8 Things I’ve Found Helpful This Year
(Doubles as a gift guide if you like to give hugs)
The NaNoWriMo Dilemma
Whether you’re doing NaNoWriMo or not this year, it’s a good idea to have an honest conversation with yourself about what you need to thrive as a writer.
My Biggest Weakness(es)
What do we do with those irritating things about ourselves that we can’t change?
How Hard Is It To Get Paid?
On making money from your work — and… not.
You Get To Make It Whatever You Want
A letter about seasonal change and beginning when it feels right.
On Social Media “Detox”-ing
What is it that’s REALLY toxic here?
Don’t Let Them Own You
Like all marketing, social media is only a means to an end. Let me explain…
You Will Not Be Replaced By A.I.
No matter how sophisticated it gets, A.I. will never replace you — and here’s why.
I Am Bad At Certain Things
Is there value in admitting that we’re bad at something? Must we improve ourselves in every way?
Why Is The Bullet Journal Book Consoling Me About My Impending Death?
In defense of writing slowly, and thoughts on the blurry line between “writing to sell” and “writing to survive”. (Content warning: Death and dying)
Every Time I Write, I Have To Learn How To Write All Over Again
Writing — or any creative act, really — is just a chain of beginnings, one after the other. (Does that make you feel better, or worse?)
Being Brave Actually Kind Of Sucks
We tend to talk about being brave as this positive, empowering thing, but… is it?
On The Days When Your Brain Is Made Of Soup
We’re not machines, as much as we sometimes wish we were (or maybe that’s just me). What do we do as creators when our brains and bodies fail us?
That One Time I Had A TV Show
Back in 2019, I signed a deal with Netflix for a “Girl In Space” TV show. So… whatever happened to that?
I think I’m still carrying some anger about this
The story of one time when I called someone a bad word (it rhymes with “ditch”). You’ve been warned.
“Good For You!”
The social consensus seems to agree that social media is bad for us. But… is it?
You’re Allowed To Enjoy Things
A gentle reminder that suffering is not a virtue, even when society tells us it is.
The Frickin’ Partridge In The Pear Tree
The twelve days of a possibly terrible, horrible, no good, very bad Christmas BUT ALSO HOPEFULLY SOME INSIGHTS.
That Guilt Tho
On creative flow, creative guilt, and why we give into distractions. (Or, if you’re the kind of person who easily resists distractions, please tell me your secrets immediately.)
What’s Better Than Perfect?
Maybe you’ve heard before that perfectionism is a form of fear. So… what should we be aiming for instead?
Greetings From Isolation
I returned from speaking at the Austin Film Festival two Mondays ago, and then promptly went into hiding. I don’t necessarily think I did it on purpose, thinking to myself, “Ha ha! Now no one will be able to find me!” At least, not this time.
Things I Haven’t Told You, Part I
I’m really struggling with what to write to you in this week’s letter. Not because there’s nothing going on in my life, but because I keep telling myself that I can’t tell you what’s going on in my life.
I don’t know where this impulse is coming from, even though I’ve been sitting here mulling it over for a while. So maybe I’ll tell you the things, and in doing so hopefully figure out why I’m so resistant.
Apparently I’ve Been Doing This For Seven Years
Can you believe the Write Now podcast has been running for seven (7) years?! Because I can’t!
What Counts as Failure?
After speaking about the merits of failure, I was left wondering — what exactly was “failure”?
Just Writing
For the first time in my life, I have been writing consistently, habitually, every day.
Writing on the Road
I’ve been traveling the past several weeks for family and work, and everywhere I went, I took a dedicated carry-on piece of luggage that contained everything I needed to operate my business (and write).
What Do You Use To Write?
I just realized it has been a while since I last talked about my favorite writing tools — and by “a while”, I mean more than seven years. Whew! Suffice to say a lot has changed since then, including the tools and processes I use to write.
Unending Torments
Is this you? “MARCH 11, 1915: How time flies; another ten days and I have achieved nothing. It doesn’t come off. A page now and then is successful, but I can’t keep it up, the next day I am powerless.”
Something Came Up
Oof. It feels like “something came up” for me every day this past week, and I hardly got any writing done at all. Family stuff, life stuff, calls, obligations, meetings, errands, even meals — things seemed to crop up as soon as I decided I should probably go write. …Or DID they?
Should I Be On TikTok?
Over and over again during the conference I just attended, I kept hearing the question, “Do I (or does my podcast) need to be on TikTok?” and the answer was usually in the form of another question, i.e., “Can you afford not to be?”
What Are Your Creative Core Values?
I didn’t mean to, but this morning I started listing out my core values. I didn’t think a lot about “core values” before I started my own business, but I think that, despite its corporate icky-ness, it’s a great exercise for anyone seeking clarity and direction in their life.
The Stress List
I was writing my morning pages earlier today when I realized I was doing something that I wasn’t supposed to be doing — writing a “to do” list of all the sidelined tasks that were stressing me out. “Pick up Midori’s kidney medication.” “Pay electricity, gas, and utility bills.” “Target run for necessities.” It felt good at first…
Open To Interpretation
I just flew back home on Monday after 16 days with my family in Cleveland. My mother was in the hospital with heart failure, two of my sisters were in the process of moving, and my two-year-old niece had yet to begin daycare (and then came home with croup when she did).
Your Throughline
Being home — or returning to a place I used to call home — is weird. Maybe you’ve experienced something like this, too. Being here makes my life feel like it has a split end…
No Episode This Week
Just a quick update — no Write Now podcast and a late (and brief) newsletter this week, as my mom is in the hospital. I flew to Cleveland early Sunday morning and it’s been chaos ever since.
Tunguska
What’s up there, in your brain, influencing you, that you don’t even remember storing? What are you curating (consciously or unconsciously) in your mind-museum, and how does it come out in your creative work?
Are We On The “Right” Path?
At the risk of sounding melodramatic, I’m feeling a little lost and afraid at the prospect of not having a daily dose of The Artist’s Way to prompt, guide, coach, encourage, and heal me every day. I’m afraid to stop making steady forward progress, or worse, relapse, backtrack, or lose my progress altogether.
Discerning Your Path
What do you want out of 2022? I mean, aside from an end to the pandemic, world hunger, violence, etc. Those are all huge systemic and infrastructural problems that we as individual humans can’t control or solve on our own. What do you actually want, for yourself, that is within your control?
Creative Darkness
My morning began, as all mornings do, in darkness. I won’t use this opportunity to describe the beautiful neon-rose-and-gold sunrise that slowly followed as I sipped my coffee, because that’s not the point right now. The point is that we’re starting a new year, and I think that things are dark — or at the very least, seem dark — for many of us.
Here’s To 2022…
Dear Creators, I’m going to keep it short this week, because I think a lot of us are busy, overwhelmed, tired, and stressed. Basically, thank you. I am grateful for you — for opening these emails, for listening to Write Now podcast episodes, for checking out Girl In...
The Real Questions
If you ask the wrong questions, you’ll get the wrong answers. What questions are you asking yourself as a writer and creator?
Getting Called Out
I like honesty. I like realness. I like truth. I’m drawn to it, I savor it, and I generally don’t have time for anything else. And yet sometimes, when the world boils down around me and it’s just me alone with my thoughts, I find myself neck-deep in… let’s call it crap.
What The Heck Is Up With The Write Now Podcast?
Remember that one time in January 2015 when I launched a new podcast? It was called Write Now with Sarah Werner and its mission was “to give writers the time, energy, and courage you needed to pursue your passion and write every day”. Since then, a lot has changed.
Why Are We Like This?
Do you ever find yourself sitting on the couch in some uncomfortable position, scrolling through Instagram or reading painful news articles or marathoning something on YouTube or Netflix, and you realize that you’ve had to use the bathroom for the last 45 minutes, but your legs are asleep, and if you get up from the couch, then the realization of all of the time you’ve just spent will come crashing back down upon you like a deadly tidal wave of guilt and self-loathing?
What If It’s Not Actually A Problem?
I feel like all of my best realizations come when I’m talking things out with a good friend, preferably over coffee, and I’d like to share one of them with you today. I was having a heart-to-heart via Zoom with my friend Rebecca last week, during which I mentioned an...
I Thought It Was Over…
I started working my way through The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron this August as a way to enrich my journaling experience. It’s a book I had read post-college and dismissed for a number of reasons — I believed I already knew everything she was saying, it was just...
When You Let Yourself Down
I was talking with a group of writers last week when someone said that they had let themselves down — they had missed a deadline on a story, failed to show up for their Monday and Thursday writing sessions, and had thus far written zero (0) words for NaNoWriMo. I...
NaNo FoMo
Today is the first day of November, a.k.a. the starting date of NaNoWriMo! Wheee! What is NaNoWriMo, you ask? NaNoWriMo is a yearly challenge where you basically write a 50,000-word novel over the month of November. It comes out to writing about 1,700 words per day,...
When Is It Time To Move On?
Have you heard of the sunk cost fallacy? A sunk cost is the concept of “a sum paid in the past that is no longer relevant to decisions about the future” (definition via Wikipedia), or, more simply put, the money we’ve poured into something and cannot get back. The...