s call if you’d like).

This question, another one from Hanna C. Bosch, is on the topic of how to get back into the world of your novel when you can’t work on it every day:

This one is a doozy, and one I’ve spent YEARS trying to solve.

The first thing I want to say is that the advice saying writers must write every day, no matter what, is so prevalent, but also so inaccurate and even damaging, especially to writers for whom writing every day is not rational or sustainable. It’s especially insidious because on the surface, it sounds like practical, logical advice, and something that many well-known writers say they do (Stephen King being probably the most famous example).

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that you and I are not Stephen King, but we writers still often try to hold ourselves to the same standards.

It’s true that some writers have support systems in place that allow them time to set aside for writing every single day. Maybe they have a partner, spouse, or household member who supports them financially, maybe they don’t have kids or pets or aging family members, maybe they’re in that tiny sliver of a percentage of writers in the industry who can actually earn a living just from book sales.

But if you have a chronic illness, are neurodivergent, are the primary caretaker of other creatures who rely on you (children, aging parents, pets, etc.), or, if like most writers, you also have a day job, odds are you can’t, and probably shouldn’t write every day.

So my first piece of advice is to remind yourself that the advice to “write every day” isn’t right for every writer.

However, it’s also important to honor the fact that when you’re working on a longer project and you can’t write every day, it feels impossible to keep hold of the narrative thread. It's a constant struggle to try and make sure that you stay mentally in the story enough to keep going and not feel like you're accidentally repeating yourself — editing the same first few pages over and over to orient yourself, or even accidentally writing scenes you’ve already written — feeling like you have to essentially start at the beginning every time you sit down to write.

In an effort to avoid losing the thread, you may try and force writing every day, even when you don’t have the time, energy, or resources, and end up pushing yourself into hyper-focus mode (especially if that strategy has worked for you in the past). But too much time spent in hyper-focus mode leads to burnout (especially as we age), which leads to resentment of the entire creative process, and can damage your relationship with your creative process, sometimes for years (ask me how I know).

Over the past several years of working with writing clients and trying to better understand my own process, the best strategy I have found is rather than pushing yourself to write every day, or pushing yourself into hyper-focus mode, you must commit to a consistent, but sustainable, weekly schedule.

This is a lot harder than it sounds.

Every writer I have worked with (including me) overestimates how much time they can actually devote to their work each week. They decide they will get up at 5am every day, or that they can write until midnight, or that they don’t need to take a lunch break. They also try and cram three or more hours into each writing session, thinking that the longer they sit the more they’ll get on the page (butt-in-seat theory), even if they’re already exhausted before they begin.

Schedules that require you to devote every moment of spare time to your writing are not sustainable schedules for anyone. They are even less sustainable for those of us who are neurodivergent and/or have a chronic illness.

And the sustainability part of this equation is the most important part. It’s the most challenging thing to figure out, but it’s also the single most critical step you can take to nurture your creative process.

How to consistently show up for Sacred Writing Time

Start with the shortest, easiest amount of time that you can guarantee yourself each week — maybe 30 minutes every Friday, for example. If that is easy to commit to (and I mean REALLY EASY), maybe add a half hour to that time, or add another 30 minute session per week (a quick note that I’ve seen advice that setting aside 5-10 minutes per day can also work, but I’ve found that with my neurodivergent clients, that is not enough time to make the transition from all the things you were just doing into the right mental head space necessary for creative work. So if you have to choose between 5 minutes every day and 30 minutes once a week, choose the 30 minutes once a week).

You can play with this schedule a bit until it feels right to you. By “right to you,” I mean: Is it realistic for you? Can you stick to it consistently? Even with things go sideways? Even on a bad week?

If not, make it shorter. If you can’t make it shorter, you may need to give something else up, or ask someone for help.

I know that if you have a chronic illness, this can be even more challenging. Maybe you want to write every Friday evening, but it’s not possible to predict when a chronic illness is going to flare up, and some weeks, the flare-ups happen on consecutive Fridays.

In that case, it's helpful to add intentional flexibility to your schedule. One thing I’ve tried in the past is to completely block out Thursdays. That doesn't mean all I do on Thursdays is write, but I don't schedule any appointments, calls, or any specific tasks on that day, which means I have reliable flexibility in my Thursday schedule.

So on Thursday mornings I start by just focusing on writing, and depending on what else I got done earlier in the week, I might just write for a half an hour, or I might write for a couple hours.

Because I also have chronic migraine, it’s possible I’ll need most of Thursday to rest and recover, or I might need to use it to make up for some tasks or appointments I missed earlier in the week if I was sick. But having one day that is consistently, deliberately unscheduled helps me ensure that my sacred writing time will happen weekly.

It takes some trial and error — sometimes months of trial and error — to find something that works consistently, but it’s possible. It’s also critical to your process.

Keeping your writing time sacred is the single most important thing you can do for your long-term success as a writer — and by “success” I don’t mean how many books or short stories you sell or how many readers you have, I mean your ability to commit to a long-term relationship with your work — to be someone who never gives up on your creative self.

This level of commitment to your process is something you, as a creator, deserve to have.

What to actually do during Sacred Writing Time

If you’re already having trouble following the thread of your story, and you aren’t able to set aside more than one writing session per week, you’ll need to plan for transition time to ease back into your creative headspace when you sit down to write.

One of the most effective ways I have found to do this is to start every writing session with some open-ended free writing — but not too open-ended. Sitting in front of a blank page can lead to decision paralysis, pressure, and frustration. But attempting to launch right back into the story without rereading what you’ve already written (and possibly getting side-tracked by editing) can be just as frustrating.

What I’ve found most helpful is to split the difference between free-writing and writing the actual story. Here’s how you do that:

First, you’ll need to have two documents open on your desktop, or two notebooks. One is your free-write document/notebook, and the other is the document/notebook you’re writing your actual project in.

In the free-write document there aren’t really any hard and fast rules about what to write, but the best approach I’ve found is to write to myself about the story. I literally just start talking to myself, on the page, about the story I’m writing.

So I may write something like, I'm really struggling with this character. I don't feel like writing this today because this scene is really hard. I can't really remember what I did last time, but I feel like I need to write about that one conflict between those two characters. I’ll do this for maybe 5-10 minutes, or sometimes for longer if I need to. If all I get done during my writing time is this free-write where I write about the work instead of writing the work itself, that counts.

But even on days when I feel deeply resistant to writing, when I start with this process, eventually, and kind of magically, a scene will just sort of arrive in my head. Then, I switch over from my free-write document to the story document to write the new scene.

Once your writing session is over for the day, you can also make a few notes or jot down a few key words in your free-write document, maybe something like, I stopped here at this scene, and here’s where I need to enter the story next.

Don’t be afraid to be really directive here. Put your name in the doc. Write yourself an actual letter, from your past self to your future self. So something like: Hey, Erin, next time you sit down to write, remember that you figured this one thing out about this one character, and start by describing the laundromat you used to go to in college.

Ideally, the next time you sit down to write, you can use these notes to yourself to help you re-engage with the work, but even if that doesn’t work, you can start with another talking-to-yourself free-write to ease back into the story.

There’s a LOT more I could say about this process, but I’ll stop here for today. If there’s one main takeaway I want you to remember, it’s that you DESERVE dedicated creative time to engage with your work.

Keep showing up, and keep it sacred.

But I also know it’s not practical, due to the timing or other constraints, for a lot of you to attend these calls, so I thought I’d start sharing some of the excellent conversations that happen there. A few of the writers who attend regularly gave me permission to share their questions and my answers with you here.

A quick caveat/disclaimer: I am not a mental health professional, or any kind of certified ADHD expert. I am a writer diagnosed with inattentive type ADHD and a certified book coach who has spent the last four years helping other writers with ADHD. My advice is based on my own experience and the experiences of my clients.

The question I’m sharing today is from writer Hana C. Bosch:

So the quick answer why this happens is you’re getting stuck in hyper-focus mode. Here’s a quote from an article that gives a brief explanation of what hyper-focus is and why it happens:

“… hyperfocus is thought to result from abnormally low levels of dopamine, a neurotransmitter in the brain’s frontal lobes … ‘Children and adults with ADHD have difficulty shifting attention from one thing to another,’ says ADHD expert Russell Barkley, Ph.D. ‘If they’re doing something they enjoy or find psychologically rewarding, they’ll tend to persist in this behavior after others would normally move on to other things. The brains of people with ADHD are drawn to activities that give instant feedback.’”

In other words, when you sit down to write, you may start by wanting to tidy up your desk so you can concentrate on your writing. But, because you’re getting a satisfying dopamine hit from the cleaning, you get stuck there instead.

This could be even more true for you depending on where you are in your writing process, or how you’re feeling about the work in the moment. If you’re at a difficult phase — and that might be the initial draft, or it might be revision, depending on which part of the writing process you find least satisfying — it’ll be a lot more attractive to your brain to start cleaning and get really quick hits of dopamine than it would be to start drafting, editing, or doing some other writing task that you believe will take much longer to deliver those dopamine hits.

And it’s a slippery slope. Part of you thinks, okay, I need to get this XYZ task for my writing project done. But the state of your desk is probably distracting you, so you think, I'll just tidy up this pile of post-its first. Or, I'll just go through the stack of papers real quick. And once you get that sweet dopamine hit of making progress, you simply get stuck there.

Then you end up a with a pristine desk, but zero work done.

The important thing to remember is that you’re more likely to complete a task if you have the expectation that it’s going to feel good right away to complete it (quick access to dopamine).

You’re going to be much less likely to complete a task if you have the expectation that it’s going to take a long time to feel good about completing it (slower access to dopamine).

And before you let the shame at your need for dopamine kick in — remember that as someone with ADHD, you are dopamine-deficient. It’s much harder for your brain to get what it needs in this regard, so your impulses are logical. Your brain is doing what it needs to do so that you feel okay. Here’s another quote from an article about dopamine deficiency in folks with ADHD:

Reward Deficiency Syndrome (RDS) has been proposed to explain why ADHD brains need stronger incentives. Deficits in the reward pathway, including decreased availability of dopamine receptors, decrease motivation. Indeed, ADHD brains struggle to sustain motivation when rewards are mild or are linked to long-term gratification. As a result, ADHD brains search for stimulation that can increase dopamine more quickly and intensely.

Once we accept that this is, no shame, just how our brains work, we can start trying different strategies to help us manage the dopamine deficiency.

This is why you see a lot of people recommending things like sticker charts for people with ADHD. If you can’t get the dopamine from the task itself, maybe you can get it from something else, like the act of putting a fun sticker on a chart.

But the solution isn’t always that simple, because dopamine hits are different for different people. Sticker charts might work really well for one person, but not as well for another (they do nothing for me, for example, but I do enjoy crossing tasks off a to-do list, to the degree that if I get something done that wasn’t on the list, I’ll add it just so I get the good feeling of drawing a big fat line through it once it’s done).

So let’s bring this back to the original question: you’re engaging in procrasta-cleaning because you get a quicker dopamine hit on the completion of that task than you believe you will for doing a task related to your writing.

I’d recommend a couple different strategies to address this.

First, make sure you're tracking your progress on your writing and rewarding yourself for it. The tracking should be sustainable, continuous, and tangible. For example, some writers do use sticker charts on calendars to track word counts. This is pretty simple and easy to implement. I get a big dopamine hit from printing out things I’ve written — the heavier the stack of words, the better I feel. You could also set timers and give yourself a reward when you’ve done the task. 20 minutes of editing (or ten if it feels really hard), then you get a chocolate, or a three minute dance break, one episode of some trash TV, etc. The goal is, when you get the yucky-feeling thing done, you’re recognizing your progress in some tangible way, and therefore anticipating a dopamine hit.

Second, recognize that having a tidy desk does matter, so be intentional about how you allow for that need. One way to do that is to schedule some desk cleaning time separate from your writing time, so ideally you are avoiding the possibility of distraction altogether. I could say a lot more about that, but it starts getting into the realm of time management ADHD strategies, which is a longer conversation, and I want to be mindful not to let this post get too long (I don’t want to drain your dopamine!), but the short version is: tidying-up time is ideally a totally separate from writing time so two tasks don’t get mixed up.

The last thing I’ll say about this is to please remember that reward strategies that work for other people might not work for you, and even a reward strategy that works for you today might not work forever. The reward strategy itself is less important than how the reward makes you feel. You may need to try a few different things to see what works, and furthermore, you may need to switch things up if they start feeling stale (timed dance parties might work today, tomorrow you might need a fancy coffee or two). You are your own best barometer for success — trust your brain to tell you what it needs to feel ok.

Have any thoughts or suggestions about procrasti-cleaning, hyper-focus, and/or strategies that have worked for you? Let me know in the comments.

Like many of you, I’ve been in a black mood the past few days. Sometimes deeply depressed, other times full of rage, or equally full of apathy. I know the cycle of intense emotions will continue to wash over me, like waves, with each new consequence revealed. None of them surprising, all of them spirit-breaking.

I’ve felt some comfort from the words of a few folks online, including my two favorite Margarets: my dear friend and colleague Margaret McNellis and in this post from . I felt seen in this post from . I checked in with friends, and many of them checked in with me. I felt immeasurably grateful that I swore off social media last year (please, please consider doing the same, especially if you are neurodivergent, but even if you are not. The more we feed the beast, the more ravenous it gets.)

As someone who has experienced abuse and the resulting PTSD, I know from experience that action feels better than inaction, regardless of any tangible results from the action. I also know that, because of my mental and physical health issues, I am not a person who can protest, canvas, or realistically commit to much of the commonly recommended actions that provoke societal change (but as an aside — how well have those recommended actions been working anyway?).

Today I thought more deeply about what I am good at and what is sustainable for me, and how to strategically leverage my unique intersection of talent plus available resources.

I know I am a damn good developmental editor. I have had two clients tell me, independently of each other, that receiving my feedback on their work felt “like Christmas morning” (this really happened). Not because I praised everything they wrote, but because they’d never before experienced the depth of feedback I provide. In other words, I’m really fucking good at my job.

My financial situation has improved lately, such that I will have more flexibility and choice in my work schedule next year. I had already planned to dramatically reduce the amount of one-on-one coaching clients and line edits I will take on next year, so my schedule is more open than it has been in years.

I also know that books change hearts and minds (so does music, TV, movies, etc. but books are what I know best).

Therefore, because I have the resources, flexibility, and desire, I’m creating what I call Make an Impact: erinwritesmagic 2025 editing and coaching award. More details will follow as I decide on the particulars, but here’s what I know for sure.

To one person, I will award:

• A free developmental edit on a fiction manuscript of up to 90k words, plus 6 one-hour sessions of editorial coaching, or

• one free line edit of a non-fiction book proposal*, plus 6 one-hour sessions of editorial coaching.

In order to be eligible, you must:

• Be a woman or non-binary person (trans women are women),

• have written (or plan to write) a fiction manuscript or non-fiction book proposal that attempts to directly, strategically, address the royal fucked-up-ed-ness of the United States in the 21st century, and

• be willing to fill out an application detailing the specific themes and goals of your manuscript or book proposal (more details on that later), and

• preference will be given to people from marginalized communities, including Black women, women of color, people who are neurodiverse, people with a disability, etc.

That’s step one. Finalizing the application process and selection process will likely happen in January. I’ll share more details as I can.

Step two, is I prioritize my own fiction. Because in addition to being a damn good editor I am also a damn good speculative fiction writer. My current novel project started as an attempt to fictionalize the narcissistic cycle of abuse through a speculative fantasy lens. It’s become an investigation of how welcoming rage is the only way to escape the cycle (another reason your post was so timely, ). I have no way of knowing what will happen with this book, but I know I need to keep writing it, even if the only person it ends up helping is me.

I’m not going to close this by suggesting you find a way to use your talents to fight the system. Maybe you shouldn’t — maybe you need time to rest and process, maybe starting anything right now feels too premature or scary. That’s ok. I don’t know how effective my plan will be. I do know I feel better having it.

*It’s important to note that while I am a certified fiction book coach through Author Accelerator, I have not pursued their non-fiction certification (nor do I plan to). I do, however, have extensive experience reviewing and analyzing enough book proposals that I feel confident in my ability to evaluate them, and want to include them in this award.

The silver lining is that lots of writers and writing coaches are stepping up to fill the gap, so if you’re looking for alternatives, here are a few I recommend:

Free Writing Challenges Specifically for November: 

My friend Julie Artz created her own new novel-writing community, and included a ton of extra support and encouragement in the form of email support and live AMA sessions. I know Julie personally and have worked with her on my own creative projects. She’s a masterful writing teacher, an empathetic coach, and would be an excellent guide on your path to hitting 50k next month. Also, while this program technically started on Oct 7th, I asked Julie and she said it’s perfectly ok to join late: https://pages.julieartz.com/12-week-draft

One of my clients clued me in to this new, inclusive Discord writing community for fiction writers. They’ll be sponsoring writing challenges in November and beyond, and are also hosting fundraisers. I haven’t personally checked the community out, but I trust the client who referred them to me, and she’s had a really positive experience with them so far: https://pathfinderswritingcollective.com/about

Free Writing Online Writing Accountability Sessions (Body Doubling): 

If you’re looking more for the community and accountability than specific word count challenges, here are a couple of free resources that operate year-round:

The London Writers Salon has a ton of resources for members, but they also offer free morning writing sessions (in several time zones) for non-members: https://londonwriterssalon.com

My friend Sarah Gentry hosts free weekly writing accountability calls on Zoom (along with a ton of other free downloadable things — scroll towards the bottom to sign up for accountability sessions): https://solutionsforwriters.com/freebies

Writing Accountability Services Available for a fee:

If you are looking for more robust accountability and/or a wider range of available scheduled writing times, and can afford to pay for a bit more support, the following resources might be for you:

Focusmate is a paid service where you can schedule body-doubling time over Zoom at any time that’s convenient for you. I haven’t used it myself, but many of my clients use it regularly: https://www.focusmate.com

Jana Vanderveer, a fellow book coach, also offers daily zoom write-ins as part of her accountability program: https://www.setyourmuseonfire.com/work-with-jana

Another writing with ADHD coach I know, Monica Hay, offers an affordable membership that includes a discord group that, among other things, schedules regular body-doubling writing time (scroll down to "The Writer's Way Membership"): https://www.monicahaycoaching.com/community 

If you have ADHD and you’re looking for help with challenges specific to your symptoms, you can also sign up for my monthly ADHD AMA call, where I answer any and all questions about how to navigate the creative process when you’re also navigating executive dysfunction: https://erinwritesmagic.com/adhdamawriters

How about you?

Are you planning to set a high word count goal in November? What resources are you using? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

I’ve just gotten back into my old voracious reading habits (at least 2-3 books per week) since dialing back inline feedback services for my clients. All of my reading energy was getting used up in line edits, so when I went to read for pleasure, it started feeling more like work than like winding down. This made me REALLY sad and it just wasn’t sustainable. I do still offer editing services, but now I only take on a max of two editing projects at a time (significantly less than the 10+ I was taking on at the beginning of 2024).

When my son was small, I used to find things to read by visiting the New Fiction section of my local library branch (side-note, this is how I first discovered Margaret Killjoy. I can clearly remember spotting the cover of The Lamb will Slaughter the Lion from across the room, and being immediately drawn to it. It was unlike anything I’d ever read. The protagonist is brave, practical, smart, and lovable, and Killjoy’s clean, uncluttered prose doesn’t get in between you and the story. She lets the imagery and action speak for itself, which makes for the best kind of immersive experience). It felt like the librarians there had a secret pipeline to the exact kinds of stories I craved. But the library closest to me now doesn’t have the same kind of connections, or luck, or maybe the librarians just have different tastes than I do. So lately I rely a lot on Alex Brown’s blog, recommendations from my clients, friends, plus other writing coaches, book coaches, and editors (have a recommendation for me? Please leave it in the comments below!)

So here’s what I’ve been reading:

I just finished The Sapling Cage by Margaret Killjoy, which had witchy fantasy world-building that I adored, and Undead Girl Gang by Lily Anderson, a funny zombie YA, and an Alex Brown recommendation. I also finished A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami, which was, by far, the hardest Murakami for me to get through. I just could not figure out what was going on and really had to force myself to keep reading. But, I loved The Wind Up Bird Chronicles, After Dark, and Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki so maybe Sheep was an outlier. And, I keep thinking about it, which means maybe there’s more going on under the surface that I have yet to understand.

I also read Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro, which was a lovely read, but his books always end up feeling kind of unresolved to me (which I guess is fine? but not satisfying?). Lots of beautiful, transcendent moments though. And another one I keep thinking about.

Now I’m smack dab in the middle of Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, which is excellent, but maybe not the best read for a single mom of a son. Some of the things that happen to Demon are keeping me up at night, it’s hard not to get all up in my mom feelings and sometimes I have to put it aside.

And I haven’t gotten my copy yet, but I'm really looking forward to the final book in the Rebecca Roanhorse trilogy, Mirrored Heavens. The first two in the series were the most fun I’ve had reading a fantasy series in a long while.

What about you? Have you read any of the above? What have you read lately that has kept you distracted (in good ways and bad), given you big feelings, made you think, or delighted or disappointed you? Let’s talk about it in the comments.

Also, a reminder that if you’re a writer with ADHD (or a writer experiencing symptoms of executive disfunction for another reason), you’re always welcome at my monthly ADHD AMA. This month’s is on Friday, Oct. 18th at 11am mountain time (more info is available on my website).

I didn’t catch all the details, but I heard the part where she said “It’s in September, I’ll interview you, we’ll record it, and you don’t need to prepare anything at all” which all sounded awesome so I said YES.

Between then and now, Sara and I talked about it a few times, she sent me some emails about it, apparently there was also another thing I could do which she called a tailgate and I was like, well that sounds fun, so I agreed to that too.

But even with all of that data I still couldn’t remember what the actual week-long event was called.

Was it a workshop? A class? A mastermind? I kept landing on some kind of camp, but no, that was her Kid Lit Summer camp, which was already over for this year… was it something to do with nanowrimo?

I kept trying to talk to clients and friends about it and it went like, “So I’m doing this thing with my friend Sara, and she’s going to interview me, and Sara’s really great so I know it’s going to be super fun,” and they’d say, “What’s it called?” and I’d say, “Uhhhhh…”

I knew the word kickoff was in the title, and then there were the tailgates, but what were we kicking off? Why were were pretending to hang out in our cars? I was so confused.

Then last week Sara sent me this image to use in my own marketing:

… and first I got that got the Smashmouth song stuck in my head, but then something else clicked, and I was suddenly like,

“Kickoff … tailgate … all-star …”

Ohhhhhhhh.

(The joke is that Erin lives under a rock with her books and pays no attention to sports things that happen in very specific seasons)

But ANYWAY …

Join me for FOOTBALL-THEMED writing event NEXT WEEK (Sept. 16-20th) hosted by my friend Sara, along with a whole bunch of really awesome coaches (like my favorite, Stuart Wakefield!) for a series of interviews plus LIVE coaching (those are the tailgates!)

We can even pretend we’re actually doing sports things!

“I’m going to a kickoff, where I’ll get to watch an interview with an all-star and then get go to a tailgate and get to ask questions, live!”

Hope to see you there.

Go Team Writers!

That previous sentence is probably interchangeable with innumerable sentences in diaries and journals I’ve written across decades, in every season. On any given day, as I go about my business, living my life, I inevitably glance up at the clock, then feel a jolt of panic at how late it is and how much I have left to get done. 

In fact, in February of this year, I was planning to write at least one substack post a month, then stuff happened, I glanced up, and it was August. 

The aforementioned “stuff” included all kinds of things, like getting Covid in March (I think?) and recovering, drafting my novel-in-progress (I’m at 40k!), teaching my son how to swim (or more accurately: navigating my local rec center’s terrible website, getting on waitlists and crossing my fingers that we would get into the first class, then the next class, then the one after that, finding ways to shoe-horn the first available half hour lessons at random times into my schedule, then dozing off by the pool and getting sunburned while an enthusiastic teenager did all the actual teaching) helping my partner find a new place to rent where he can have chickens again (which he did, and now there are eggs!), and planning a new (more sustainable) way to help writers with ADHD (which seems to be working well thus far and which I’m really proud of). 

Why am I telling you all this? First of all, I just miss substack. I miss writing here, reading here, coalescing my thoughts and arranging them into sentences that mostly make sense and sending those sentences out to all ten or eleven of you who read this blog and occasionally engage with it. 

So part of this post is just that – me saying, “Hi, I’m still here! I haven’t abandoned this substack altogether, I promise, it’s just that lots of stuff happened and I got distracted” (sound familiar?). 

The other part of this post is a reminder that sometimes, we abandon a routine, and the act of abandonment can feel final, irrevocable, even when we know it really isn’t. Taking the first step back into the routine feels scary. So scary, that we might avoid the first step for longer than is logical (say, something in the neighborhood of six months). 

But breaking the routine down into the tiniest steps possible can help. 

For example, today, when I first sat down, I was only going to brainstorm and free write. My intention was not to make a post, it was to set up a system – to make a new folder to house rough drafts, a new brainstorming doc, set reminders on my calendar – to find small ways to reduce my barriers to posting in the future so hopefully I could make writing on substack a routine again. 

But once I started, my muscle memory took over. I realized I actually did have something to say. The words came a bit easier, I started editing as I went, and before I knew it, I had a sufficiently coherent bundle of words ready to deliver to you. 

Ideally it won’t be another six months before you hear from me again. I’m still going to set those calendar reminders (probably), and schedule some time to devote to making substack a habit again. 

But even if I don’t, this is a reminder to you that if there’s a habit you’ve abandoned that you miss, it doesn’t have to be gone forever. You can forgive yourself, start small, and start again. 

But no one talks about the underlying cause of why pantsers are pantsers – why we don't trust the outlining process. But there are identifiable causes, and identifiable solutions, and the fact that no one discusses this can be frustrating.

As a life-long pantser with ADHD, I’ve learned that my reasons for not liking or trusting outlines are valid. I have good reasons to feel an aversion to them, supported by years of feeling like they killed my creativity, because they did.

Because for people with ADHD, outlines are both absolutely necessary and the worst possible thing for your creative drive. We need them, and they're also awful.

Let me explain.

First, it's important to understand that a person with ADHD is frequently going to be chasing the feelings of confidence and affirmation they get from working in hyper focus mode. But when it comes to long, laborious processes, what I think we're really chasing is the inevitability of completion.

There's a moment in any long project where you've put in enough work to reach a tipping point, like the top of a roller coaster. You've devoted so much time and energy that the only logical next step is to finish. Even if you're lacking energy or focus, even if you're sick to death of the project — the end is in sight. All you have to do is push just a little longer and you're coasting down the other side. The rush we get from riding up over the crest and barreling down the drop of a roller coaster is not unlike the rush we get from reaching the final stages of an almost-finished project, especially one that's dear to our hearts.

And hyper focus, one of the most well-known ADHD superpowers, is a great way to get to the tipping point of any project. If you have ADHD, you're probably confident that you can accomplish significantly more in a short period of time than the average person because you have the ability to single-mindedly devote many hours and days focused solely on the completion of a specific task.

But the problem with a novel is that in almost every case, it's just too damn big to hyper focus, especially if you have literally any other important tasks to complete (like, for example, eating and sleeping).

Enter the outline, which is designed to allow you to step away from the novel, do all those pesky things like eating and sleeping, and come right back to the story without losing your focus.

When it works, that's awesome. But often it doesn't. No matter how perfect the outline is, the process of transition, of using the outline as a gateway for re-entry into the story, of repeatedly going in and out of hyper focus, becomes excruciating. Because the other problem we've got to contend with is the need for novelty, a result of our brains being dopamine-deficient.

In other words, during the time it takes to write a novel — which is a long, meandering, soul-eating, beautiful and also messy, chaotic process — you're inevitably going to get real fucking bored with that outline, to the point where you not only hate it, you start to hate your story.

There is not a simple solution for this problem.

In my last post I talked about a phase in the writing process I refer to as the gap, by which I mean the decision-making space between having created a character(s), a world, and a problem and knowing the entire plot. Navigating the gap necessitates navigating the outline, and it might necessitate remaking the outline over and over to satisfy the need for novelty, but being careful to do so without losing the narrative threads which anchor the story.

It’s a lot.

The short answer for how to navigate the gap and the outline is the same boring answer I give myself, and my clients, all the time — to keep showing up for the work. Even when you feel lost, even when you can't bring yourself to trust in your story, even when you have a day where you just hate everything, even if you never write a word.

But there's danger there too — because if you force yourself to keep showing up for the work without understanding how to satisfy your need for novelty, you risk burning yourself out so much that you begin to deeply, passionately hate the work — and now we're back to the baby/bathwater situation I described in my last post.

Enter what I call entry points — new ways into the work that address the need for novelty.

Right now, my newest entry point for my work (which was wholly and devastatingly derailed by the holidays, but of course it was, and I keep going anyway), includes a couple of things.

First, I read a few lines from a dear writing friend's book of poetry because it gets me in the right frame of mind for this particular project.

Second, I'm not writing linearly. I'm finding it easier to enter the story as the character looking back on her own experiences, in an almost epistolary way, because for now, that gets me closer to the emotion.

Am I still using a plot outline? Yes, kind of. I know the arc of the story, but I can't get any closer to the details until I write them. Is that changing some of those details at times? Yes, but not so much so that I lose the overall thread of the plot, which is relatively straightforward.

The great thing about entry points is that you can always, always find a new one when the one you're using gets old. There are infinity paths into your story.

The crappy thing about entry points is that you will always, inevitably, have to find new ones when the need for novelty kicks in. There's no such thing as an eternally exciting entry point.

Even with these insights, I still struggle. Like my clients, I'm doing my best to show up consistently, even when it's hard.

But essentially, I’ve learned to trust myself enough to understand why navigating the gap has to happen, and how to modify the outlining process so it doesn’t kill my creativity. It’s not easy, it’s it’s not straightforward, and it's definitely not fast, but it is absolutely possible.

And the result is that, for the first time ever while working on a novel, I’m not just piling up word counts with my fingers crossed, trusting that someday my collection of beautiful moments will someday form a plot. I understand that there is a sweet spot in between the necessity of letting my imagination follow its own path and organizing my intentions for plot in an outline. I don’t have to write every single scene that drifts into my mind. I can be intentional and targeted, and still trust my natural attraction to all new, shiny, unique, fascinating things to be sure that I won’t write scenes that feel prosaic, staid, or cliche.

I show up. See what happens. Learn from it. Repeat.

And trust that someday I'll get to the crest of the rollercoaster.

Over the past four years, I’ve worked with approximately 30 writers on drafting and revising their books, many of whom, like me, are women diagnosed with ADHD in adulthood. This experience has given me crucial insights regarding the most common places writers with ADHD get derailed during the process of writing a book, and a really critical one happens right between plotting a story and having a plot.

See, in most craft books designed to help you plan and write a novel, there are prewriting exercises to get you to express your initial idea, to create authentic, complex characters, and then to sketch out a basic plot. You are supposed to identify a main character, then give them a problem to face, something that will illustrate how they will change over the course of the story (their character arc).

This is an oversimplification, but the idea is that the character’s internal change will drive the plot forward. Not all approaches to planning and outlining a novel use this method, but many do.

Next, it’s often suggested that you use an established structure – either something simple like Freytag’s pyramid, or more complex, like Save the Cat or The Hero’s Journey, to write a simple story outline that supports your character’s arc of change.

But wait — because here’s where it gets tricky.

Just because I know who my character is and how she needs to change over the course of my book, internally, doesn't mean I also know exactly what, externally, should happen to her.

Because even if you know exactly how your character needs to grow and change emotionally, you have a whole mess of choices for how a complimentary external plot could unfold.

TOO MANY choices.

Just the first step of The Hero’s Journey—the Call to Adventure—can happen in any number of ways. For example, if I know that my main character has a fear of being abandoned and therefore refuses to get close to anyone, and her arc will be learning how to trust again, I can also surmise that she needs to be put in a high-stakes situation where she is required to trust someone to solve an external problem.

There are about a million ways to do that. How do I choose?

Which way is the right way to externally support my character’s interior, emotional journey?

Probably I should just choose something that works well enough for now, and then I’m supposed to trust that, over time, I’ll figure out how to align the external plot with the internal character arc in a satisfying way, right?

Well, in my experience, not so easy-peasy for a person with ADHD. Because the “too many choices” thing results in immediate overwhelm, which devolves into massive self-doubt, which is usually enough for the person with ADHD to conclude that they’ve somehow “done it wrong,” abandon the whole project, and start over with something new. Rinse, repeat.

This is what I’ve started to think of as the gap (think “mind the gap” and not “crappier than Old Navy but less crappy than Banana Republic” Gap).

Because here’s the thing about the gap—even when you choose an external plot, it takes time, focus, and precision to make sure that the external plot events align with the internal character arc in a way that authentically honors your character’s internal emotional journey.

The rough draft of a simple external plot feels rough at first, or even cliche, forced, awkward, formulaic, and—worst of all for neurodiverse folks—boring.

Our visceral aversion to anything boring means folks with ADHD probably won’t like any simple draft of an external plot we come up with. Then, our chronic self-doubt means we automatically assume our plot sucks because we’ve royally f*cked up the process somehow.

Hence we start from scratch, trying to create something better (baby with the bathwater situation, a whole other type of killing your darlings). This causes a potentially never-ending cycle of false starts, and if repeated often enough, digs us deeper and deeper into the self-doubt that got us in trouble in the first place.

So right now, I’m doing my best to navigate the gap, and it hasn’t been easy.

During the week of Thanksgiving, my son got a terrible ear infection which meant I abandoned my near daily drafting habit and got behind on other projects as well, so now I’m scrambling to get caught up on pretty much everything else while the holidays loom just ahead.

I have a working outline that I sometimes love and sometimes hate. I stare at it for what feels like excruciatingly unproductive hours before I wake back up to the story and start adding new notes and details. One moment I’m sure it’s the most mundane, derivative, waste of space I’ve ever written, other days I think, oh, this might actually be pretty cool for a few minutes before I hate it again.

Even on “successful” days when I’m getting words on the page, I feel like a dilapidated, rusty, long-neglected story creation machine, making worrisome creaking noises and expelling clouds of dust as I work. I’m certain I’m leaving out critical character behaviors or world-building details that will require exhaustive revision to correct.

But it’s still the most progress I’ve made on a novel-length project, ever, so I keep going, because at least now I know that feeling crappy about my outline and the larger story at this stage is normal. I can trust that over time, if I keeping showing up for the work, I’ll be able to navigate through the gap.

I’ll have more to say about the gap between internal character arc and external plot in my next post, sometime in January, but for now, I’m going to keep chipping away at my word count and my disappointing outline, and trusting the process as best I can.

For now, I’ll leave you with this quote from Chuck Wendig’s Gentle Writing Advice:

Faith in the work is not essential to do the work.

Do the work. Trust in the power of the act.

One reason (not the only reason, but a big one) I decided to teach a class over the summer was that I hoped teaching a group instead of working with one-on-one clients would give me more time to devote to my novel in progress. As much as I love book coaching, creative coaching, and developmental editing (and I really, really do) I had been neglecting my own creative work so much that it was becoming detrimental to my health.

Part of my justification for neglecting my creative work was money. When you’re running a freelance business, every second you’re not completing a task that has a clear tie-in to financial gain feels very, very scary. No one is going to pay me to do all the deep, high level, intensely focused work required to write the novel I want to write.

But in 2023, I committed to making the time in my schedule to do it anyway. It was a necessity. I was depressed. My other work was suffering. I started to feel resentful and weak, like a watered-down version of myself.

So since March, I’ve been daydreaming, world-building, reading, writing short sketches and scenes, and tracing the outlines of a plot to house my creation in.

What I haven’t been doing is writing my novel every day.

Writers (me included) attach so much angst to the write every day rule, because I think we often misunderstand it. If we don’t adhere to the “butt in seat,” throw down words, any words, meet-your-daily-wordcount-goal-or-die attitude (why hello, nanowrimo), we feel like we’ve abandoned the work, or like we’re not real writers anymore.

But write every day, at its core, means you need a lot of practice. Writing every day is like exercise. It can mean journaling, prewriting, essays, poetry, short stories, newsletters, blogging—it can mean all kinds of things. It can certainly mean increasing your daily word count on a novel, but it does not mean that if you aren’t, that the time you spend writing other things doesn’t count, or that by not devoting your time to the novel every single day, that you are somehow failing at being a writer.

For most of the last six months I haven’t been in the right place in my process to write every day. I needed copious, expansive, indulgent spans of time in which to get all the way inside my world and imagine it into being. I was most productive when I managed to schedule one whole day a week where I was only responsible for working on my story. I worked with my own coach, Delemza Champagne, to help keep me focused and ensure I wouldn’t abandon the project altogether when I got frustrated.

And now, I have enough raw material: setting, world-building, a rough sketch of the plot—to begin the part where I actually write the story.

Which means I need a different kind of time.

I’m making the transition back to writing daily (or almost daily, as I don’t work on weekends). This kind of time is focused and precise, methodical, rather than expansive and all-encompassing.

Now, I need the kind of time that will keep the story spinning in the back of my mind, that will keep the characters murmuring in my ear, will give me dreams about them.

I will also need to practice re-engaging with the story more quickly than I have over the past several months. Having a rough plot and a solid world-building foundation will make that easier, but not easy.

Having ADHD means that transitions between tasks are challenging for me, so I will need to develop what I call entry points that allow me to transition rapidly enough to keep the flow of the story going and still maintain focus on my paid work, on parenting, and on more mundane things like cooking and housekeeping.

I need to write every day because now I have a solid foundation, and an intuitive understanding of my story. Instead of daydreaming and staring off into space for hours, I can be deliberate, steady—writing each word with conviction. I have a confident, internal knowing of what deserves to take up space on the page. While revisions will always be necessary, I know my plot, my characters, and my world well enough to know what scenes need to exist in order for my story to make sense.

I’ll be sharing more about this process in the months to come, but for now, I’ll leave you with this: What type(s) of time do you need right now in order to make your creative work a priority?

I do know my grandma made it frequently for my grandfather and their four children in the 60s, and served it with a side of a halved pear with a scoop of cottage cheese on top. It’s simple, satisfying, and easy once you get the hang of the roux.

I make the recipe a little differently now since my household is gluten-free, and I offer up both versions below. You can get creative with seasonings and toppings but the basic recipe is delicious all on its own.

Potato Soup

Great-grandma Amelia’s version:

• Two big potatoes, at least a pound. Russets work well, but so do yellow or red. Wash, peel, and chop them.

• 1-2 stalks of celery, chopped

• 1-2 carrots, chopped

• 1-2 Tbs. butter

• 1-2 Tbs flour

• Salt & pepper to taste.

Place the washed and chopped vegetables in a pot and cover with salted water. Set the burner to medium-high and boil.

When the vegetables are nearly soft (in about 15-20 minutes), turn the heat down to warm, and heat a separate dutch oven to medium-low heat. Add the butter, and once it’s melted and sizzling, add the flour, stirring to incorporate it with the butter, and cook until the flour is golden brown and smells rich, but not burned. This is the most important step in this version of the soup. The browned butter and flour mixture provides all of the flavor, so if the butter is undercooked or burnt the soup will be flavorless. It’s worth tossing it and starting over if you feel like it’s not right.

Once the butter and flour are perfectly browned, slowly add a cup full of the cooking water from the vegetables and stir rapidly to avoid any lumps. Continue adding broth and stirring until you’ve added most of the water, then pour the contents of the first pot into the second pot. Stir to incorporate, and let simmer to thicken. Add more water if needed, and salt and pepper to taste.

Erin’s updated version:

• The veggies are all the same, (2 potatoes, 2 stalks of celery, and 2 carrots, all washed and chopped), but I also include a few cloves of garlic and sometimes a half an onion.

• I omit the flour because of the whole gluten thing.

• Sometimes I still use butter, but olive oil also works well.

• To make up for the lack of flavor, I use bouillon or broth instead of water, approximately 4 cups.

• And of course I use salt & pepper to taste.

I’ve always wondered why Great-grandma Amelia messed around with two big soup pots. Not only do I dislike washing more than one soup pot, but I only have one that’s comfortably big enough for soup anyway. I can only imagine that when you’re feeding farm hands in 1910 you have bigger soup pots than I do, and probably more than one of them. I assume you also get used to washing lots of dishes.

But since I only have one big dutch oven to cook my soup in, I start there — by heating it to medium low, and sautéing 4-5 cloves of garlic and maybe a half an onion in some butter or olive oil. Once that gets toasty and golden, I add the rest of my veggies (potatoes, carrots, and celery), kick those around for about 3 minutes, then add my 3-4 cups of broth (or water and bouillon).

Then I turn everything down to medium-low to simmer with a lid on for about 20-30 minutes until the veggies are soft. To thicken the soup, I like to just mash some of the potatoes against the side of the pot with a fork, but you can also scoop out a half a cup of broth, add a tablespoon of corn starch to make a slurry, then add that back in the soup.

After the veggies are soft and the soup is thick enough, it’s ready to eat. Sometimes I serve with sour cream, shredded cheese, and chopped green onions as a topping if I’m feeling fancy.

I also like to set aside a bowl for Amelia, especially at this time of year. Even though I’m not entirely sure she’d approve of my modifications, I hope she appreciates the gesture.