Quiet is surprisingly hard to come by. Even when the room is quiet, my brain apparently have other plans. Did I return that email? What are we having for dinner? Why did I say that weird thing in 2007–it was about queefs (long story)?

Did the dog go out? I should really clean that drawer. Also, menopause has apparently decided 3:17 a.m. is an ideal time for strategic planning.

So this week’s word is quiet.

Not silence, necessarily.

Quiet.

The place underneath all the noise where you can actually hear yourself. When was the last time you were there? Do you like quiet? Do you avoid it? And what starts talking when everybody else finally shuts the f*** up?

Your Gateless invitation

Set a timer for 20 minutes.

Start with:

When everything gets quiet, I hear...

Then follow it wherever it goes. You do not have to know where you’re going. That’s rather the point.

The Gateless rules

No editing while you write. No fixing the commas. No worrying whether this is “good.” Keep your hand moving. Keep typing. (I personally type) Let the weird sentence stay weird.

If you share here, I (and the rest of us) respond Gateless-style. We notice what shines. A phrase. An image. A feeling. Something we want to hear more about. No critique. No advice. No rewriting somebody else’s work. We get enough of that shit every day in our “real world.”

Twenty minutes. You and the quiet.

And if someone you love could use twenty quiet minutes of her own, send this her way. The storm will still be there when she gets back.

I remembered Julia Roberts. I remembered the spectacular beach house. I remembered the canned goods lined up like they were awaiting inspection by the Department of Soup. And I remembered those perfectly folded hand towels

Actually, confession: I still try to arrange my hand towels the way she did, with that little folded-over thing on the towel bar. Mine inevitably end up half on the floor within twenty minutes, which tells me everything I need to know about how long I would have lasted in that marriage.

Face it. Martin would have personally dumped me over the side of the boat by Tuesday.

But what I did not remember was how deeply, aggressively, magnificently 1991 this movie is.

To give it credit, Sleeping With the Enemy gets one enormous thing right. A woman can live in a beautiful house, wear lovely clothes, have plenty of money, be married to a handsome and successful man, and be absolutely fucking miserable and terrified inside her own home. Her life can look enviable from across the street while she is straightening soup cans because she knows there will be consequences if the labels are crooked.

That part still works.

Then Laura escapes.

And I imagine the 1990 Hollywood meeting went something like this:

EXECUTIVE #1: Okay. So this woman has survived years of violence and coercive control. She has secretly learned to swim, faked her own death, jumped into the ocean in the middle of the night, swum away from a homicidal husband, run away from everything she knows, changed her identity and started an entirely new life.

EXECUTIVE #2: Incredible.

EXECUTIVE #1: So, what does she need now?

EXECUTIVE #2: Boyfriend?

EXECUTIVE #1: Perfect.

And everyone went to lunch.

No. Just no.

I have notes. A lot of notes. And because I apparently cannot watch anything without recasting the entire thing in my head, I also have actors. Stop. This is my hobby.

THE RE-CASTING

Cristin Milioti is Laura. She’s exactly right for this because she can be funny without being silly, vulnerable without looking helpless, and she has that wonderful quality of appearing perfectly functional while her internal monologue is clearly saying, What the actual fuck is happening?

Dan Stevens is Martin. This presents certain complications for me personally because Dan Stevens is, in fact, my hall pass. But this is precisely why he works.

Marcello Hernández is Ben.

Urzila Carlson is about to become extremely important.

Helen Mirren is Laura’s mother.

And Jean Smart did not audition. She did not have to. Jean Smart simply appeared on set and began fixing things.

As Jean Smart does.

First, Ben is gay.

This is nonnegotiable.

I’m keeping Theater Guy Ben because I actually like Theater Guy Ben. But Marcello’s Ben does not meet this visibly traumatized woman and think, Potential girlfriend.

He thinks, Something happened to this woman.

And then: Holy shit. She needs a makeover.

Not because Laura needs to become prettier. She is Cristin Milioti. We are fine. She needs to have FUN. So instead of immediately falling in love with her, Marcello takes Laura to drag bingo.

Obviously.

This is her first real night out in her new life. She’s nervous. She’s slightly overdressed. She keeps checking the door without realizing she’s doing it. Marcello notices all of this, but he doesn’t make her explain herself. He gets her a drink and introduces her to a drag queen named Ivana Separation, who takes one look at Laura’s blouse and tells her it is “emotionally withholding.”

And Laura laughs. Really laughs. Maybe for the first time in years.

That actually moves my story.

Marcello doesn’t interrogate her. He doesn’t rescue her. He gives her somewhere to go on Thursday nights. He introduces her to people who don’t require anything from her. He helps her remember that another person’s mood does not have to become her emergency. And, crucially, he does not try to sleep with her.

Which brings me to Jean Smart.

Jean Smart fixes the money.

I see Jean as a retired CPA. Maybe she also has been divorced three times and considers each marriage continuing education. It doesn’t really matter. Marcello brings Laura over for coffee, and Jean takes one look at her and asks, “Sister, do you have your own money?”

Laura gives her that little blank look women sometimes give right before saying something that is going to horrify every other woman in the room.

“Well, Martin handled…”

Jean quietly puts down her coffee.

“Give me your phone.”

And NOW I get my montage.

Cue “Bills, Bills, Bills” by Destiny’s Child.

Jean is freezing Laura’s credit, opening a High Yield Savings account, changing passwords, removing authorized users, checking beneficiaries, shutting down location sharing and changing every recovery email Martin has ever touched.

Marcello is dancing around the kitchen with a mocktail to Cats: The Jellicle Ball because of course he is.

Jean Smart has reading glasses halfway down her nose and the expression of Judge Judy. She has been waiting her entire life for this exact assignment. And somewhere during all of this, Urzila (who I think I would date if I was gay) is opening the mail and occasionally saying in that glorious Urzila accent, “What the fuck is THIS account?”

Because here is the real problem with remaking Sleeping With the Enemy in 2026.

Martin does not need to find Laura’s wedding ring in the toilet.

HE HAS FIND MY IPHONE.

There’s Apple Family. The toll tag. The car app. Google Photos. Shared calendars. Amazon. The pharmacy portal. Health insurance. The bank. The dog’s microchip account. That fucking thermostat app everybody installed in 2019 and forgot existed.

Modern adulthood has created approximately seven hundred tiny electronic doors into our lives, and Jean Smart is shutting every single one before lunch. I trust Jean Smart completely.

Actually, I wish someone had given me Jean Smart.

Sometimes you do not need another person asking how you feel. Sometimes you need a woman in reading glasses to take your phone away from you and say, “Sweetheart, he is still on your fucking credit card.”

That’s the damn makeover.

And then there is Urzila Carlson.

If you don’t know Urzila Carlson, fix that. She is a South African-born, New Zealand-based comedian with exactly the energy I need here: dry, observant, hilarious and magnificently unimpressed by bullshit. She is the theater stage manager. And Urzila does not travel alone. Somewhere behind her is an apparently endless collection of extremely handy lesbian friends who materialize whenever circumstances require expertise.

Terry knows security cameras. Jo has a locksmith. Mo has tools. Denise knows someone at the courthouse. Jan has an alarming amount of knowledge about outdoor lighting. Sandy technically wasn’t invited, but Sandy is here now and nobody is brave enough to ask her to leave.

They drive Subaru Outbacks. Possibly several Subaru Outbacks. No one does informal female security better than a group of women who are also lesbians.

Martin, sweetheart, you are FUCKED.

One afternoon everybody is sitting around Ben’s house when Urzila looks casually out the window.

“That bloke’s been past three times.”

Nobody else has noticed.

“What bloke?”

Urzila looks back at them, solemnly.

“Exactly.”

She already has the license plate. Terry is checking the cameras. Jo is on the phone with the locksmith. Someone has moved an Outback behind Martin’s rental car in a manner that may or may not technically constitute parking. Nobody asks.

This is what I want around Laura. Not people who make her submit fourteen exhibits and an appellate brief before they will entertain the possibility that something might be wrong.

Fabulous people who say, “I believe you. What do you need?”

Now, Martin.

Martin needs to be hotter. Stay with me.

My Martin is Dan Stevens, and yes, this creates some complications for me personally because he is my hall pass (did I mention that? Dan, DM me.) but that is precisely why he works.

The abusive husband should not walk onscreen looking like a man who has bodies under the shed. He should be DELIGHTFUL. Handsome. Smart. Successful. Funny. A little older than Laura. Enough older that when they met, he already had the money and confidence and knew how everything was “supposed” to be done.

He makes an excellent martini. He remembers birthdays. He knows the waiter’s name. He stacks chairs after the fundraiser. He brings an excellent bottle of wine when he comes to dinner.

Everybody likes Martin. Maybe everybody loves Martin.

When Laura finally tells someone what happens at home, I want the response to be:

“Martin?”

A pause.

“Your Martin?”

YES, CAROL (you bitch). MY MARTIN.

Everybody else sees Dan Stevens, (sigh, that voice), smiling charmingly over a glass of wine. Laura knows what happens when the front door closes. That is far more frightening. Because the scariest version of this man is not somebody who advertises what he is. It is somebody everyone else experiences as charming, thoughtful, competent and wonderful.

She is the only one who knows the other version.

I am not the monster. The cans stay.

Obviously the cans stay. And the towels stay.

In fact, I want MORE towels. Towels and an apocalypse pantry with even more freaky cans. Although I feel like in 2026 we’d be into mason jars with pickled items.

Because Martin’s obsession with the towels and the cans should not simply communicate, “Wow, this guy really likes a tidy house.” Laura is hypercompetent because she has spent years becoming an expert in another human being’s moods.

The soup cans are not scary (unless they are bulging and that means botulism, folks–fun medical fact for you. Now back to the story). The fact that Laura’s nervous system has memorized the soup cans is scary. And I think the original movie understood that better than I gave it credit for.

Helen Mirren would like a word.

Now, Laura’s mother.

In the original, Laura’s mother is blind and has had a stroke, so Martin more or less uses her as another breadcrumb on his hunt for Laura. Absolutely fucking not. My mother is Helen Mirren.

Martin walks into her room thinking he has the advantage because she cannot see him.

Sir. Have you learned NOTHING from Little House on the Prairie?

Every child of the seventies and eighties knows that once television makes someone blind, their other senses become approximately 400 percent more powerful. Helen hears the shoes. Then she smells the cologne. She knows. Because she is also a capital-M Mom Mom, and Mom Moms can identify a child’s dangerous boyfriend from three rooms away based entirely on atmospheric pressure.

Martin sits beside her and starts doing that creepy soft-voice thing. Helen smiles.

She reaches toward him. He leans in.

And she punches him squarely in the nuts.

Hard.

“Stay away from my daughter.”

Thank you, Helen.

You may return to being fabulous.

Leaving is not the ending.

This is the biggest thing I want to change. The original treats escaping as the grand finish line. New town. New hair. New guy. And, again, I love the hair. But new hair does not make a new life.

It is a fantastic start. The actual story starts afterward.

That is the movie I want.

And I do not want Laura to turn into Superwoman. Quite the opposite. I want her to remain completely human. Sometimes she is terrified. Sometimes she is furious. Sometimes she sleeps twelve hours. Or farts. Sometimes she laughs so hard with Marcello (let’s just rename that character to Marcello) that for five minutes she forgets any of this exists.

Sometimes Jean Smart starts explaining another financial thing and Laura holds up her hand and says, “I physically cannot learn one more fucking thing today.”

Sometimes Urzila feeds her. Sometimes she wakes up with a rhinestone stuck to her cheek and no memory of how it got there. Sometimes she needs 2% lactose-free milk.

Because one of the strangest things about living through something enormous is that regular life has absolutely no respect for the occasion. There is still laundry. The kitchen still gets dirty. Someone needs groceries. The cat will still shit somewhere completely inexplicable.

Apparently, psychological thrillers forget that we also must do household maintenance.

And yes, Martin eventually finds her.

It is still Sleeping With the Enemy. Dan Stevens has to show up eventually.

But Martin expects to find the Laura he left behind. Isolated. Terrified. Monitoring his every move.

Instead, Urzila clocked his rental car yesterday. Jean Smart already has the attorney on speakerphone. Terry has checked the security cameras. Jo changed the locks. Denise has documented everything, and Sandy is doing something around the side of the house that frankly I have decided not to investigate.

The Outbacks have been strategically positioned.

And Marcello has activated what can only be described as the Gay Community Theater Emergency Response System.

GCTERS.

No judging. It is midnight. Not every acronym can spell some symbolic word. Feel free to try.

Suddenly there are nine people in the house. Someone brought a vegetable lasagna with a tarragon-bechamel sauce. Someone has bolt cutters. Somebody else has a cordless drill. I still have no idea why the drill keeps appearing, but it is now part of the ensemble cast and apparently has representation.

And for the first time, Martin realizes something he had never planned for.

Laura is not alone.

Maybe that was always his greatest power.

Not that he was stronger.

Not that he had more money.

Not even that he frightened her.

He had convinced her that she was alone.

Now she knows she isn’t.

And BOOM. THAT is my ending.

I tolerate the original Sleeping With the Enemy. Dammit, I watched the whole thing again, while performing a running commentary on how 90s movies haven’t aged well to my 13-year-old who played Roblox the whole time.

So apparently I am now going to start redoing all of Hollywood.

You have been warned.

Next week, I will be correcting another disaster from the movies we grew up with. No offense to Nancy Price, who wrote the original Sleeping With the Enemy novel. I’m sure she’s lovely. This is between me and Hollywood.

There are SO MANY movies sitting there innocently right now, having absolutely no idea what is about to happen to them. But for Laura, I am done. I do not want her rewarded with another man. I want her rewarded with Laura.

And a checking account Martin cannot fucking touch.

Laura does not need a boyfriend.

Or a penis.

Laura needs infrastructure.

And for the love of God, stop fucking with her canned goods.

P.S.

If you like crazy potential redos of the originals, stories that take something familiar and ask, Okay, but what if the women got to do this differently?, you may want to check out my latest novel.

It comes out October 6.

Apparently taking the stories we were given, shaking them vigorously and seeing what falls out is kind of my thing.

I’ve been thinking about permission lately.

Not the permission slip kind. The invisible kind.

The permission we somehow spend half our lives waiting for…

Permission to change our minds.
Permission to quit.
Permission to rest.
Permission to want something different.
Permission to stop being who everybody expects us to be.

And here’s the especially annoying part...Sometimes nobody is actually withholding it. We are. I know I do.

So this week, I want to know:

What are you still waiting for permission to do?

Maybe it’s enormous. Leave the marriage (ahem). Write the book. Change careers. Move across the country.

Maybe it’s tiny. Wear the thing. Take the afternoon off. Stop answering texts immediately. Order dessert.

Or maybe you’re still trying to get permission from someone who hasn’t had authority over your life in years. A parent. A partner. An old boss. The twenty-eight-year-old version of you who had very definite ideas about how all this was supposed to turn out.

Your Gateless invitation

Set a timer for 20 minutes. Start with:

If I stopped waiting for permission, I would...

And go. No outlines. No “make it pretty.” No stopping because the first thing that comes out seems dumb. (it’s not)

Keep. Writing.

The Gateless rules

This isn’t English class. (looking at you, Mrs. Schwarz)

No fixing your grammar. No worrying about punctuation. No editing yourself into something more impressive. Just write what comes.

And if you share your writing here, we practice Gateless feedback: we tell one another what we loved, what stayed with us, what felt alive.

No criticism.
No fixing.
No “you should.”
No turning somebody else’s story into our own.

We’re looking for what’s strong. That’s it. And when you’re done?

Maybe give yourself that damn permission.

Know a woman who needs permission for something right now? Send this to her. Sometimes we just need another woman to say, Sis. You’re allowed.

QUICKIES: 100 Little Lessons for Living Sexily Ever After in Midlife — from Oprah-approved menopause expert Dr. Heather Bartos. Witty, bold, shame-free wisdom on sex and intimacy after 40, in bite-sized hits you can actually fit into a busy day. 4.8 stars and counting.

GRAB YOUR COPY → Quickies

[PHOTO: ME LITERALLY JUMPING IN TIMES SQUARE AT THE LAST BOOK LAUNCH]

This is me launching my last book in summer of 2025. In Times Square. Literally jumping up and down.

Please also notice the sneakers coordinated with the book cover, because apparently I was COMMITTED on an Olympic level.

Look at her.

She is delighted. She is airborne. She has matching footwear. Sigh. Youth…

And now I have another book coming out.

Are You There God? It’s Me, Menopause. arrives October 6.

Which is...soon. And I’ve noticed something.

I’m not jumping up and down this time.

That doesn’t mean I’m not excited. I love this book. I think it may be the most me thing I’ve ever written.

But this one feels different. Maybe because I’m different.

A lot can happen between books. Life can wander right into the middle of your carefully constructed plot and start making edits without asking permission.

And this year has had...some rather large edits. But that’s another Substack for next year... or hmmm... next book?

So some days I’m thrilled that the book is almost here. Some days I’m doing laundry. And some days I suddenly remember October 6 is getting VERY close and think, Oh shit. I have a book coming out.

All apparently normal.

But there’s something else that makes this book different. I didn’t want to write another menopause nonfiction book. We have those. A lot of them are very good. I also didn’t want to write this book as a doctor. I wanted enough distance from that version of myself that I even put a different name on the cover.

So I used my birth name: Heather J Robertson. A decision that caused at least a little consternation among some former board members at the publishing house because, reasonably: Who the HELL is Heather J Robertson? Thank God backed me on hiding the medical degree for this one.

Because I wasn’t trying to explain menopause to women.

I wanted women to see themselves in the story.

The friend group. The bathroom mirror. The chin hair that appears to have been growing peacefully for six inches before you somehow noticed it. The questionable decisions. The changing bodies. The things we tell our girlfriends that we would never announce in polite company. The funny stuff. The lonely stuff. The completely ridiculous stuff. The parts of midlife that don’t fit very neatly into a symptom checklist. Because sometimes what makes you feel less alone isn’t another explanation of what’s happening to you.

Sometimes it’s recognizing yourself on the page and thinking:

OH THANK GOD. HER TOO.

That’s the book I wanted to write.

Here’s a little piece of it...

And that’s probably why this launch feels different too.

I’m less interested in jumping up and down because I wrote a book.

I’m much more interested in getting this book into the hands of women who will recognize themselves in it.

Although I reserve the right to become airborne again on October 6.

Shit, I may need to go buy some new coordinating footwear

Are You There God? It’s Me, Menopause.
Coming October 6.

PREORDER HERE →

And if you have a woman in your life who has ever texted you a picture of her trying on a swimsuit, contemplated doing something completely uncharacteristic in midlife, or simply looked around and thought, Wait...is everyone else experiencing this too?

Send this to her.

I wrote it for her, too.

Open
Overwhelm
Orbit
Origin
Offering
Outgrow
Owe
Opposite
Ordinary
Omen

This week’s Gateless prompt:

Write about something you’ve outgrown.

A role.
A belief.
A version of yourself.

What no longer fits?
What are you making space for?

Outgrowing isn’t failure. It’s evolution.

That theme sits right at the heart of Are You There, God? It’s Me, Menopause.

PREORDER HERE

QUICKIES: 100 Little Lessons for Living Sexily Ever After in Midlife — from Oprah-approved menopause expert Dr. Heather Bartos. Witty, bold, shame-free wisdom on sex and intimacy after 40, in bite-sized hits you can actually fit into a busy day. 4.8 stars and counting. Grab your copy → Quickies

No
Need
Numb
Narrow
Now
Name
Nervous
Nurture
Noise
Next

This week’s Gateless prompt:

Write about a moment you said no.

Or wished you had.

What did it cost you?
What did it give you?

Boundaries often arrive later than we expect.

That shift — from pleasing to choosing — is part of the midlife story in Are You There, God? It’s Me, Menopause.

PREORDER HERE

QUICKIES: 100 Little Lessons for Living Sexily Ever After in Midlife — from Oprah-approved menopause expert Dr. Heather Bartos. Witty, bold, shame-free wisdom on sex and intimacy after 40, in bite-sized hits you can actually fit into a busy day. 4.8 stars and counting. Grab your copy → Quickies

Mother
Memory
Mess
Meaning
Movement
Mask
Mirror
Middle
Mourning
Magic

This week’s Gateless prompt:

Write about a memory that still lives in your body.

Not just what happened —
what stayed.

Where do you feel it now?

Memory and the body are deeply intertwined — especially in midlife.

You’ll see that explored in Are You There, God? It’s Me, Menopause.

PREORDER HERE →

QUICKIES: 100 Little Lessons for Living Sexily Ever After in Midlife — from Oprah-approved menopause expert Dr. Heather Bartos. Witty, bold, shame-free wisdom on sex and intimacy after 40, in bite-sized hits you can actually fit into a busy day. 4.8 stars and counting.

GRAB YOUR COPY → Quickies

Loss
Longing
Light
Limit
Letting go
Laughter
Loop
Language
Loneliness
Leap

This week’s Gateless prompt:

Write about something you had to let go of.

Not just what you lost —
what shifted because of it.

What opened?
What closed?

Midlife is full of quiet letting-go moments.

Some painful. Some necessary.

That thread runs deeply through Are You There, God? It’s Me, Menopause.

PREORDER HERE →

QUICKIES: 100 Little Lessons for Living Sexily Ever After in Midlife — from Oprah-approved menopause expert Dr. Heather Bartos. Witty, bold, shame-free wisdom on sex and intimacy after 40, in bite-sized hits you can actually fit into a busy day. 4.8 stars and counting.

GRAB YOUR COPY → Quickies

Keep
Knowing
Kindness
Knot
Knock
Kinetic
Kaleidoscope
Key
Keen
Kin

This week’s Gateless prompt:

Write about something you knew before you had proof.

A quiet knowing.
A body-level truth.

Did you trust it?
Or did you talk yourself out of it?

There’s a moment in midlife where instinct gets louder than logic.

That tension lives inside Are You There, God? It’s Me, Menopause.

PRE-ORDER NOW→

QUICKIES: 100 Little Lessons for Living Sexily Ever After in Midlife — from Oprah-approved menopause expert Dr. Heather Bartos. Witty, bold, shame-free wisdom on sex and intimacy after 40, in bite-sized hits you can actually fit into a busy day. 4.8 stars and counting.

GRAB YOUR COPY →

Yes, we accidentally switched H and I.

No, nobody noticed.

Which either says something wonderful about this community or something concerning about our collective attention spans in midlife.

Honestly, I’m choosing wonderful.

So here we are.

J is for:

Journey
Joy
Jealousy
Jolt
Judgment
Justice
Jump
Juggle
Junction
Jewel

This week’s Gateless prompt:

Write about a moment that jolted you.

Something small or sudden that shifted your direction.

Where were you?

What changed after?

Not every turning point arrives with fireworks and a dramatic soundtrack.

Some arrive quietly.

The way so many changes do in midlife.

And if you’re wondering whether I noticed the H/I mix-up immediately after publishing...

The answer is yes.

The answer is also that I couldn’t remember where I left my coffee.

If you'd like to see what happens when those women hit midlife and everything really starts getting interesting, Are You There, God? It's Me, Menopause arrives October 6 and is available for preorder now.

Preorder AYTG? It’s Me, Menopause now.

And If you enjoy women navigating life’s beautiful disasters with humor, heart, and the occasional existential crisis, Quickies is available now.

Order Quickies Here Now!

H is for:

Home
Hunger
Holding
Hope
Hesitation
Healing
Heat
Hollow
Hands
Horizon

This week’s Gateless prompt:

Write about home.

Not the address — the feeling.

A place you returned to.
A place you left.
Or a place you’re still searching for.

Where did your body feel at ease?
Where did it feel like it had to brace?

Write for 10–15 minutes.
No editing. No fixing. Just follow what rises.

If you’ve been circling questions about where you belong — in your body, your life, your next chapter — you might also find something in Are You There, God? It’s Me, Menopause.

Sometimes the real homecoming is internal.

Subscribe now

I is for:

Identity
Instinct
Invisible
Intuition
In-between
Impact
Isolation
Impatience
Invitation
Ignition

Jeez, I forget how INTERESTING the letter I really is (see what i did there?)

This week’s Gateless prompt:

Write about who you are becoming.

Not who you were.
Not who you’re expected to be.

The version of you that’s forming now.

What feels unfamiliar?
What feels quietly true?

Write without stopping.

20 minutes. No editing. Just throw those words on the page. Share if you’d like some Gateless feedback love, love!

Midlife has a way of rearranging identity in ways we didn’t plan.

That thread runs through Are You There, God? It’s Me, Menopause — the question of who we are when the old version no longer fits. Here’s a sneak peek:

Preorder here!

Whew, that felt good to share! My debut novel comes out this fall- but you can already preorder it via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, the usual…

And this is the kind of book you share with you friends—

I am giving away FIVE SIGNED GALLEYS!!! Just share this page with your TWAT group (don’t know what I mean? Keep reading along with me ;)

Much love, loves—letter J is next week!

xoxoxox

Oh, and let’s not forget our little Quickies! now in it’s 3rd printing!!! It’s a great graduation gift, summer beach read (like this gorgeous gal)…

Have you had not your quickie yet? Oh honey—order here!

G is for:

• Garden

• Grief

• Grace

• Ground

• Gift

• Ghost

• Growth

• Gravity

• Goodbye

• Glow

This week’s Gateless prompt:

Write about something that grows.

It might be a plant, a relationship, a child, a wound, a hope, or a version of yourself.

What changed over time?
What did it need in order to grow?
What surprised you most about the process?

Write for 10–15 minutes without stopping.
No editing. No polishing. Just keep your hand moving.

A gentle reminder of the Gateless guidelines

• Write fast and without stopping.

• Don’t edit while you write.

• Don’t judge your work.

• Let the writing surprise you.

• Follow the energy, not the grammar.

If you choose to share your writing in the comments, you’re welcome to read and respond to others as well.

When responding:

• Be kind.

• Be specific about what moved you.

• Reflect back what you noticed or felt.

• No critiques, corrections, or advice—just witnessing.

This is a space for honest words, not perfect ones.

Xoxo,

Heather

F is for:

• Fire

• Fear

• Freedom

• Family

• Flight

• Failure

• Forgiveness

• Fracture

• Future

• Fuel

This week’s Gateless prompt:

Write about a fire.

It could be a literal one, or something that burned through your life—
a passion, an argument, a desire, a loss, a turning point.

What did the fire take?
What did it leave behind?
Are there still embers?

Write for 10–15 minutes without stopping.
No editing. No polishing. Just keep your hand moving.

A gentle reminder of the Gateless guidelines

• Write fast and without stopping.

• Don’t edit while you write.

• Don’t judge your work.

• Let the writing surprise you.

• Follow the energy, not the grammar.

If you choose to share your writing in the comments, you’re welcome to read and respond to others as well.

When responding:

• Be kind.

• Be specific about what moved you.

• Reflect back what you noticed or felt.

• No critiques, corrections, or advice—just witnessing.

This is a space for honest words, not perfect ones.

—Heather

E is for:

• Edge

• Enough

• Escape

• Embrace

• Ending

• Energy

• Echo

• Ember

• Expectation

• Ease

This week’s Gateless prompt:

Write about an edge.
A moment when you felt close to something—
a decision, a change, a truth, a goodbye.

What kind of edge was it?
Did you step forward, step back, or stay exactly where you were?
What did that edge teach you?

Write for 10–15 minutes without stopping.
No editing. No polishing. Just keep your hand moving.

A gentle reminder of the Gateless guidelines

• Write fast and without stopping.

• Don’t edit while you write.

• Don’t judge your work.

• Let the writing surprise you.

• Follow the energy, not the grammar.

If you choose to share your writing in the comments, you’re welcome to read and respond to others as well.

When responding:

• Be kind.

• Be specific about what moved you.

• Reflect back what you noticed or felt.

• No critiques, corrections, or advice—just witnessing.

This is a space for honest words, not perfect ones.

—Heather

D is for:

• Door

• Desire

• Disappointment

• Detour

• Daughter

• Dream

• Doubt

• Devotion

• Departure

• Dawn

This week’s Gateless prompt:

Write about a door.

It can be a real one or a metaphorical one.

A door you closed.
A door you walked through.
A door you were afraid to open.
Or one that opened for you when you weren’t expecting it.

Where were you?
What was on the other side?
What part of you crossed the threshold?

Write for 10–15 minutes without stopping.
No editing. No polishing. Just keep your hand moving.

A gentle reminder of the Gateless guidelines

• Write fast and without stopping.

• Don’t edit while you write.

• Don’t judge your work.

• Let the writing surprise you.

• Follow the energy, not the grammar.

If you choose to share your writing in the comments, you’re welcome to read and respond to others as well.

When responding:

• Be kind.

• Be specific about what moved you.

• Reflect back what you noticed or felt.

• No critiques, corrections, or advice—just witnessing.

(that’s me right now, the cow being slung across the highway).

I keep thinking I should write something wise or beautifully composed here, but the truth is I’m tired. Sleep has been uneven. My body reminds me I’m not twenty-five anymore. Most days, I’m just keeping the household running and the people I love steady.

The novel is still moving forward, somehow. So am I.

This is just a small dispatch to say: I’m here. Not polished, not profound—just present. And sometimes, in midlife, that’s the bravest place to stand.

Yet the writing continues and so, my dearest lovelies…

We’ve arrived at the letter C.

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C is for:

• Change

• Courage

• Comfort

• Chaos

• Crone

• Clarity

• Crossing

• Calling

• Collapse

• Creation

This week’s Gateless prompt:

Write about a moment when something in your life cracked open.
Not necessarily a dramatic event—just a shift. A realization. A quiet turning point.

Where were you?
What did you notice first?
What changed after that moment?

Write for 20 minutes without stopping.
No editing. No judging. Just the truth of the moment.

If you feel like sharing, I’d love to hear what surfaced for you.

Opening Meditation

Sit where your spine can lengthen without effort.

Let your hands rest open in your lap.
Inhale through your nose.
Exhale through your mouth — long and soft.

Notice where you are holding today.
Your jaw.
Your shoulders.
Your chest.

Let the air move there.

You don’t need to be wise here.
You only need to be honest.

Close your eyes.

Picture yourself at an age when you did not yet know what you know now.
Let that body arrive.
Let that room arrive.

When you feel the shift, open your eyes.

Gateless Agreements

In this space, we practice:

• Speaking only about the work, never the writer.
• Letting the writing sit in the center of the crystal — unattached, unclaimed.
• No fixing, no teaching, no personal stories in response.
• Sharing is always optional. Always.

This is a place for gorgeous dopamine hits —
and for gently bitch-slapping the inner critic who insists you aren’t enough.

🅑 — Before You Became

Prompt:

Write about who you were before you became who you are now.

Not a list of achievements — a state of being.

What did your days smell like?
What were you naïve about?
What felt endless then?

Let yourself speak from that earlier body.

Write for 20 minutes.

Write without stopping.
Do not fix. Do not judge. Do not reread.
Just follow whatever thread tugs first.

From the Storm — Heather’s Piece

She will never amount to anything.

I sat alone on the edge of my parents’ bed, tracing the flowering ivory stitching on their autumn-gold polyester bedspread.

They didn’t know I could hear them whispering.

“Well…” my dad said. And then he stopped. He knew I might hear.

I swallowed hard. It hurt to swallow.

Eighth-grade English was a daily form of torture, led by the Gestapo-inspired Mrs. Schwarz.
“Schwartz means black. Schwarz means brown. And brown is braun,” she would dress down any student who dared call her by the wrong name.

She stood ramrod straight, nearly six feet tall, a brunette bouffant clearly from a box kit, pointy heels, pointy face — a Disney villainess. I was Snow White to her Evil Queen.

She hated me from the moment I walked into her class. She made me diagram sentences at 7:30 in the morning in front of everyone, haunted-forest silence pressing in as chalk screeched against the board. Sweat beaded along my permed hairline, my heart beating so loudly I was sure she wanted it for herself.

At a parent-teacher conference she told my parents,
“She will amount to nothing. She has no talent, no ability, and no personality.”

In the eighties, teachers could say things like that. I imagine my parents nodded politely — the same parents who had to be reminded every night at ten o’clock that they even had a kid.

One morning, the tickle started.

The classroom was stifling, sealed tight. I tried to swallow it away before it could turn into a cough, then an asthma attack. My eyes darted around — everyone else had their heads down, trying to diagram dangling participles. I swallowed faster, knowing this was a losing battle. If I made so much as a sound, she would descend on me like Maleficent.

Then I saw it.

Shiny. Silver. Glinting in my backpack pocket.

George Washington.

Without moving anything else, I shimmied my hand down, snatched the quarter, and popped it into my mouth. Saliva flooded in. The tickle faded. I breathed.

“Miss Robertson.”

Her voice cracked the room open. “Your turn at the board.”

I startled — and swallowed.

Twenty-five cents vanished.

The rest of the day my stomach churned against President Washington. When I got home, my mom embarrasedly called Poison Control, “My 13-year-old daughter swallowed a quarter. No, I said 13, not 3.”

“At this point, ma’am, there’s nothing to do but wait,” they said. “Just make sure it passes.”

She will amount to nothing.

Every morning I checked the toilet.

One day it did pass.

The quarter had turned iridescent — rainbowed by intestinal bacteria. It was glorious.

And I realized the shit President George Washington sat in…

was Schwarz.

Brave the Weather With Us

If this work speaks to you, subscribe to Heathering the Storm — a weekly writing ritual for women who write wildly and hang on to each other through whatever storms are blowing through. And tell me below….

This is a soft place to land — a place to listen inward, loosen the grip of the day, and write from whatever weather is moving through you.

Each week we’ll do:

• a short, simple meditation
• a gentle prompt you can take in any direction
• 20 minutes — no more — of writing

Write anywhere you want:
on paper, on your laptop, in your notes app, on your wall (just… not Sharpie 😄).

When you’re done, you can keep your words just for yourself — or you can share below and we will absolutely love on them.

I’ll post my own piece too — usually a week behind — so I don’t color your experience of the prompt. This week, at the end: I’ll just share a little something I wrote for my own craft/practice—it’s raw, unedited and a wee bit feral.

Gateless Writing Agreements (the soul of this space)

These are not suggestions — they are sacred.

• We talk only about the work, never the writer.
• We do not attach writing to ourselves
(no “this happened to me once” or “here’s how I relate”).
• The writing sits in the center of the crystal and we simply notice what shines.
• No fixing. No teaching. No pressure.
• Sharing is always optional. Always.

This is not critique.
This is communion.

Only gorgeous dopamine hits.
And a firm, loving bitch-slap to the inner critic who insists you aren’t enough.

Here we go.

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Opening Meditation

Sit where your body can soften.

Place one hand on your chest.
One on your belly.

Inhale slowly through your nose.
Exhale through your mouth like you’re fogging a mirror.

Let your shoulders drop.
Let your jaw unclench.
Let the day loosen its grip.

There is nothing you have to prove here.
No one to impress.
Only something in you that is ready to speak.

Close your eyes.

Notice the room.
Notice your breath.
Notice the quiet storm inside you.

When you feel ready, open your eyes.

Set a timer for 20 minutes.
Write without stopping.
Do not fix. Do not judge. Do not reread.
Just follow the thread.

🅐 — THE PROMPT:

Prompt:
Write about something you once ached for.

Not wanted.
Not admired.
Ached.

Something your body leaned toward before your mind had language for it.

Where were you when this ache first appeared?
What did it feel like in your chest, your belly, your hands?
What did you believe would finally be different if you had it?

Let the wanting be bigger than the outcome.

Write for 20 minutes.

Strange & Wonderful Things About the Letter A

• A is the most common first initial in the English-speaking world — more people’s names begin with A than any other letter.
(Your ache is statistically not alone.)

• A is the first vowel babies learn to make.
That open-mouth “ahhh” sound isn’t learned — it’s remembered.

• Every alphabet in Western civilization begins with A because it descends from the Phoenician symbol for ox head — meaning A originally stood for strength, labor, and survival.

• In ancient Greek, Alpha wasn’t just a letter — it meant origin.
The place where things begin to exist.

• A is the only letter that can be both a grade and an apology.
Excellence and ache share the same shape.

• The word “ache” literally contains the sound of A twice.
Your longing is built into the letter itself.

• In music, A is the tuning note — the sound every orchestra aligns to before playing.
Before harmony, there is A.

• Neurologically, the “ah” sound opens the vagus nerve, subtly calming the nervous system. A is a nervous system whisper.

• In astrology and mysticism, A has long been linked with arrival — the moment something crosses from thought into form.

• And finally: No other letter is so often silent — and yet so necessary.
It holds space even when it makes no sound.

Here’s my writing piece for this week:

The crimson-based oracle card demands it of me:

Attend to your shadow.

Argh.
Why couldn’t I draw something sexier — like Queen of Badassery or Rose Blossoms of Divine Feminine Love?
Or literally anything else.

But I pulled it.
So. Fine.
Let’s do this.

The shadow is prolific in pop culture.

Peter Pan lost his.
The Shadow Man hunted little children in a horror film of the same name.
The werewolf’s shadow — the beast within.
Sauron’s dark tower casting its long, hungry reach.
Those creepy “shadow people” you swear you see at 3 a.m. out of the corner of your eye.

I made shadow animals as a kid.
Bunnies.
Birds with wings wide open.
Garfield.
They never scared me then.

I first met the shadow — the spiritual one — while signing my Divine Sovereign Declaration three years ago, on a blustery November night.
November 11th. 11:11.

Actually, it was 11/14 by the time we remembered to sign, but 11/11 makes for a better story. So let’s stick with that.

According to the new-age underground, the “shadow man” is a soul-sucking government construct activated by the newborn heel-prick test.

From a medical standpoint, that’s absurd.
That test screens for metabolic disorders, not demonic contracts.

But in the energetic world, apparently it’s the Church — the dark Catholic kind.

I wasn’t raised Catholic, but I do recall being tremendously constipated at the Vatican during a girls’ trip. Praying for stool salvation. God forsaked me, but the ceiling was very nice.

So the story goes: the Vatican has our DNA and can make shadow clones.

Meanwhile, True Light people don’t pay taxes, stand in line at Kroger, or worry about their driver’s-license photos.

Mine’s been around for twelve years, like a bad case of herpes —
Lisa Marie Presley on corticosteroids, sporting tragic bangs.

Anyway, we live in the Shadow Man’s world — a parallel realm where our souls were purchased at birth. Since the heel-prick test is done at Day 1 and Day 14, I assume we signed twice. Western medicine logic.

The contract was downloadable, of course.
You made a “donation” to DivineSovereign dot something and signed it in blood.

Except have you ever tried signing an 8½×11 sheet in blood?
It’s a mess.

So we used G2 gel pens and added a little blood thumbprint for flair.

We got stuck on that step for three days — debating whether we were creating a bloodline or just confirming one.

I found an old (unused) 18-gauge needle behind the Band-Aids and a tube of Calmoseptine, next to the Cottonelle wipes that dried up years ago because some shadow man left the wrapper open.

My husband insisted the contract could be broken and reinstated at will.
Why he didn’t go into contract law is beyond me.

The Vatican’t, as I call it, once labeled my IVF half-Catholic kids “abominations.”
So honestly? They can keep their incense.

If there’s a direct path to God there, I would’ve been able to poop within proximity of the Pope.

My energy healer feared the shadows.
But I’ve learned: a shadow exists only when something blocks the light.

The Bible says: “Do not identify with your shadow; it is only part of who you are.”

Totally identifying with the shadow — that’s how evil multiplies.

Shadow energy lives in our extremes.
Our fear.
Our rage.
Our overreactions.
It thrives when we feel unsafe.

I do not consent to this fuckery.

Where there is light, there must be shadow.
And where there is shadow, there must be light.

So I will attend to my shadow.
And, finally,
get a new driver’s-license photo.

See you next week, storm chasers — B is already gathering clouds.

And I actually love it.

But sometimes I also want to recline in a velvet chair like it’s 1897, dramatically reading poetry to my friends and pretending none of us has a mortgage or a login for the patient portal.

Which is probably why, as a Gateless-trained writing teacher (betcha didn’t know that part), I’ve become deeply allergic to anything that sounds like hot takes about politics, doomscrolling the end of the world, or performing outrage for the algorithm.

I want something else.

I want a corner of the internet that feels like quoting Little Shop of Horrors and meaning it:

Somewhere that’s green.

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So here’s what we’re doing.

Every Wednesday a fresh writing prompt will land here — free, unfussy, and waiting patiently for you. Use it that day or hoard it for later. All it asks is 20 minutes and your willingness to begin.

For the first half of the year we’ll let the alphabet be our playful backbone — 26 letters, 26 weeks. We’ll start with A(obviously). Each prompt will flirt with that week’s letter, but if your imagination runs off in a completely different direction, follow it. This is our show. We make the rules.

And because I can’t help myself, I’ll also share a few personal, oddly specific little truths about me tied to that week’s letter — the kind you only admit in good company. Think: quietly revealing, unexpectedly tender, and absolutely not curated for the internet (and yet…here we are).

You’re welcome to post what you write in the comments, and I’ll respond with Gateless feedback — meaning I’ll reflect what’s alive in your writing, not what you “should” fix. There’s a whole reticular activating system involved here, but let’s not science this one to death (I can geek out real hard). The short version: it’s built on the simple premise that when your brain isn’t under attack, creativity actually shows up.

Each week I’ll share a short piece of my own — unedited, imperfect, and sometimes a little feral.

No grammar critiques.
No punctuation policing.
Just honoring the work.

If this sounds like something you want in your week, hit subscribe so you don’t miss a prompt — and if you know someone who used to love writing but lost their way, share this with them. The cliché is true: sharing is caring, and creativity is better with company (much like nachos).

After we make it through the entire alphabet (by my trusty calendar…mid-June), I’ll start querying for beta readers for my upcoming novel Are You There, God? It’s Me, Menopause, arriving this fall.

So that’s the plan.

Every Wednesday.
Twenty minutes.
One letter.
A few secrets.
and…free.

Let’s make something strange and wonderful together.

And one more thing — if the idea of doing this over a long weekend in real life sounds delicious, answer the poll below. We’re flirting with the idea of roving little writing retreats around the U.S. and Canada — velvet chairs, brave words, and reading daring, beautiful things to each other like it’s our own secret salon. No corsets required.

Oh, and it has to be easy to get to, because I am not arriving at a creative retreat with my nervous system fried from three TSA checkpoints and a two-hour Uber ride.