I knew something was different when I started querying my latest novel; even from my first batch, the full requests started coming in hot. I knew right away that at the very least I had a really solid pitch and opening pages.

The most important thing to remember about fiction writing and publishing: it’s a long game.

The message I really want to impart to you aspiring or querying novelists reading this: the publishing world is not dead or completely impossible to get into, as you’re likely to hear stories of elsewhere on the internet. This querying experience taught me that if your pitch is good, it’s good. And agents are willing to bite if your query and pages are strong. Even very big ones, who many would say don’t even bother cold querying (cold querying refers to sending out a query to an agent you have no personal connection to or referral for).

If you aren’t getting any requests for the full manuscript, it’s time to relook at your pitch and opening pages.

With that in mind, here are my top tips that helped me land an agent (and a lot of agent attention) this time around:

1. Pay for a Publisher’s Marketplace ($25/month?) subscription when you are actively querying. It allows you to look up every agent you’re querying, see what they’ve sold recently, which editors they’ve worked with, which genre of books they’ve had the most sales in, and how active they’ve been lately. Sometimes, an agent sounds perfect from their website bio in terms of being a good fit for your sci-fi novel, but then you look them up in Publisher’s Marketplace and realize they’ve only sold two children’s books ten years ago. This is also a great place to look up who the agent’s clients are too.

2. On that note, when you look up each agent in Publisher’s Marketplace, you can find the agent’s individual email address. If they don’t require QueryManager query submissions, send to their individual email address rather than a general submissions email (agents, don’t hate me, but this almost always got me a full request).

3. If you read a book you just loved that reminds you a lot of the kind of book you are writing/want to write, be sure to flip to the back of the book for the acknowledgments. Here the author will thank their agent—jot down that agent’s name. In this manner, I start creating a list of agents to query before I’m even ready to begin the process.

4. Don’t be afraid to go for the big, dream agents if they seem like they’re a good fit. If they like your pitch/opening pages, if doesn’t matter if you’re besties with their mother/cousin/hairdresser or not. They will ask for the full manuscript.

5. For those agents who request an emailed query, make your subject line an attention grabbing one. Have a killer comp or a hooky title, and be sure to include it in the subject line so they’re more likely to open that email!

6. YOUR QUERY NEEDS GREAT COMPS. What the heck is a comp? A “comparable title,” or more specifically 2-3 books and or a TV shows from the past five years that help convey the “vibe” (this is how an agent described what you want to capture) of your book. Right now, I feel like mashup comps are doing well in the industry. Ex. Robin Hood meets Devil Wears Prada (except choose more contemporary titles).

7. Like online dating, querying is a numbers game. There are many agents out there right now, and it can take some time to do the research to find the best matches for you. But this time is worth it—carefully tailoring your agents-to-query list can be the difference between getting those full requests or not.

8. Speaking of which, track your agents-to-query list. You can use sites like QueryTracker. But I prefer an excel doc where I track the agency name, the agent’s name, notes about what they’re looking for, how I submitted the query, and any responses I got. It’s also color coded, obvi.

9. Be sure to personalize your query. Let the agent know why you’re querying them specifically, if you have read and loved any of their authors, if you connected to their description of the type of projects they are looking to represent, etc.

10. And finally, PATIENCE. This may be the most important reminder for the querying process. It took me a year between sending out my first query to receiving an offer of representation. Sometimes, agents read very quickly and this process might be a lot faster for you, but I found if an agent was going to request a full it was within a few weeks (max) of submission. But after they received the full manuscript, expect months to pass before hearing anything more.

As I head out on submission (hopefully soon!), I’ll be sure to include more updates about the process here.

For those of you who want to get your manuscript to a place where you’re ready to query, I’m offering a small-group coaching program for novelists this fall beginning September 16 called The LitSet Method. Enrollment is very limited, so if interested, reach out, and I’m happy to jump on a call to answer any questions.

I’m very excited about this new offering because I think it will be an excellent course! And in case you don’t believe me, here are a few quotes from anonymous student evaluations of online courses I’ve taught in the past year:

LITSET UPDATES

• If you’re local to MA, I have a rare, in-person novel-writing workshop I’m running this fall! Check it out here.

• I’m currently booking out for fall developmental edits (October is the first opening). If you recently finished a draft of your book or are nearing the end and know you want an outside pair of expert eyes on your work, reach out to save yourself a spot with me for this fall.

• I also have two more spots available for one-on-one coaching this fall!

CREATIVITY THROUGH THE SENSES

See: Like the teenager I am, I am now watching Sterling Point on Amazon Prime, because I love nothing more than a low-stakes teen drama in the summer. Why? Will I ever grow out of this? I don’t know, but the acting and dialogue in this show exceeds many of its competitors.

Hear: "Mom, for real . . . are you an alien?”—My six-year-old (fully serious) son.

Smell: My favorite candle from my favorite witchy shop in Salem is called Pleasure Garden. Basil & lemon verbena. It’s burning right now as I type this and as soon as it runs out I will go buy another one.

Taste: The silky (and slightly tart) sesame tahini dressing (brand: dress it up) from Whole Foods that makes me actually want to eat salads and vegetables right now.

Touch: The soft petals of the echinacea flower as I pluck them and arrange them on the blotting paper for the flower press.

What the heck am I talking about? Great question. To start, if you’ve been reading here for a while, you already know the basics of what I do: read manuscripts for a living plus twenty years teaching writers. Throughout my experience, I’ve watched so many writers tip-toe up to the edge of finishing a novel and then come to a dead stop because they got stuck.

Enter The LitSet Method—a way to unstick yourself. This 12-week, small group coaching program is for writers who started a novel and hit a wall, whether that be mid-draft, at the end of a messy first draft, or deep in a revision that’s gone in circles. It’s built around three things I’ve come to believe are almost always tangled together when a manuscript stalls: the pages themselves, the writer behind them, and the life that writer is trying to build a practice inside of.

So we'll start by diagnosing what’s working (and what’s not) in your manuscript pages. Then we get into who you are as a writer—your lineage, your process, your voice—the stuff that’s much harder to see about your own work. And we end with what often gets skipped in writing programs: how the heck you sustain this writing life, long after this program ends.

The LitSet Method includes a private 1:1 session with me. You’ll also get direct feedback on your pages every week. You’ll be in a small group (8-10 writers max). And you’ll finish with an actual plan.

The fun begins Wednesday, September 16th. Applications are open now, and space is limited. If any part of this sounds like your own stuck manuscript talking, I’d love to read your pages.

Learn more!

If you prefer one-one-on coaching, visit here.

P.S. BIG BONUS: If you’ve taken a workshop or class with me before ANYWHERE reach out! A special (big) alumni discount is waiting for you.

P.P.S. I have an exciting announcement about my own writing/publishing adventures coming next week when I’ll return to regular LitSet programming!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m very influenced by place and setting when it comes to my own fiction. So much so that it often serves as my starting point. A student of mine who recently read one of my novels described it as atmospheric, and I think most of my fiction could be described that way as a result.

When I was young, maybe in high school, I remember dreaming of living by the ocean one day. This felt like a very far off dream; I imagined myself silver haired, impossibly rich, looking out the bay window from my seaside mansion where my own books lined the shelves.

And yet . . .

A few years later, right after graduating college I found myself living one bungalow away from the Pacific Ocean in Ocean Beach, California. Yes, our place was so small, my bed was literally in a closet, but hey, the ocean is the ocean and the rent was cheap (I chose to ignore the cockroaches). So that’s that? I realized then. You can actually make your dreams come true. It may not look exactly how I pictured it, but it was even better in a lot of ways because I was young and free. I had captured the atmosphere of my dream, and that was what really mattered.

A few years after that, I jogged through the fog across my street to Baker’s Beach in San Francisco’s Richmond District, once more living by the ocean and now, pursuing my other dream of getting my MFA in Fiction.

My second published novel, The Moon, Her Crown was inspired by a different beach—a particular stretch of rocky Maine coastline I visit each summer.

And here I am now, many years later (still no silver hair or vast riches) writing in my home by another beach on another coast. I can smell the salt on the breeze from the cracked window of my porch/office, and occasionally, I’ll hear the squawk of a seagull passing overhead on less rainy days.

And in this new(ish) setting I just hit the 80k-word mark on my new novel (so close to the finish, I can taste it!).

So what’s the point in all of this beach nostalgia? It’s an invitation, to go sit in, visit, commune with the places that inspire you creatively. Sometimes it’s just the kick in the pants we need to get fingers to keyboard/pen to paper.

And in the meantime, if you can’t get your butt to the beach or to the roadless jungles of Panama or whereever that place is that inspires you most, here are some quick, reliable tips to work more atmosphere into your writing:

• Lead with the senses that get skipped: sound and smell do more atmospheric work than sight, but they’re often underused. A distant dog barking or the smell of rain on hot pavement grounds a scene fast.

• Let setting mirror mood, not just location: weather, light, and decay/growth can echo emotional undercurrents without you naming the emotion. A cracked windowsill can say more than “she felt fragile.”

• Control the pacing of description: short, clipped sentences create tension and unease; longer, winding ones create dreaminess or nostalgia. Rhythm is atmosphere.

• Use specific, unexpected details over generic ones: “The smell of old pennies” beats “it smelled musty.” Specificity feels earned and real, which makes the mood land harder.

• Withhold information strategically: what a character (or the narrator) doesn’t say, doesn’t see, or refuses to look at directly can be eerier than what’s shown outright.

• Anchor abstraction in the physical: instead of describing dread, describe the body’s response to it (a held breath, a creaking floorboard that makes someone flinch). Let the reader feel it through action.

• Repeat a motif with variation: a recurring image (a crow, a particular color, a sound) that shifts slightly each time it appears builds unease or foreboding without being heavy-handed.

LITSET UPDATES

• If you’re local to MA, I have a rare, in-person novel-writing workshop I’m running this fall! Check it out here. The rest of my fall offerings will be live in my next newsletter.

• I’m currently booking out for fall developmental edits. If you recently finished a draft of your book or are nearing the end (see above!) and know you want an outside pair of expert eyes on your work, reach out to save yourself a spot with me for this fall.

CREATIVITY THROUGH THE SENSES

See: Late to the party, but I started watching Friends & Neighbors on Apple TV. I love John Ham’s confident coolness. Although, I can’t really handle watching anything stressful these days, so we shall see how far I make it in this one. Couldn’t finish Widow’s Bay however fun it was!

Hear: I just finished the audiobook for Brooke Lea Foster’s Our Last Vineyard Summer. It’s a slow-moving historical fiction/family drama that I downloaded because I saw this author speak at the Newburyport Literary Festival. Go out to hear local authors speak and then go read their books.

Smell: The house after cooking salmon. Someone get me a strong candle.

Taste: Orange creamsicle popsicles on the back steps, barefoot with my daughter. I teach her to lick the bottom as fast as she can before the heat of the July sun drips it onto our knees.

Touch: The wet grass beneath my feet as I head out into the backyard in the early morning to cut lettuce from my baby garden for our lunches. Why does it feel so satisfying to eat things you grew yourself even if buying it could arguably be cheaper and faster?

I’m doing everything I can do to avoid writing these last 10k words even though I can see it all laid out before me. All the pieces are in place. I just have to sit. and. write. it.

But that’s easier said than done.

If you’ve ever attempted to finish a first draft before, you know what I’m talking about here. The pressure to sticking the landing at the end feels immense. Strong enough that I see many clients often rush through it and pull the final curtain too early or avoid it all together (let me start a new essay!).

In my novel writing class, I teach that writing the ending is like shooting the rapids. After the midpoint of the novel, everything narrows, the protagonist has less options, and they just have to get to still water without capsizing.

Visit here to read more of what I’ve written about endings in the past.

When the current picks up, the chapters get shorter, the sentences less careful, the whole thing pulling you forward faster than you’re used to moving. And the writers who get through it well aren’t the ones who paddle hardest. They’re the ones who stop trying to steer so much.

How’s this extended metaphor working for you here? Hopefully well, because there’s more!

A few things I tell my clients when they reach this point:

Don’t edit on the way down. The urge to go back and fix something—a name, a timeline issue, a clunky line—is loudest exactly when you should be ignoring it. Leave yourself a note, but keep going forward.

The messiness is the momentum. If your prose is getting rougher and your instincts are getting louder, that’s everything you’ve built finding its way out. Let it be ugly.

Watch for eddies. Those moments where you suddenly need to research something, or reread chapter three, or tighten this one scene first or just clean your toilet super quickly? Hi, procrastination. Notice it, name it, paddle through.

Write the feeling, not just the plot. In the last stretch, it’s easy to get so focused on resolving what happens that you lose what it should feel like. Before you write the final scenes, ask yourself: what do I want the reader to feel here, more than what do I need them to know?

And when you reach the bottom, expect the quiet. Finishing a draft often isn’t triumphant. It’s disorienting. A little hollow, even. That’s not a sign anything went wrong. It’s just what it feels like to step out of fast water.

You don’t steer the rapids. You stay in the boat.

We often hesitate and procrastinate because writing is hard, and yet, the funny thing is it’s also a blessing (as hard things often are). In three of my meetings this week with book coaching clients, all of the women admitted how grateful they were to have the practice of novel writing and their particular project in their lives. How returning to the work day after day, no matter what is happening in their life, the creative work of writing a novel gives them a sense of purpose and accomplishment.

And so we finish one so we can write the next, come what may.

ROUND OF APPLAUSE!

*I wanted to include a section of my newsletter to announce the publishing successes of clients and students (both present and past). Have an upcoming or recent publishing announcement? Send it my way, and I’ll share it here.

• Joyce Gerber published her contemporary romance She’s Taking a Break this spring.

• Katie Rizzo is publishing her memoir The Trimesters of Grief with Koehler books on October 6th.

LITSET UPDATES

• I have a few bits of exciting news to share with you coming up in my next newsletter! Stay tuned . . .

• I’m currently booking out for fall developmental edits. If you recently finished a draft of your book or are nearing the end (see above!) and know you want an outside pair of expert eyes on your work, reach out to save yourself a spot with me for this fall.

  ---

CREATIVITY THROUGH THE SENSES

See: I’ve only been in the mood for light rom coms these days it seems, and I just finished (re: cried my way through) Voicemails for Isabelle. It’s sweet and light, but hit me with a sick sibling, missing your sister, and San Fran nostalgia, and my eyes won’t be dry.

Hear: I listened to the audiobook of Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act. There are a lot of nice reminders for those pursuing any kind of creative endeavor here—nothing groundbreaking, but something nice to listen to in the background. It reaffirms that creativity is worth the time and effort.

Smell: The sea breeze when it reaches my house. Just knowing the ocean is close feels like a happy sigh.

Taste: My daughter eating a watermelon popsicle in the backyard, “Mmm, this tastes like a trampoline.” (Might the girl have synesthesia, I’m wondering?)

Touch: The squish of a jellyfish under my foot because the beach was littered with them, and my kids grossly insist on picking all of the dead ones up.

One of my most frequent visitors was a small bird with a red breast I eventually identified as a house finch (accompanied by its plainer-hued female companion).

Which got me wondering—have we human ladies been tricked by our culture to think from a young age we’re the ones who need to don jewelry and makeup and nail paint and hail color and fancy wardrobes to snag a heterosexual mate? In the animal kingdom, it’s the males with the bright colors who need to put on the song and dance. Maybe we’ve got it all backward.

But I digress. Back to the wreath at hand.

These birds showed up day after day, and eventually, I noticed their visits weren’t just for sport. They were bringing things—twigs, bits of grass—to build a nest! I found the process of watching this nest construction endlessly entertaining (and yes, I’m at that age where I find the birds in my yard more compelling than the latest Netflix drama).

Isn’t this the most perfect, cutest nest you’ve ever seen? [Photo update: there are now SIX pale blue speckled eggs in said nest.] Once the nest seemed completed, I moved the wreath nearby to a location other than our primary door.

Soon thereafter, an egg appeared. And then another. And now we’re at six. I love catching the female sitting out their stoically, unblinking, in all weather, because isn’t that just like a mother? Doing the thankless job of waiting out the birth of her precious, squawking babes.

This nest building process struck me as the perfect parallel to the process of building a novel (or anything of great consequence and effort). At first all it looks like is a few small twigs loosely stacked one on top of the other—but the more you show up, the more pieces of twigs and grass you weave in, the more the structure starts to appear, until finally—aha!—the nest, the novel draft, is complete.

Imperfect but beautiful.

Obsessing over the small details in nature, in humans, in our world, is in many ways the job of a writer. I read somewhere recently that many highly sensitive individuals end up becoming writers because they need a place to put all the noticing. And we need people (i.e. humans, not AI) who will pay attention. Who will watch, who will wait, who will reveal their observations to the masses.

I’ve always believed it’s also important for a writer to lean into and explore their individual obsessions on the page. There’s something to be learned there—by both the writer and the reader. In doing so, we are able to reflect our own unique (and human) lens for viewing the world. (Stay tuned for my riveting next book, The Case of the Missing Finch Egg).

Maybe this is partially why I end each of these newsletters with my “Creativity Through the Senses”—it’s an invitation into where I’m placing my focus in my day-to-day life.

It’s that practice of paying attention, of sensing, that keeps our lives and our writing vibrant.

Wishing you a little more vibrancy, a little more noticing, and plenty of songbirds for your writing week ahead.

Creativity Through the Senses for this week:

See: I started watching season 2 of Four Seasons. I used the structure of season in my first novel, and I like how the premise of this group of friends going on a trip each season sets the structure for the show.

Hear: I listened to the audiobook of Lily Kings Heart the Lover. Despite avoiding this book at first because I read it had to do with a child who has cancer—not my preferred genre—but I loved it! Also, I just heard that this book is the prequel and sequel to her last novel Writers and Lovers, which I also really enjoyed.

Smell: Someone grilling outside on a warm day. WHAT ARE YOU DOING SPREADING THAT MOUTH-WATERING SCENT ABOUT THE NEIGHBORHOOD? INVITE ME OVER FOR A BURGER.

Taste: The party waffle. A second-to-none weekly breakfast delight in my home. I invented it about two years ago, and my kids still regularly request it as their first meal of the day. The recipe: frozen waffle + layer of almond butter + layer of strawberry jelly + layer of plain yogurt + dash of colorful sprinkles= the party waffle.

Follow me for more fancy family recipes.

Touch: My kids soft hair and pale scalps as I search for ticks. Did I mention I finished up treatment for Lyme a week or so ago?

Other times, your brain is the problem. Because you’re concussed. Or maybe that’s just me.

A few weeks ago, I was playing with my kids in the backyard (thank God it’s backyard season again). One of their toys got flung up onto the low roof leading into our basement. I went to lift my six year old son up to reach the toy just as he jumped, and the top of his head crashed into the bottom of my chin.

Immediately, my head and jaw ached. I went to sit down to recover. “I feel like I got a concussion,” I said, not serious, but my head felt weird, especially to be hurting more than my chin did.

The following morning, I uncharacteristically woke up before 5 a.m. and decided to get a little writing in before the house woke up. I poured myself a mug of coffee, settled in at my desk, and opened the laptop. I was feeling pretty proud of myself! Getting to write earlier than usual. But as I tried to focus on the words I had written the previous day, they seemed to swim and melt across the page.

What was going on? Did I need my eyes checked? (Probably, yes, but that’s a separate issue.) Was I not awake enough to focus?

My head started hurting and my stomach was off. I felt nauseous and had to close the computer screen.

Later that day, the doctor confirmed I likely had a concussion. They told me to avoid screens—phones, TV, computer—and reading (gasp!) for 4-5 days. No, but seriously, what are you supposed to do if you can’t read, work, or watch anything?

The writing tip? Yes, I promise that’s coming.

So despite the screen ban, I had recently picked back up the novel draft I’d abandoned back in December (closing in on 65k words now!), and I was really itching to write. And you writers know, if the muse is calling, you better show up for it. (And also, you need to show up when it’s abandoned you entirely too, but that’s for another post).

My creative solution? I opened up the manuscript doc on my computer and started to type—just without looking at the screen. I stared out the window instead at my lovely lilac bushes and the little local finches hoping about its branches as I typed away. And what would you know? I doubled my typical word count in 30 minutes of writing.

I was so pleased with this! If you’ve ever taken a novel writing class with me you know I’m big on really riding the coattails of momentum in order to finish a first draft. Getting it down as expeditiously as possible if often a writer’s best bet. So this was good news.

The next day, I tried it again. And same word count. Granted, I’m a fast typer in general. But this was exciting. I’ve been trying to keep it up even now that I’m unconcussed, and it’s hard to do—not to watch the letters, the words forming on the screen as you type, but it really frees you up to just exist solely in that imagined world, when you’re not watching your screen.

Give it a try! Blindfold yourself! Stare into your neighbor’s apartment or at the wall! And start typing. Let me know how it goes.

UPDATES:

*As we approach the summer season here, my availability for one-on-one writing support is limited. If you’d like to book a coaching spot or developmental edit to commit to your writing more seriously this summer, reach out by June 15!

Creativity Through the Senses for this week:

See: My sister got me hooked on Off Campus like much of my social media feed apparently. Why do these type of YA shows seem to be so nostalgically seductive for millennials such as myself?

Hear: I’ve been listening to Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act. I recommend it for you writers. A lot of what he has to say about the creative life I already know intuitively, but it’s a nice philosophical reminder of why acts of creativity are vital to us humans.

Smell: The earthy, mellow eau de grass clippings in the yard. It reminds me of my childhood summers, always accompanied by the steady buzz of lawn mowers.

Taste: The fresh bitter bite of a mint leaf plucked from the vegetable/herb garden I’ve yet to officially replant this year. My daughter eats them by the handful.

Touch: The smooth petals of the flowers on our azalea bush. “Feel this,” my daughter instructs, and then, “smell this,” she says. “Ah, it smells so nice. Just like a baby salamander.”

In today's LitSet Lab craft video, I'm making the case that your climax is almost certainly already in your manuscript—you wrote it in, you just haven't recognized it yet.

Whether you're racing toward the end of a draft or you're earlier in the process and want to write toward something instead of away from confusion, there are three specific places to look. (And if this is the work you want to do with structure and accountability around it, my six-week class Sprint to the Climax starts May 13th — details at the end.)

Happy writing! (Because Spring is such a happy writing season, isn’t it? Look at those buds outside your window! Listen to those birdies! Get your fingers typing! Use more exclamation marks!)

I’m congregating the book editing, coaching, and writing courses that I used to host on my personal site to this new space. I’ll still be tweaking the site because how do I stop?

My son recently asked me, what’s the name of those books you wrote, The Day I Caught on Fire (aka The Way You Burn) and The Boy Who Cried Moon? (aka The Moon, Her Crown). So I may need to add a book retitling offering as well, led by my five-year-old.

The other big bit of news? I have a new spring course offering! A six week sprint to your book’s climax. Here’s everything you need to know:

Six-Week Sprint to the Climax

Wednesdays 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. ET

May 13-June 17

​This course is for those who need a clear path forward, steady accountability, and the structure to carry your story from the middle to a confident ending.

Sprint to the Climax is our focused six-week writing container for novelists who are past the midpoint and ready to finish their draft. This program combines light-touch craft guidance with consistent accountability, so you don’t just keep working—you keep moving. By the end of the six weeks, you won’t be wondering how to finish your novel.

You’ll have the roadmap, rhythm, and confidence to carry your story to The End.

​What’s Included:

• Weekly live sessions designed to sustain momentum and keep your draft moving forward.

• Short, targeted craft guidance focused on the final act, climax, and resolution.

• Dedicated writing and planning time during each session to make real progress.

• Structured accountability to help you maintain consistency between classes.

• A personalized completion blueprint outlining your next steps toward a finished draft.

• Supportive community of writers working toward the same goal: finishing.

​Perfect for you if:

• You understand the midpoint of your novel and want help finishing the second half.

• You’ve built momentum but worry about losing it without structure.

• You feel uncertain about how to approach the climax or final act.

• You want steady accountability and support.

• You’re ready to move from “working on your book” to finishing your draft.

Check out LitSet Books!

Next week, The Litset will return to it’s regular programming!

Read more

The snow melts to reveal the dead plant matter from last season, the bare earth . . . and other unexpected departures. But, look, there, baby crocuses pushing up from the dirt. Worms squelching through the mud. The tiny buds glowing green on the ends of our flowering bushes.

Recently, after the four foot snow piles covering my backyard finally melted, my kids and I went outside to clean up a bit. They headed straight for their outdoor toy bin. I flipped over the plastic pool that had leaned against it all winter and looked down beside my son’s foot to see a thick coat of brown, undisturbed fur. I screamed and yelled for him to back up. The mound of fur looked fresh and like it might start moving any moment.

At first I thought of our cat who went missing the year previous and had a similar hued coat, but that made no sense. I couldn’t tell if the animal were dead or alive or even what it was. Something rabid about to pounce? I couldn’t see it’s face.

When I eventually walked around to catch a glimpse of the front of it—giving it a wide berth—I recognized the animal for what it was: a well-preserved raccoon.

Could it have been that large one I saw prowling down our side street a few weeks back? Or was that its mate, out looking for its lost love? (Do raccoons have mates? I have no idea. I just love a good romantic tragedy). The animal looked to be curled up to sleep, my guess, looking for shelter from one of the snow storms where it ended up unexpectedly buried under a few feet of the white stuff.

“Mom, can we keep him as part of our family? Please?” my daughter asked.

(Trying not to gag). “Um, no, honey. Not this one,” I said. (She’s also nursing a ladybug pet back to health that I haven’t had the heart to tell her didn’t make it.)

For days after this grim backyard discovery, I found myself still thinking about the animal and feeling sad about it. Maybe it was tied in connection to our lost cat. Maybe it was just the proximity to death in our own backyard serving as a reminder of the fragility of things.

And after a cold, bleak winter this newsletter (and also my writing??) seemed to have been teetering on this same brink, but I realized it was only a necessary hibernation in order to bring about a rejuvenated sense of life. Can you feel it too? The keyboard calling your name. That manuscript project you put down sometime in November winking at you from your desk. Pick me back up, it calls.

It’s time to start writing again.

I saw Pulitzer Prize-winning author Paul Harding speak this past week and one of the things he mentioned was the “privilege of influence,” which is to say that our writing is always in conversation with what we are reading. And I’m here to add, maybe our writing is also in conversation with the natural world around us too. With death and rebirth, with our animal neighbors, with the seasons and the storms and the first buds of spring.

And what a privilege that is. To be writing in communion with nature.

UPDATES:

*This update is to say I HAVE A BIG UPDATE coming soon! Stay tuned for the next newsletter . . .

*NEW CLASS ALERT: Finish Lab: A 6-Week Draft Completion Sprint is a course for novelists who are just oh so close to the end and need a final kick in the pants to get the book done. This focused six-week writing container will help you move from the middle of your novel to a finished draft—without losing momentum. This class begins Wednesday, April 29th, 10 a.m. Registration goes live next week.

*I have an opening for a development edit beginning April 15th. Have a draft ready for some feedback? Reach out and save yourself a spot!

*The LitSet Lab returns next week with another video tutorial focused on successful scenes. “Raising Stakes Without Melodrama.” Grab a subscription to view!

Creativity Through the Senses for this week:

See: For my husband’s birthday, we went to see Project Hail Mary. One-man-alone-in-outer-space movies don’t typically have me running to the theater, but I actually really enjoyed this. It was humorous and sweet, and I’m a sucker for stories about unexpected friendships.

Hear: I’ve been listening to Kate Quinn’s The Briar Club for my book club pick this month. The author makes an interesting choice by framing the book with a murder mystery and essentially giving us a handful of different individual’s stories who all live within one apartment building (and seemed to be linked by one mysterious woman).

Smell: I went to Salem with my daughter on her recent day off and we both got spell jars, because, obviously, Salem. Mine is a Spring Simmer Spell (i.e. potpourri to boil on the stove) made of dried lime, lavendar, and mint. Yum! I might keep making my own to sweeten up the air of my home.

Taste: DRIED MANGO. It’s sweet and leathery and always there for you when you need a quick bite. My family has basically eaten $50 worth of it this month alone.

Touch: The firm reliance (and chug spout) of my new unearthly yellow Yeti water bottle. Does anyone else feel inspired to hydrate more after purchasing a new water bottle or is it just me?

Anyone else on day 14 of school vacation/snow day/sick day and trying to get some writing done despite at least one kid being home? Would you kill to see a crocus poking out of the eart…

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And as with many endings, this news brings me back to the beginning. How scared I was to be starting over in a new city (San Francisco) living a plane ride away from anyone I’d ever known. I think about showing up to the writing studio that first day—my mom, aunt, cousins, and brother (we roll deep) all dropping me off because they were crammed into the tiny studio I’d rented to help move me in.

I think about being handed a key to the writing studio—the koi pond, the couches, our own kitchen!—and feeling like I’d been handed a key to the life I’d always dreamed of, the life of a real writer. I think about the amazing authors I got the opportunity to listen to and meet during those years, the best friends I made, the (probably crappy) short stories I wrote. The grimy bars we’d grab stools in after workshop. The million stories we shared and read. The readings we went to or organized or spoke at.

I can still drum up the precise feeling of that rush, the adrenaline, of those few years. The excitement I felt at being surrounded for the first time in my life by people who cared about writing and books as much as I did. The purpose I finally felt, sitting down each morning at the tiny cafe table in my kitchen with a giant mug of coffee, the ghosts of the cockroaches from the night before still moving in my periphery.

I often get asked by my writing students what the experience of my MFA was like, would I recommend it, would I write them recommendation letters for their own such degree. And yes, I’d recommend the program I attended, but you can’t replicate the time and the place and the people of a specific graduate experience. Each one stands on its own.

I just finished reading Ann Patchett’s essay collection called These Precious Days (why is she the best?). In this collection, she has an essay about her experience getting her MFA at Iowa Writer’s Workshop in the eighties, and how, sure, there were many problematic things about her experience, but it was formative and unforgettable at the same time. Her words brought me back again to my real beginning as as a writer.

“Endings are just SO hard,” said one of my book coaching clients this week. As true as this is, I find the best way to figure out the ending is to look back at the beginning. Often, it’s hinted there in the very first sentence, in that first paragraph, or first few pages—the inevitability of what’s to come. It’s only when we reach an ending, does the beginning become clearer and really start to coalesce.

When I start writing a novel, I almost always have a vision or a sense of where I want the book to end, even if I have no idea how I’m going to get myself and my characters there. Surprising yet inevitable, Aristotle advised endings should be.

Creativity Through the Senses for this week:

See: I started watching the new season of Shrinking. I love that this show actually makes me laugh out loud at points. Other than this, I haven’t been able to get into watching anything lately. Inspire me if you have recommendations!

Hear: I’m listening to Kristin Hannah’s The Women for my family book club. I don’t typically love Kristin Hannah books because I find them emotionally draining, but I’ve heard good things about this one.

Smell: Beef stew in the crockpot on a cold February afternoon. The eau de roasting carrots, garlic, soft beef, bay leaves, and a richly-flavored broth. You know what I’m talking about here. A smell that makes you feel warm.

Taste: Dried Mango. Or “Mango Dry” if you ask my three-year-old. This tasty, chewy, candy-like delight started as an occasional snack for my kids and has now blown up into a full-fledged family obsession with its own line item in the budget.

Touch: The bottoms of my LL Bean slippers feeling thin, worn through that cushy layer of fluff to the rubber below because I haven’t taken them off since November.

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The moment felt frozen—not because of the temperature or because we’d just gone to a live, sing-along performance of a certain Disney movie of the same name the day before—but because I felt suspended between the land and the sea, suspended between last year and the next, suspended in the wash of days between holidays.

I can’t say it was an easy holiday vacation for personal reasons, and I found myself floating through the days as if watching them from a front-row seat. The opening of presents, the laughing with family, the sharing of home-cooked meals. Was I there for it all? I tried to be for my kids, but only photos can confirm.

I feel the same way about my current manuscript. I can’t find a way to inhabit the story as I find my best writing often comes from. Instead, I feel like I’m on the sidelines, trying to get a look at the action. Does that mean this work is no good? Is my story too dull? These are questions all novelists wrestle with at one point or another.

Irregardless of the DO-NOT-ENTER sign my brain has put up on the fictional world I’m currently trying to break into, I will not say this manuscript is a waste no matter the outcome. For the same reason, I don’t like all the posts on social media about how horrible 2025 was or the meme that says, “I tried the one-week trial version of 2026, and I’d like my money back” etc., because how can we throw away a whole year? If you look hard enough you can find something heart-breaking happening somewhere every day of every year, but who wants to align their vision like that?

Yes, 2025 was a difficult year for personal and global reasons, but so was the year before and all the years before that. And look, here, this year, the excitement on my son’s face when he loses his first tooth! And cuddling on the couch with a child on either side of me, as it lightly snows outside the window! And dancing in the kitchen with my daughter! What beauty there is even during difficult periods of our lives.

I think it’s better if we think not in blocks of whole years as being “bad” or “good” and manuscripts being “a waste of time” or a “wild success” but rather identify the period of difficulty and what we learned or how we grew from those periods.

So here’s to a new year made up of all different kinds of moments: some difficult, some productive, others beautiful, restful, creative, or encompassing the icy shock of ocean water in January. And may we show up for it all.

UPDATES:

*So excited for this NEW CLASS: Finish Your Novel! is a six-week course for novelists stuck in the messy middle or facing a full-draft revision who need clear structure to move forward. We’ll focus on strengthening plot, tightening scenes, and deepening character arcs from the midpoint through the end of the book. By the end of the class, you’ll have real momentum, fresh pages, and a concrete plan to carry your novel to the finish line. This class begins Wednesday, January 21, 10 a.m.

*I am starting to book out my editing calendar for the new year. Want to give yourself or a loved one the gift of a developmental edit? Reach out and save yourself a spot!

*The LitSet Lab returns next week with the video tutorial “Your Novel’s Emotional Spine: How to Build an Arc Readers Feel.” Grab a subscription to view!

Creativity Through the Senses for this week:

See: As with most of you fellow romcom fans I watched and enjoyed The People we Meet on Vacation (Netflix), and I felt happy for the success of author Emily Henry, a young(ish) woman who has dominated the contemporary romance genre in recent years.

Hear: I’ve been listening to Kirsten Miller’s Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books. This is my second novel by Kirsten Miller, and I really appreciate how she takes timely cultural issues with a large cast of complex characters and turns the work into a very approachable read.

Smell: My daughter’s slightly smelly breath in the morning. Stale and sweet from a night full of dreaming. Why are these everyday details so from your own kids? I love the smell of their little feet too. I know, it’s weird.

Taste: My bitter, earthy morning cup of green tea. Grounding, warm, steady.

Touch: The plastic shelf of the PieFace game where I rest my chin (no, seriously, who got my kid this game?) as I click the knob in anticipation—re: pure anxiety—hoping I don’t end up with whipped cream jammed up my nostrils.

I could blame the weather or the holidays or my young children, but really, I realized this morning, it’s that I haven’t been giving my creativity the time to breathe.

What the heck am I talking about by giving my writing time to breathe? For me right now, that means getting out of the house.

If you’re a mom and it’s the holidays than being in your house is a creativity trap. You will be stamping Christmas cards and searching for that last gift online and looking up recipes and checking to see if your kids winter boots still fit them and if everyone has had their flu shot and if you need to go grocery shopping again and if a counter needs wiping down every single time you sit down to write.

At my monthly in-person writing group today I finally wrote more than 1,000 words in a sitting. Having the accountability of others nearby prevented me from checking my email, Instagram, or text messages 400 times. (I recently purchased a Brick or my phone. Has anyone tried this?).

It was a refreshing reminder that I need to get out of the house and away from distractions in a distraction-heavy time of year. I’ve been trying to cram in twenty minutes of writing here and there as my kids are engaged in following along with the weird moves of Danny Go, but instead I will respond to any email or check off any task that doesn’t have to do with my novel.

Instead, I need to date my novel. To tuck my phone away and stare into the blinking laptop screen across the cafe table without diverting my attention to show I’m interested. I need to hold hands with my protagonist as we run through fields (yes, there was some field running in a recent scene, but mostly done in a blind fit of maternal anguish). I need to sip a delicious hot chocolate as I coast past that 50k-word mark (woo!).

And yes, it’s the season to wind down our projects, to cuddle up with holiday movies on the television. To spend time reading books and doing puzzles rather than focusing on production, production, production, but still, what if our manuscripts just needed a little sweetness, a little more space, to be taken out, to be wooed a bit?

So find your favorite cafe, that place with the best pot of tea, that nice quiet nook at your local library and get the hell out of your house. I know it’s cold. I know your slippers feel nice, but see how it helps your writing.

Just an idea.

UPDATES:

*The LitSet Lab video tutorial will highlight “Your Novel’s Emotional Spine: How to Build an Arc Readers Feel” next week. Grab a subscription to view!

*I am starting to book out my editing calendar for the new year. Want to give yourself or a loved one the gift of a developmental edit? Reach out and save yourself a spot!

*New classes in the new year alert: Finish Your Novel! is a six-week course for novelists stuck in the messy middle or facing a full-draft revision who need clear structure to move forward. We’ll focus on strengthening plot, tightening scenes, and deepening character arcs from the midpoint through the end of the book. By the end of the class, you’ll have real momentum, fresh pages, and a concrete plan to carry your novel to the finish line. This class begins Wednesday, January 21, 10 a.m.

Creativity Through the Senses for this week:

See: My neighbors snipping bits of evergreen, picking up pine cones, bare red branches from the woods around our houses to use for exterior holiday decor. I don’t know why I love this so much. Foraging in what can appear to be nature’s bleakest moment—the leaves gone, the snow yet to arrive—to suss out the bits of color, the natural wonder that add to our delight in this holiday season just makes me happy.

Hear: I’ve been listening to the audiobook for The Little Book of Hygge just to really lean into cozy season and apparently my house needs more pools of warm light. But any book touting the benefits of candlelight, fuzzy socks, warm blankets, and cozy social hangs? I’m there. My favorite times with friends these days are in comfy clothes, our feet curled up underneath us on the couch, chatting.

Smell: Orange slices dehydrating in my oven because, yes, I’ve been inspired by more DIY holiday decorations to string up some dried fruit in holiday garland form around the house and I actually love it.

Taste: The tart burst of a staining-red pomegranate seed on the tongue. A taste like cranberry juice begging you to have more, peeling back the blistering skin, the white pith, revealing a honeycomb of sweetness.

Touch: The fuzzy elf body I contort into a backflip from the window blinds and tuck into a hidden space above the fireplace for the kids to wake extra early (yay) to find. It’s extra work, they say, but it’s extra joy too.

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Oof.

It was one of those kid questions that kind of knocks the wind out of you a bit. Probably because it’s a question I myself often wrestle with. One we humans will probably always wrestle with.

Why does it seem we have to learn the difficult human lessons the hard way? Can’t we just read about the hard stuff in a book and go about our merry way with full clarity and understanding?

My son is one of those thoughtful, observant, sensitive kids. He first became aware of death when my aunt’s horse died a year or two ago. He seemed to realize then—to some degree, with a brutal shock—the impermanence of living things.

“Dear God,” I heard him pray one night recently, “please don’t let me or my friends die.”

I’m not sure why myself nor his other family members weren’t sheltered in this protection prayer, but you see what I’m saying here. It’s on his mind.

One of the things my son—and I—had to learn the hard way recently was that he shouldn’t jump off the five-foot retaining wall at the bus stop when playing tag with his friends. I heard the smack of kid hitting pavement and turned to see it was my son’s forehead and knees that broke his fall.

The day he asked me this question, I had been wrestling with my own internal “hard stuff.” As I’ve mentioned before, I’m querying my most recently finished novel in the hopes of finding a new agent. That day, my top agent who had requested to read my full manuscript got back to me with a “great writing, not for me” response. Wuh, wuh.

I’ve written about rejection before, but you’d think that as a writer who has been writing seriously for two decades now, rejections would get easier, but somehow, they seem harder. More of a gut punch. Maybe because I’ve been at it for so long. It’s easy to see why people give up trying (I won’t).

Why do we [writers] have to go through hard things like rejection and missed opportunities? one might ask. What lesson does rejection teach us?

Maybe it’s nothing. Or maybe, it’s that publishing is hard. Being a creative is hard, especially in a world that wants to turn our imaginations over to computers. But it’s worth it. How else do we process such big human questions than through our creativity?

As my writer friend Alanna recently put in, “Time is going to pass anyway, so we might as well keep writing.”

It’s easy and natural to want to shield your children from having to learn the difficult human lessons themselves (creative or otherwise). I can already feel it now, what it must be like especially as your children age, as you have to watch them suffer, as you have to watch them go through “the hard things.” My current novel-in-progress deals a lot with that—a mother’s struggle/desire to protect her child while facing down her own demons.

I remember a yoga teacher once telling the class that life keeps handing us the same or similar lessons until we really get it and then we can move on. I keep having dreams and memories of people and places who were central in my life decades ago. Maybe I’m learning lessons now that first showed up for me in some form at that time.

There’s something about being in my forties that makes me feel like I’m evolving, finishing some important lessons, moving up to the next level. Maybe a rejection will just become a speck of dust on my shoulder.

Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

“I don’t know,” I ultimately answered my son in all the inadequacy of parental knowledge, “I think those things are just a part of life.”

UPDATES:

*The LitSet Lab will return the week after Thanksgiving. Support my work by becoming a paid subscriber and watch me teach about writing things via video. Until then, eat the turkey, pour on some extra gravy, and hug your loved ones.

*I am starting to book out my editing calendar for the new year. Want to give yourself the gift of a developmental edit? Reach out and save yourself a spot!

*My third in-person Beverly Literary Salon is scheduled for Friday, December 12th. Message me with your email address to be added to the list or to save yourself a spot to network with fellow writers and get some writing done.

Creativity Through the Senses for this week:

See: The little birds! At my window! Yes, I put up a bird feeder on the outside of my bedroom window, and the first time I heard the small rhythmic knocking against the glass when the shade was closed I was certain we had an intruder. Turns out, it was just a local host of sparrows. This brings me joy.

Hear: I listened to the audiobook for The Correspondent, which I loved! It’s an epistolary novel, which you don’t see a lot of. And you come to care for the seventy-to-eighty-something protagonist in spite of her flaws. Also, who wants to be pen pals?

Smell: The rotten pumpkins on my front steps that need to be tossed into the woods as deer food.

Taste: The bitter sweetness of the dark chocolate hot chocolate mix plus almond milk, microwaved for two mins. I put so many scoops of the hot chocolate mix in (for myself, not my kids) that if I scrape the bottom of the mug, I get warm globs of chocolate. As previously mentioned, I’m a desperate dark chocolate lover.

Touch: Fleece. Flannel. Wool. Cover me in it. Winter, I’m here for you, under these nubby, fuzzy layers. The pants, the shirts, the blankets, the socks. You will find me under here, when you come looking, next spring.

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—but I don’t want to build Legos. Not with my kids. Not with anyone. I especially do not want to have to read the instruction manuals for Legos or any toy/game come to think of it. I will figure it out myself, improvise, or not do it at all.

—but I’m having a hard time writing these past few weeks. Even as I encourage my students to write daily, and write before you take care of your other responsibilities, my creative work has been way too easy to push to the side. I don’t know what it is. Usually, I’m so good at writing discipline.

—but I have a very complicated drink ritual in the morning that goes like this: glass of water, two cups of decaf coffee with some sort of fancy creamer, a cup of Sencha green tea, followed by a Spindrift sparking water. EVERY DAY.

—but I love trail running through the woods alone without music. I like letting my mind wander, I like the focus required of the trail, I like the variation of elevation, and also at the same time, I tend to have an overactive imagination, so sometimes, in the midst of enjoying my run, I will totally freak myself out that I will be attacked and/or murdered by man or beast, because, well, female running alone in the woods.

—but I like to wear socks to bed and then at some point while I’m sleeping I’ll get hot or uncomfortable and kick them off and then when I go to change the bedding I’ll find all my fuzzy fallen soldiers tucked into the sheets at the end of the bed. Like a small collection.

—but all my daughter has watched this fall anytime she gets screen time is Frozen II. I worry that I should be making her watch something educational or that this is just brain rot material and perpetuating some female-as-princess stereotype that I don't want her subscribing to, but actually, after my own recent viewing, Elsa is a bad ass powerful solo babe queen who isn’t looking for any king, and there’s the sibling love and all that.

—but my nightstand is overflowing with books I’ve bought and haven’t read. Even with this, I will still go to the library and take out more books to read. I suppose it’s some sort of compulsion/addiction, but when I see books I’m excited about it feels like getting to meet a friend I’m all excited to catch up with, so I can’t just leave them there. And to you, my dedicated nightstand books, I’m still looking forward to reading each and everyone one of you . . . one day.

Okay, your turn now. TELL ME YOUR SECRETS.

UPDATES:

*The third week of the LitSet Lab goes out next week. Support my work by becoming a paid subscriber and watch me teach about writing things via video.

*My second in-person Beverly Literary Salon is scheduled for next Friday, November 14th. Message me with your email address to be added to the list or to save yourself a spot to network with fellow writers and get some writing done.

*I have one spot for a developmental edit in December available, so if you have a book manuscript ready to go, now is the time to reach out for feedback before the new year!

Creativity Through the Senses for this week:

See: I am watching Season 2 of Nobody Wants This on Netflix, and I don’t know . . . the stakes don’t feel as high as season one? The show seems to be reaching for random points of continued conflict that is coming off as overdone—will or wont their religious differences come between them? Although, the show is still funny, and I was very excited to see Kristen Bell’s mom in the show dressed as Madonna with the cone boobs just like the costume she wore when she was the mom in Hocus Pocus (the first one). Maybe that’s another secret to add to my list. I have an almost freaky ability to recognize faces, and if I see someone in a movie or TV show I can almost always tell you what else they were in even if it was a bit role decades ago.

Hear: I am having a big Florence and the Machine moment as the new album Everybody Scream was just released on Halloween and I love her haunting, gorgeous vocals. I wanted to get tickets to see Florence for this spring, but they sold out immediately.

Smell: My candle du jour is “campfire cedarwood,” and I love an earthy, musky scent and a wavering flame to power my solo morning work sessions from my home office.

Taste: Pumpkin seeds, roasted, sprinkled with salt and smoked paprika and maybe some powdered garlic? I can’t remember, but they’re crunchy and good and straight from our carved pumpkins. I love when my kids realize things like one of these seeds can make whole pumpkins?? Nature is endlessly cool.

Touch: The silky fur of my pups underbelly when she snuggles up against me on the couch. An Australian Shephard and thus endlessly furry with downy softness to her blue merle coat.

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