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Encourage Growth: Working with a Book Coach

Unbridled Unicorn Testimonials

Years ago I was a new writer, a young mom, & recently relocated to Texas after two years in Brooklyn. It was a lot of fresh change and a lot of feeling like treading water waiting to be tugged under. And then I saw this tweet by Nova Ren Suma that she was offering an online Young Adult writing workshop & I leapt at the opportunity to get feedback from her – a writer with an agent & a book deal, a book on shelves. Someone doing the thing I wanted to do.

I was still a raw talent in a lot of ways. Rough edged & not always actually good, but I had written a book & I wanted it to be the best it could be. In that workshop, I learned a lot about what was working in my pages, what wasn’t. I made friends with other writers, one in particular — a fellow screenwriter and YA lover, who was about to move out to LA. (She’s since, in the many many years that have passed, become one of my best friends & the co-author of my dreams.)

But I also got a teacher in Nova, someone I would work with many more times, who would encourage the seeds of my writing to grow. When I started working with writers a few years ago, the one thing I knew I wanted was to help cultivate the dreams & raw talent in my clients. This industry often does a lot of breaking those dreams down, tearing words to shreds, belittling burgeoning artists still learning. Rejection comes with the game, fear and failure are a constant.

But encouragement & good critique & guidance makes space for growth.

Today, one of my coaching clients told me she wanted to work with me forever. And, of course, I beamed, but I also dreamed for her in that moment. I hope one day she’ll have an agent in her corner & she won’t need to work with me anymore.

Because I know the pain of wanting something that still feels out of reach, & I know the work it takes to get there, & even though I can’t make anyone’s dream come true (not even my dreams, of which I have many) I can be a voice of hope, an encourager of story seeds, & a promoter of doing the work even when it’s hard and you fail. If you’re looking for a book coach, an editor, or eyes on your query, I’m taking on clients now and always. ✨

I can.

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Yesterday I was in a funk. A mood. Something inside me felt like it was cracking open and that actually scared me.

And I do not scare easily.

All around me were giants. Hulking masses with clubs.

All around me were possibilities. Ethereal and tangible and opaque and translucent.

All around me were things outside my control. And I love to maintain control. Relinquishing it? That’s just a fancy word for lose.

I wanted to get some work done, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t get above the fog long enough to focus. Because I couldn’t stop looking everything around me that I needed or wanted to hold together.

I kept seeing myself at Barnes and Noble. A three-story beauty with windows that look out over the whimsically lovely courtyard at the Americana Mall in Glendale.

I kept seeing it, and so finally I took myself there. I rode escalators to the top floor where all the romance and thrillers, the YAs and middle grades live. I wandered the floor and looked at the books, considered buying some but mostly just touched them.

Absorbed the power of imagination inside them.

I stepped outside to the patio lined with tables and chairs, found a spot, and got set up.

I didn’t start working right away.

I watched the fountain dance to the beat of the music. Watched tree leaves rustle in the breeze. I watched the ground below me, felt like a bird perched on a ledge, surveying and unencumbered by the need to walk.

Then I had ideas and I did crack open.

I kept on cracking open for the rest of the day, into the night, where I cried while watching my son sleep curled around a dragon-dog stuffed toy, snoring lightly. Because I remembered when my biggest fear in the world was that I wouldn’t ever get pregnant. That I’d never have him at all. That even if I did, I’d somehow screw it up.

But there he was, 10 years old now, and so much lovelier than I ever imagined, so worth all the faith and the struggle, fighting my giants of fear, relinquishing my control to just trust.

If I did it for him, for the dream of him and the reality of him, couldn’t I do it again for all the other dreams – the uncountable number I hold in my heart?

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Throwback Thursday

Writing Rambles

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Reading through old blogs is like getting a letter from past me. It’s simultaneously heartbreaking and full of hope.

Today, I’m going back to New York – but only in my mind.

Sometimes I think about living there and I swell with panic. I remember endless climbs from the subway carrying my two-year-old and a stroller. I remember the loneliness. I remember the disillusionment. I remember the bitter cold and the blistering heat.

Sometimes, though, I remember the pizza from 5th Avenue or the bagels from 9th. The picnics in Prospect Park and all the trees we climbed. The local bar, Rhythm & Booze, where I took my kid for dinner before it got too rowdy, where we waited out storms and we got midnight fries. The time I saw THE NUTCRACKER and had a martini at the Plaza. The time I was in the same room as Daniel Radcliffe.

Then I remember the most important part of all.

That I did it even though it terrified me, and if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be where I am or who I am now. And none of it has been perfect, or easy, but it was right. And thank God it’s sunny here, that the flowers are blooming, and I have a pool – that I haven’t, and won’t, ever go backwards.

#TBT to this message from past me, and all the grace carrying each and every one of us through.

“There is a moment in the midst of the waiting, and crying — a moment in between public outbursts of anger and private laughter over pizza — that you realize the grace is holding. And it’s holding you. It’s holding your baby when he sleeps in his new bedroom. It’s holding the dog when he finds a spot on the floor in your empty house and takes a nap. It’s holding your parents and brothers and all those at home that you miss and miss you. It’s holding. The bottom hasn’t fallen out of your world. You’re just in a new world.”

Influencer Outreach For ALL

Book Posts

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I already shared how we used influencer marketing to help readers discover ELLIE IS COOL NOW.

(Read here if you missed out!)

But I gotta tell you, this decision came a lot easier to Alex, my co-author, than to me. Selling wasn’t a natural thing to me. And even though we were giving it to readers for free through Wattpad, make no mistake – we were selling.

And selling is an art form all it’s own.

The first time I posted on Instagram about ELLIE, I didn’t even put a link to the story. Asking people to read felt… uncomfortable. But oh man, I wanted them to read.

I knew that awkward whimper every time I posted couldn’t go on.

And I decided to do what needed to be done to change it.

Y’all. I love to write. I dream in stories and I think in plot points, but what I’ve learned watching ELLIE explode on Wattpad is that a passionate readership is its own stunning love affair. It makes the hours alone in the room feel even more rewarding. Because after the writing is done, the readers are the ones who give the story a whole new life.

Learning to create meaningful campaigns with influencers is an incredible, versatile tool to get your story in front of readers who will fall in love with it.

And once you learn how to work with influencers to help build your readership, you can turn around and recreate the magic again and again.

For every book you publish.

For any platform you publish on.

And I want that for you. I want that for me.

I want that for every dedicated writer with a story to tell. This influencer table is overflowing with delicious food and room to spare.

If you’re an author, if you have a book out RIGHT NOW, or will have one out soon, if you want to learn a strategy to sell your book using influencers, drop me a comment and I will tell you more about a supacoo way to do JUST THAT!

5 Steps to 500 Words

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TGI the Weekend!

I’m blacking out time on my schedule to write some words, but I thought it might be fun to drop some knowledge about HOW I get 500 words NO MATTER WHAT.

1. Decide the writing will happen and you will enjoy it. So much of the story around writing is about how HARD it is. How challenging it can be to get what’s in your brain out on paper (or a Word doc). I won’t lie to you and say the writing always feels like shooting rainbows out of my fingers, but – especially in the drafting phase – I always remind myself that this is a chance to purely create. It’s alchemy with words. It’s FUN. Even when it tries to convince me it’s HARD.

2. Set the scene. I know writers who need it dark, with candles flickering, music playing. I know writers who exclusively write in cafes with bustle and noise all around them. It doesn’t matter how, but find a way to use your senses, and habits, to trigger your creative brain. It doesn’t have to be the same every time either. Honoring the time with your story is what matters.

3. Set a timer on yourself. This can be a few hours, or 30 minutes or whatever you want. But having a window for the words helps. It’s like how having a deadline can spur you to finish a project. It will help you stay with your writing instead of slipping onto Instagram, or taking one of those Buzzfeed quizzes where you make a pizza and they reveal the color of your soul.

4. Write forward. Once you get momentum going, try to stay with the forward motion until you hit a goal. You can always go back and edit after. But you can’t edit at all if you don’t write the words to begin with!

5. Reward yourself WHEN you succeed. Celebrating the victory of setting a writing goal and then meeting it is SO IMPORTANT. Sometimes, when I need to get a lot of words in one day, I will set little rewards up for hitting 500 word increments – a fresh cup of tea, a walk with my dogs, playing a round of Mario Party with my son – and then I will give myself a big reward at the end of the day. This usually involves wine and Netflix, and it’s glorious because I did the work and I loved the process and, best of all, I WANT to do it all again tomorrow.

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Writing Rambles

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Today we signed a lease for a new place in LA, and we’re so excited, but not just because it’s bigger, with a yard and a pool and a cute little patio, on a quiet tree-lined street, but because we just did a thing neither of us ever really expected we’d do. And we LOVE surprising ourselves.

Six years ago, we were living in Brooklyn, and we needed to move. Our grocery store had closed down, which had changed the landscape of our neighborhood dramatically – something you can really only understand if you have lived in New York City. I couldn’t imagine committing to another apartment, because that meant committing to Brooklyn for another year. So we didn’t. We found a house back in Texas, and we left.

For years I have gone back to that moment, the moment I chose to leave. I’ve examined it from different angles, in different light, under a microscope of new experience, lessons learned. I never question my choice, but recently I began to question the reason behind it. I was afraid of that really being where I lived. I was afraid of not making it there. I couldn’t commit because I didn’t believe I was capable, or it was right.

We don’t have to move in LA. Our apartment is nice. We have a Starbucks right across the street. Our landlord is low-key. But still I knew— as I began to make new commitments in LA, and my son wanted friends over, wanted space, more autonomy, and my dreams began to take shape in big ways— we were starting to outgrow the walls of our apartment.

Examining your feelings can be SCARY. It always surprises me what I’m actually feeling at all when I take the time to look closely. When I saw this house was for lease, I knew, in that small place reserved for absolutes, this was my house. It was easy to choose it, and then easier to pursue it with bulldog tenacity. Then easier still to work through the challenges that arose, the fears, the stretching. It was easy because I DECIDED it would be.

Guys. I cannot stress to you enough how important that part of the equation is. Deciding to believe, or not believe, will make the difference. Faith is not about what it visible and proven, it is about what you believe without seeing.

So when I signed the lease today, sent the money, drove by again to glimpse my future, I wasn’t scared of all the unknown ahead of me. I was excited for all the growing I get to do in that bigger, brighter house. Because now there is space for something MORE.

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I put a timer on my life in LA.

Subconsciously, in subtle, but subverting ways, and because I thought that wanting to be here, wanting this life, this spot, this experience, needed to be justified in order to be valid. Then, and WAY WORSE, I realized, it wasn’t just LA I had put a timer on – it was EVERYTHING.

Somewhere along the way I made my DESIRES something I had to prove valid.

Something I had to justify wanting at all.

Over the summer, my family spent time back in Texas. A lot of time. More than we expected. And it was good, and joyful, and meaningful for us to be close to our families again, living alongside them and seeing all the changes, laughing, crying, complaining about the heat. But it also opened my eyes to something surprising.

I WANT to live in LA – and not because I don’t love Texas. Not because I don’t long to be near my family. Not because LA is better — life is much more complicated than better or worse. And it wasn’t because I want to MAKE IT. It wasn’t for any other reason than…

I wanted this – that’s it.

I choose this place. This journey. We all choose it – my husband, son, and I.

And we don’t have to validate our choice.

I don’t have to validate it and I don’t need a timer.

I never DID.

I only thought I did because…

I thought WANT was a dirty word.

Like NEEDING is better. Like SUPPOSED TO is somehow more justified or noble.

As if something deemed noble — like a calling, like a destiny, like a purpose — is better than wanting it and going for it and that’s it. Want is not inherently selfish — though, yes, it can become that way. Just like money is not evil, though many evil people seek it, acquire it, misuse it. Same with power. Same with fame.

WANT is desire, and passion and drive. WANT is why we keep going when supposed to, need to, because I should, dies on the vine.

And also…

Choosing is scary AF.

Because when we choose, we say goodbye to option B through D. We can’t keep daydreaming about the what if because now we’re living the RIGHT THIS EFFING MOMENT.

Choosing means saying yes everyday even when we want to throw in the towel. Choosing means not blaming anything, or anyone, for the shit along the way, because WE chose, and we DID have other choices — we always have other choices. It’s scary because..

What if we choose from that want then what IF we are wrong?

The day after I got back to LA, carrying all this new WANT, and CERTAINTY, and HELL YES, inside me, I went shopping with my friends. It was one of those afternoons where you talk deep and long while winding through Bloomingdales, trying on make-up and dresses and dreams, where you end up sipping Rose at an outdoor cafe, bathed in sunset and satisfaction.

It was the kind of day where you choose something just because you can. I chose Jimmy Choo sunglasses. I am really happy with my choice.

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What you want can be yours. You just have to CHOOSE.

And then you have to be willing to live that choice everyday.

 

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The Art of Goal Making

Writing Rambles

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I’ve been thinking a lot about goals. What they actually are. How we achieve them if they are dependent on outside forces. Where we draw the line in our pursuit and shift the goal so we can find success. I’ve been thinking a lot about it because, from the outside, it looks like I must have a lot of goals. But recently I realized, I don’t.

Before you roll your eyes and point to my Instagram, listen.

Eleven-years-ago, I was a receptionist at a title company in Texas. I vehemently despised this position. People irritated me. Having a boss irritated me. Making cookies for house closings, irritated me. I was irritated about getting up in the morning, and irritated about going to bed at night. The job was a means to an end. My husband was in school full-time, and we needed the income until he graduated.

What I really wanted was a baby. I didn’t actually know if I could ever want anything more.

It was an all-consuming desire that turned into an unachievable goal.

Every month I wasn’t pregnant, my mind whirled with fear. All the trying in the world (and believe me, we tried A LOT) wouldn’t make it happen. I did everything right. I ate well. I cut back on caffeine. I was active. I spiraled and spiraled. All around me, friends jubilantly announced pregnancies, sent photos of sonograms, cried happily into the phone. I wanted to be happy for them, obviously I did, but there was a tiny, barren place in my heart where true joy for them, and real hope for me, went to die.

And, oh yeah, I still really hated my job.

During that year, I began working on a screenplay I’d had in my head for years. And even though I still had the desire for that baby, and even though I still wanted to burn the cookies and tell off my boss, I began to want something else, too. I didn’t yet have the words for what it was or the courage to say it allowed, but I was changing. The goal still mattered, but it wasn’t the only goal.

Ten years ago, I was fired from my job as a receptionist. They were downsizing and looking for fat they could trim. I literally volunteered — I might as well have been Katniss. My husband was about to graduate, we had some savings, he’d get a job — whatever. We agreed it was the right time.

Free from my desk job nightmare, I threw myself in writing. I finished the screenplay. I began planning something new. And the week before I found out I was pregnant, I had a straight up gin martini and told my husband I was glad I hadn’t gotten pregnant when I wanted to.

I had found peace in the pursuit.

At no point in this journey did I consciously alter my goal. Never did I make a declaration— privately or otherwise — that I didn’t care anymore about being pregnant. I never stopped pursuing it, even though there were times I really believed giving up would at least lead to some inner peace. I continued to do my part, which, let’s face it, was super fun, and somewhere along the way I stopped holding so tight to the when.

It wasn’t until my son was two-years-old, that I genuinely started to imagine a life as a writer. I’ve talked about this before, but I made some serious missteps in my goal setting there. Because, I made the goal something totally outside my own ability to control, and I have spent years undoing that. I’m still undoing it.

The goal is the work — the creative life. Everything else is external, and in case you didn’t know, you have no control on the external. You cannot make an agent love your book. You cannot make a publisher buy it. You cannot make readers run to bookstores or download it on their Kindle.

You cannot make anyone give a shit about you. It is more important that you give a shit about yourself.

Love the hell out of your work. Write the book, the screenplay, the poem. Take your time. Do all the work. Learn all you can about the work. Love every minute even when that particular minute majorly sucks. Then, take a seat, have a gin martini straight up, and thank God you didn’t get it when you wanted because look at all you have learned along the way.

You never know when it’s going to change.