Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach

With inspiration from Mark McGuinness, you’ll integrate poetry into your writing life as a pleasurable practice that elevates your prose.

In this interview, Mark describes the vision for his podcast and his own poetic beginnings, and he urges writers (and readers) to simply enjoy poetry.

You’ll also discover the impact poetry can have on us as readers and writers. You’ll see ways it intersects with and impacts prose—you can even play a literary game he describes at the end.

• How a mouthful of air is a perfect image for poetry and podcasts

Listen to episode 245 and check out excerpts in the transcript below. You’ll be inspired by his warm, encouraging advice. If his subtle persuasion succeeds, you may embrace poetry as the next step in your literary journey.

Mark McGuinness is a poet based in Bristol, UK. On his poetry podcast A Mouthful of Air he interviews contemporary poets about their writing practice and draws out insights that can help any writer become more creative, expressive and memorable.

Mark also takes classic poems apart to show us how they work and what we as writers can learn from the examples of poets including Yeats, Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy, Chaucer and Edward Lear.

• Visit amouthfulofair.fm

This is a lightly edited transcript.

[00] – Ann Kroeker

With inspiration from my guest Mark McGuinness, you may find yourself integrating poetry into your writing life as both a pleasure and a practice. I’m Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach. If you’re tuning in for the first time, welcome. If you’re a regular, welcome back. I’m sharing my best tips and training skills and strategies to help writers improve their craft, pursue publishing and achieve their writing goals. Today I have Mark McGuinness on the show, a poet from Bristol, UK.

On his poetry podcast, A Mouthful of Air, Mark interviews contemporary poets to discover their writing practice and draws out insights that can help any writer become more creative, expressive and memorable. Mark also takes classic poems apart to show us how they work and what we as writers can learn from the examples of poets like Yates, Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy, Chaucer and Edward Lear.

Listen in on our conversation.

[00:54] – Ann Kroeker

I am so excited to have Mark McGuinness on the call today on our show and we are going to talk about a lot of different things related to the creative life, the writing life, even the poetry life. Mark, thanks for being on the call.

[01:09] – Mark McGuinness

Thank you. It’s lovely to be here, Ann.

[01:12] – Ann Kroeker

I am looking forward to learning more about how you approach your own creative life and how you use and enable poetry to be part of what feeds your creative life, how you inspire others with poetry, because that seems to be a big part of your life.

Can you tell the listeners and viewers, can you tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do?

[01:37] – Mark McGuinness

Sure. I am a poet living in Bristol, in the southwest of England, in the UK. I’ve been writing poetry quite a while and in my typical group of friends, I’m usually the one who reads poetry. I’ve always been quite aware that most people don’t read poetry most of the time.

There are a lot of people who are very literate, very well read, very avid readers, but who will generally read anything but poetry. And to my point of view, it’s not that hard. I think a lot of people get put off at school, they have a bad experience or they think it’s this thing up on a pedestal that they don’t understand or that isn’t going to speak to them in their lives.

And I got this urge about two years ago when I first got the idea for the show that I would really like to take some of these books behind me down from the shelf and just read a poem and just share it with people and say, “Isn’t that great? And notice what’s happening in the third line here. Isn’t it marvelous what she’s done with the rhyme or whatever?” And just to share the magic that I feel that I don’t think it’s that hard for other people to tune into.

[03:00] – Mark McGuinness

And then following on from that, I thought, “Well, actually, I know quite a few poets I’ve been to their readings. I’ve read their books. I’ve sat next to them in workshops. Why don’t I invite them on the show, too? And then they can read it.”

And so the way the show works is that every episode is focused on one poem, and the first thing you hear is the poem. Because if it’s a good poem, you don’t need an introduction. You don’t need to be told why you should like it or all the footnotes and stuff. You either like it or you don’t, or you feel something or you don’t. But you’ve really got to listen and put your kind of assumptions aside about it.

So we hear the poem read by either me, if it’s a dead poet, if they’re alive, I get them on the show and they read it themselves. And then we have a little bit of context, a little bit of, well, what’s going on in the poem? And again, if they’re alive and they’re on the show, I’ll ask them, where did the poem come from? How did you get the idea?

[03:59] – Mark McGuinness

How did you work it up? What process did you go through from the initial idea to what we have on the page or on the screen or in the ear. And quite often that journey is really surprising. I mean, as a writer, I’m fascinated by how things evolve. And if the poet is sadly no longer with us, then I will share my thoughts on why I think the poem is worthy of our attention and what I think is going on.

And then the end of the show, we hear the poem again. And even though it’s the same poem and the same recording, it should sound different. In fact, listeners tell me it sounds different because it’s a bit like a magic eye, because they can see things or they can hear things in it that they weren’t aware of the first time rounds. So that’s it. It’s all quite self contained.

[04:51] – Ann Kroeker

That is a wonderful concept. I took an online course in years past where we did these close readings, and it just opened my mind up. It took me back in time. I actually studied poetry and creative writing as an undergraduate at Big Ten University here in the States. And so I have a little exposure to poetry, and it was my entree into writing and building a writing life.

So tell us what the name of the show is and why you chose it.

[05:23] – Mark McGuinness

Okay. It is called A Mouthful of Air. And I know it’s a good title because I nicked it from W. B. Yeats in a little poem that he wrote, an early love poem. Would you like to hear it? It’s really short. It’s easier than me describing, of course.

Okay, so it’s called He Thinks of Those Who Have Spoken Evil of His Beloved.

And it’s not hard for us to guess that his beloved was like to be moored gone. Famously he was in love with her. She was a significant figure in the Irish political independence movement in the late 19th century. So it begins.

It’s just six lines, so blinking, you miss it, but it goes:

Half close your eyelids, loosen your hair,And dream about the great and their pride;They have spoken against you everywhere,But weigh this song with the great and their pride;I made it out of a mouthful of air,Their children’s children shall say they have lied.

And I love the fact that Yeats, he emphasizes a poem, in which case a song. He was a very lyric poet. He emphasizes how light, how insubstantial it is. It’s almost nothing.

[06:56] – Mark McGuinness

“Weigh this song.” She’s being criticized by people. He doesn’t like “the great and their pride.” And he’s saying, but you can’t—don’t respond to the criticism. Just “weigh this song” with it almost as though he’s saying that poetry can balance the scales of this injustice.

And he says, “I made it out of a mouthful of air.” So that’s what the poem is made of. It’s made of speech, it’s made of breath.

And of course, this takes us back to the origins of poetry, which is even older than writing. So it would have been spoken or maybe sung way back before people thought of writing poems down.

And I think this is something for me, something quite magical about poetry, that insubstantial thing. You’re making it out of nothing, really. A mouthful of air that still survives into the 21st century. And I thought, Isn’t that a lovely way of thinking about a poem?

And it’s perfect for a podcast, because what you get on the podcast, of course, is the spoken poem. Again, we’ve gone from the text back to speech. So that’s where I got it.

[08:02] – Ann Kroeker

It’s both literal and metaphor. And metaphor is a big part of poetry, and we can grab it.

Most of the people, I think, listening to my show are writing prose or novels or short stories or essays or articles, and probab...

Writers working on projects that are destined to be published—to be read—can struggle with nerves.

We edit our words before they have a chance to breathe on the page.

We hold back our true feelings and opinions.

We forget to play with language.

I tend to encourage my clients to move toward practical goals, to create work that is going to be published.

But at the same time, I also encourage writers to play, to get past the gates we put in front of ourselves and try to tap into those first thoughts without fear of being misunderstood.

If you’re a writer taking yourself a little too seriously, I have just the thing for you today—a writing exercise you can play with in your writing journal, where nobody will see it.

This one comes from Imaginative Writing by Janet Burroway. When you’re done, you’ll end up with a three-line poem (24).

Each of the lines has a template you can follow.

➤ Line 1: abstraction + verb + place

➤ Line 2: describe attire

➤ Line 3: summarize an action

Here’s one of her examples.

Hunger yells in the hallway, draped in cymbals; he stomps and shouts, “Hear me now!”

Notice how she plays with the template.

Line 1:

• “Hunger” is the abstraction

Line 2: “Draped in cymbals” is her way of describing some attire.

Line 3: “He stomps and shouts, ‘Hear me now!'” describes action.

It’s okay if your poems come out a little weird or kooky. That’s part of the fun of it.

You’re putting together ideas and images and creating something fresh—have fun with it!

Don’t overthink the noun, the verb, or the action. Simply play.

This offers a taste of some of the exercises we are going to play with in The Art and Craft of Writing.

If you’re reading this before August 29, 2022, you have a chance to sign up for a fall intensive I’m running: an eight-week program designed to help you get input on your writing while you learn literary techniques and put them into practice. You’ll get eyes on your work from peers in the cohort and from me, as well!

If you’re coming across this information after the fact, go to annkroeker.com/acw, which will take you to the page where you can sign up if it’s live or get on the waitlist if it’s not.

You don’t have to wait for that or even be in the program to play with writing. You can start today, with this three-line poem.

While you’re playing with your own words in your writing notebook, you don’t have to share anything with anybody. It’s just a chance to warm up—to get the creative juices flowing.

That said, maybe it helps to know that this writing coach loves to play with words.

Would you like to see what I came up with, just for fun?

Here’s one:

Ideas skid across my path; jaunty in their tilted caps and leprechaun-green suits, they dance a jig, daring me to catch them.

Here’s another:

Time slithers under the bedroom door,its wrinkled skin sloughing offas it scrapes the wood and leaves me behind, guilty of pressing snooze once more.

If you end up writing your own three-line poem and like the way it turned out—and you wouldn’t mind sharing it publicly—drop it into the comments below. Or you could share it with me privately via email.

I’d love to see what you come up with.

As writers, we do the work of writing, but by experimenting with a creative writing exercise now and then, we can also play.

Get the direction you need to improve as a writer with The Art & Craft of WritingIn this eight-week intensive, I’ll help you elevate your writing skills and create a compelling piece you’ll be proud to show an editor or agent. By the end of our time together, you’ll have completed a 3,000-word piece, along with multiple short submissions that invite you to experiment and play with new techniques.

Footnote: Burroway, Janet. Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft. Pearson, 2015. Page 24.

Literary agent Lucinda Halpern prepares us to navigate the industry and prepare for publishing. With her insights, we’ll position our project—and ourselves as authors—to pitch agents and get noticed.

She reveals what literary agents are really looking for when it comes to platform and clears up the concern about how much or how little to share of your book’s ideas on social media. And if you’re wondering what to really focus on when crafting your book proposal, Lucinda’s got insider info to help you make decisions.

After listening to (or reading) what she has to say, you’re going to feel more confident than ever as you prepare to pitch.

Lucinda says publishers are looking for books with “perennial potential”:

Publishers are trendcasters. They are futurists. They have to think about books from the perspective of what is going to sell when the book publishes in two years and then for five years after that, because they’re interested in books that backlist….So writers should be really savvy to what are the sort of trends that are happening in the media or on podcasts or Netflix series.

She urges writers to network.

See if you can discover the connection you have to someone in the industry. She says, “I always say get that six-degree-of-separation connection to an agent.” She continues, “There are so many blind submissions coming at [agents], better to have an ‘in’—a step up—if you can.”

Writers in my platform membership often ask how much they can share about their book idea—how much they can write or teach the topics—without giving too much away, so I asked Lucinda her opinion. You might be surprised (and relieved) by her response:

The rule of the day is the more free content, the better. And one of my authors, Paul Jarvis, had a really wonderful way of putting this: Teach everything you know…I believe in that so much. And editors believe in it, too. Because again, if they see that audience clamoring for your ideas…that’s a huge draw…It almost doesn’t matter that they’ve seen it before. It’s better they’ve seen it before.

When we discussed platform for nonfiction authors, I asked her for that magic number of how many subscribers or followers publishers (and agents) are looking for. She gave us the number, but not before offering an important disclaimer:

It differs for category and for the particular author that you are. So someone who’s a PhD or a doctor or finance professional or psychologist, there are a number of sort of more private industries where an editor is going to recognize your life has not been tweeting…

Whereas if you’re a journalist, it’s going to be how many bylines have you accumulated and what sort of publications and what is your Twitter following? How many people actually know who you are?

I just want you to know if you’re a business person and you’ve run this successful company, maybe again, you’re not so active on social media, but you have a YouTube channel that gets views and you also have a massive email list which publishers are more interested in than social media numbers.

I’m just giving you a sense of the diversity in the nonfiction sphere alone that we’re evaluating platform on. There is no one number.

I begged a little for the number.

Thankfully, she told us.

You want to know the number she’s looking for?

Listen, watch, or read the transcript below. (That specific answer is around the 17:56 mark.)

Lucinda Halpern is the President and Founder of Lucinda Literary, representing authors writing in the categories of business, health, lifestyle, popular science, narrative nonfiction, memoir, and upmarket fiction. She regularly shares publishing insights and motivation for writers here and hosts both live and online programs for aspiring authors here.

Ready to get your book noticed? Get Lucinda’s essential guide for writers: The 6 Things Every Book Pitch Needs — click here to receive your guide: www.lucindaliterary.com/subscribe

Get to know Lucinda and her literary agency:

• Website: www.lucindaliterary.com

• Naming the World: And Other Exercises for the Creative Writer, by Bret Anthony Johnston (Amazon Affiliate link; Bookshop.org link)

Ann Kroeker

Are you curious what literary agents are really looking for when it comes to platform, or are you sharing a little bit about some of your books big ideas on social media, and you’re a little worried that maybe you’re sharing too much and it might jeopardize the interest the agents have in your project? Are you wondering what to really focus on when crafting your book proposal?

Well, I have literary agent Lucinda Halpern on the show today. And this conversation is packed with ideas for how to get your book noticed. I’m Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach, and on this show, I help writers improve their craft, pursue publishing and achieve their writing goals.

Today, I have New-York-based literary agent Lucinda Halpern on the show. Lucinda Halpern is a literary lecturer and PR agent with over 15 years experience on both the corporate and agency sides of publishing.

As owner of Manhattan based literary agency Lucinda Literary, her roster of authors includes:

New York Times bestselling authors Susan Pierce Thompson, Chris Bailey, Kate Flanders, Paul Jarvis, the new work of Nicola Krause and Jake Wood. In a marketing and publicity capacity, Lucinda has worked with New York Times bestselling authors Stephen Dubner and Stephen Levitt of Freakonomics, Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project, Ben Mezrich of Bringing Down the House and Busting Vegas, and many more.

Ann Kroeker (01:23)

Let’s dive straight into this conversation with Lucinda, and I think you’re going to feel more confident than ever as you prepare to pitch Lucinda.

Ann Kroeker (01:31)

It’s great to have you on the show.

Lucinda Halpern (01:32)

Thank you so much. Wonderful to be here. Yeah.

Ann Kroeker (01:34)

I’m just really, really excited to introduce our listeners and let them have a glimpse of what it’s like to interact with an agent. So I’m going to give you a quick and easy question to start out with, just because I feel like, oh, surely you have a favorite what is your favorite book of writing that you recommend to your writers, those you represent or anybody you’re talking with?

Lucinda Halpern (01:57)

Sure. So there’s a great book that is little known. It’s so hard to choose right there’s Bird by Bird. There is a book by Bret Anthony Johnston, who was formerly creative writing director at Harvard. I fell in love with his novel. He wrote a second book called Naming the World, which I love. Like the discipline of being a writer, you just have to sit every day. Butt in the chair.

There’s a wonderful book I have on my bookshelf here called [How to Write] Like Tolstoy by Richard Cohen. He just has a wonderful sort of historical rendition of how all the great writers wrote. And recently I read Ann Patchett’s [This Is] The Story of a Happy Marriage, which is about her sort of memoir and also tips for writers. And I found that to be just incredible. So four books for you.

Ann Kroeker (02:51)

That’s awesome. I love it. People can expand their library of books on writing. That one about reading, writing like Tolstoy. Is that what you said? How to Write Like Tolstoy? I’m not familiar with that, but I’m thinking it could be a nice compliment to George Saunders book, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain. Are you familiar with that book?

Lucinda Halpern (03:11)

No, I haven’t read it. But this is a beautiful packaging that’s also rich.

Ann Kroeker (03:16)

It’s gorgeous. That’s a great idea to get people ready to write and coming at it from a lot of different angles. Thanks for your tips. Well, we have so many ...

Have you ever wondered what a writing coach is?

As you can imagine, I get asked this a lot. I mean, it is baked into my branding, and I love sharing insights I’ve gained over my years of coaching.

Let’s start with the simplest, broadest definition of what a writing coach is and does:

A writing coach provides you with input and support designed to close the gap between where you are as a writer and where you want to be.

I coauthored the book On Being a Writer with Charity Singleton Craig (2014). Our editor used similar language on the back cover copy of the book and in marketing materials:

Let this book act as your personal coach, to explore the writing life you already have and the writing life you wish for, and close the gap between the two.1

That phrasing captures the foundational purpose and core intent of this coaching role in a writer’s life, so I adapted it here.

And as a writing coach myself for over a decade, I can confirm that this is indeed a high-level description of writing coaching.

Every coach approaches the work differently based on their experience, background, training, and philosophy. As a result, not every coach will feel like the right fit for you.

In fact, you may need one kind of coach at one stage in your writing journey and another kind of coach later, and you want to find the right fit for your current goals and challenges.

To begin to understand what a writing coach is and does, let’s look at what a writing coach isn’t.

A coach may have been and may still be an editor. They may offer both services and, thus, be both a coach and an editor. They may also offer editorial input within their coaching style. But these are two different services, so writing coaches are not editors while they are coaching.

A coach may have been and may still be an agent. But these two services must be distinct and separate, since authors never pay for representation. If you find an agent who offers coaching, be sure the service you’re paying for is coaching.

A coach may have been a ghostwriter and may still offer ghostwriting as a separate service, but a coach’s role is not to collaborate or do any of the writing for you. You’re the writer!

A coach may have personal experience and success in social media, and find themselves recommending social media managers and designers—they might suggest how to approach social media to increase engagement with readers. But writers don’t hire coaches to set up marketing campaigns or design Instagram images.

A coach may offer marketing, publicity, or launch team services in addition to coaching. If they’re an author themselves, they may have personal experience with their own marketing and publicity to share and connect their client to someone on their team. While they may offer some of those services separately or toss out ideas, when the coach is coaching a client, they are not marketing or publicizing their client’s work or organizing a launch team.

My writing mentors—I’ve had at least five—invested time in me, guiding and steering me through phases in my career, and from those relationships, I know that a coach’s advice might feel like the advice you’ve gotten from a mentor. A coach might even have a mentor. You yourself might have both a mentor and a coach. Despite the similarities, however, a writing coach is not the same as a mentor.

A coach may have been—or still be—an English teacher or a professor, and a coach may also, separately, teach through courses, conferences, and workshops. I suppose a coach may informally teach through a one-on-one session. But coaches are different from teachers.

A writing coach is not replacing or competing with any of those roles.

In fact, you may need or want an editor, agent, or teacher at another stage of your writing life—sometimes you’ll need both at the same time: a coach and any number of these roles.

I plan to explore the differences between these roles in more detail in the future, but for now, let’s look at various categories of coaches in more detail, so you can grasp the variety and land on the type of coach to best support your writing needs and challenges.

As you research writing coaches, you’re going to see people calling themselves writing coaches. When you inquire about working with them, it’ll turn out they don’t offer what you need. That’s probably because their core strength may not be what you’re looking for.

Not all coaches are the same.

I see the term “writing coach” as the broadest label—an umbrella term, if you will. Under that are specialties.

You’re trying to align your needs and challenges and goals with their experience, training, philosophy, personality, and expertise.

Not all writing coaches are book coaches. In your search for a writing coach, you’ll discover some who focus on novelists, nonfiction authors, and memoirists. They may call themselves writing coaches or book coaches, or both. But their focus is on coaching authors—people working on book length projects. A book coach is a type of writing coach, but you may come across a writing coach who is not a book coach.

You’ll also find people who coach bloggers, copywriters essays and poets. And you may see coaches who offer guidance to freelance writers, grant writers, PhD candidates who are working on dissertations, professionals in the workplace who are seeking to improve their communication skills.

Another way coaches differ is through training, education, and experience, and that’s going to influence their specialties, style, and services even more.

Working with a writing coach who has training or background as a life coach may feel much different from someone who coaches out of experience as an editor or an academic, or as a marketer, or as an author in their own right. They may offer few resources or recommendations and rely instead on their skill in asking curious questions to free the writer to discover solutions to their own challenges.

A coach with an editorial background, on the other hand, may provide input on writing samples to point out areas of strength and weakness for a writer to improve craft. They may even assign homework to complete before each session.

Coaches who have been successful freelance writers might provide a plan for clients to launch their own business or supply some resources and reading materials.

And book coaches may rely on a framework or process they’ve developed that adds structure and deadlines, input and milestones for their clients—all so that the client completes a draft of their manuscript.

Coaches with experience building platform may work with the client to develop a plan of action or a set of strategies to try.

Add in their personality and their interpersonal communication style, and the types of coaches you could work with starts to seem endless, especially as this role is exploding right now, with coaches popping up everywhere with different kinds of certification as well.

Here are some of the types of coaches you’ll find.

In your search, you’ll discover coaches who serve PhD candidates completing their dissertations or undergrads leveling up their essays and response papers.

These coaches equip writers ready to launch their own freelance writing career, and they prepare them to present their services, whether that’s freelance for businesses or pitching and submitting to publishers.

Almost all coaches have experience working with writers who deal with writers of block, perfectionism, imposter syndrome, fear, and other mindset hurdles. But some coaches and often these are people with life coach background and training. They might not supply strategies, provide publishing advice, or send resources, but they are skilled at asking questions that unlock and unwind your creative blocks.

These coaches may serve poets, essayists, or writers of short stories. Some may have their MFA and prep people ready to submit to literary magazines and journals. They might specialize serving poets only, for example, or they might have experience in all kinds of literary writing and be able to help you no matter what you are pursuing. These coaches help you understand the process and organize yourself to begin submissions.

Some coaches serve professionals in the workplace who are leveling up their writing skills for professional development. This kind of coach helps clients become more confident with written communications in the corporate world.

This is really specific, but there are people with experience in writing successful grants who then offer that as a coaching service to support writers ready to craft their own grant.

Some coaches serve bloggers and digital writers—people getting started online or seeking to improve their style and try new approaches.

These writers may be transitioning from print and need input to feel comfortable and confident beginning to write in a way that follows principles and best practices for digital writing. A coach who specialize...

For author Clarissa Moll, hiring a writing coach was like finding her book midwife, and she urges writers to seek that kind of intimate, knowledgeable support and input for their own writing and publishing journey.

In this interview, Clarissa shares her approach to writing, platform, and publishing, like:

• make a list of 10 things whenever you’re stuck or developing an idea

Listen to episode 242 and check out excerpts below. You’ll be inspired by her clear, sensible, inspiring personality and advice.

Clarissa Moll is an author and podcaster and the young widow of author Rob Moll. Clarissa’s writing has appeared in Christianity Today, The Gospel Coalition, RELEVANT, Modern Loss, Grief Digest, and more. Her debut book, Beyond the Darkness: A Gentle Guide for Living with Grief and Thriving After Loss is forthcoming from Tyndale (2022).

Clarissa co-hosts Christianity Today’s “Surprised by Grief” podcast and hosts the weekly hope*writers podcast, The Writerly Life. She lives a joyful life with her four children and rescue pup and proudly calls both New England the Pacific Northwest home.

Enjoy these highlights from Clarissa’s interview.

As folks in my life kept saying to me, “You should write a book!” I thought, I don’t even know where to start.

I mean, I can write a five-paragraph essay. I can write a thesis. But to write 55,000 words? It seemed like an elephant that was too big to swallow.

I knew that to do it well, in a way that was sustainable in my own life, I needed to make sure that I was having a meaningful life outside of my writing.

And I knew if I wanted to do this again—if I didn’t want to end at the finish line so exhausted that I said, “No more. This is it.”—I knew I needed some guidance.

And so I reached out to you.

I gave birth to my four babies with a midwife, and when you’re in that delivery room, that baby feels like the only one that’s ever been born. And isn’t it wonderful to have a midwife stand beside you, who’s seen hundreds of delivered, to say, “This is normal. You’re doing great!” To be able to offer that encouragement and guidance along the way.

And so I found in you my book midwife. You’re the person who helped me to make that journey from just a nebulous kind of idea to something that’s really concrete.

One of the exercises that I have gone back to time and time again is one that we did together.

You encouraged me to write a list of 10 things. And if I struggled with making my list of 10, I had to write another 10.

When you’re out of ideas, just force yourself to put pen to paper. That’s where clarity is born.

It’s not born in the writer’s retreat over a long weekend or at a cabin by the lake. It’s born out of those very ordinary, disciplined kind of practices that you taught me.

Back in my acting days, I had an audition and the acting professor said, “Could you do an Irish accent for this audition?”

I said, “Oh, I don’t know how to do that. I’m sorry.” And nothing ever came of it.

A couple of weeks later, he came to me and said, “You know, I wanted to give you that role, but you said you couldn’t do it. Next time, say ‘I’ll learn how.'”

That kind of perspective has been really helpful for me, as I have said yes to things that are beyond whatever I have done before.

Had I podcasted before? No.

But when someone invited me to do the Christianity Today podcast, I said, “I’ll learn how. I’ll get the equipment. I’ll learn how to do the technology. I will do it.”

I’ve been trying to think about what other things I could do that relate to my writing.

Should I build in speaking more?

Should I be expanding podcasting?

Should I try to do some sort of retreat where I can be writing new materials that are actually more interactive?

Maybe group resources?

I’m trying to think beyond just book writing, and that’s exciting for me because honestly, I hadn’t thought about those things before.

I had just been thinking about this book baby and getting it born. And now as I entered this new stage—trying to think about how writing can be sustainable for me in the long haul—I’m thinking about diversifying in more ways than I ever did before.

I also hesitate, because I know that there’s some pressure to, once you publish a book, sort of build your writing empire. “Oh, it’s time to start a course!” Or it’s time to start this or that or the other thing.

And I think that’s where I always check with my heart and ask myself:

Is that where your heart is?

Do you need to write a new lead magnet because you know that this is what drives traffic and you feel the pressure to perform or to keep doing something? Or is it that you feel like you have something valuable to share?

And so in that space, checking my heart is a really good practice. To say, “Am I trying to build an empire here, or am I still doing the thing that I love—and am I reaching people with words that matter?”

When I do that, I find that I can take a break to rest without feeling any guilt.

[Question from Ann: What is the backbone of your platform? What is your core platform activity?]

I pitch and write.

And I love to do it.

I have a list on my phone where I keep article ideas. I usually get like an idea down and then start to get bullet points underneath it.

In fact, a lot of times when I’m driving, I’ll have my daughter help. “Hey, can you pull out my phone? I’ve got some ideas!”

And once I start to see stuff kind of globbing together around an idea, I think, “Oh, okay. It’s time to pitch that.” And I pitch it before I’ve written it, because that makes me have to write it if they say yes.

I like that external commitment. I like that there’s a little bit of pressure there.

And as soon as I have committed to writing it, I start trying to get the idea for the next one. Because I want to keep the momentum going.

I told my publisher that I was committed to being engaged with my audience. That said, I was married to a man who published books before social media was the gauge for what a platform should look like. And so I have kind of an old school attitude toward platform-building.

I’m going to call it vintage, though, because I liked that better than old school. But when Rob published both of his books, he engaged with readers.

That’s what he did. And it wasn’t through social media.

It was to speak.

It was through radio and other kinds of interviews.

He emailed people.

It had an intimacy that I think a lot of social media lacks today.

And so even though I am building my social media platform as best I can…I’ve determined that an engaged audience is always better than a big audience.

And so for me, the commitment has been not so much about numbers, but about engagement.

For example, when I sent out my monthly email, I write back to every single person who replies to me. I’ve committed to that.

I write to every single person who sends me a direct message on Instagram.

I’ve committed to that because I think it’s important for people—particularly in the space in which I write—to know that they’re not alone…to know that someone has read what they’ve written and cared about their words and wants to respond to them.

Who’s to say that if I had a gigantic following, I wouldn’t be able to do that anymore. But I’m grateful for the small enough following that I have to be able to relate intimately to my readers and listeners, because I think that’s where the beauty happens.

I worked in theater before I ever was a writer, and the live experience was exciting. There was the clapping, the laughter—there was an energy in that room.

And when you’re writing, it’s kind of a solitary practice. You’re all alone in your office, writing, hoping as you send your words out into the world, that it makes a difference to anybody.

And I think by committing to that kind of regular engagement with people you get some of that energy that I used to feel onstage. And that’s where the real magic and beauty happens in writing.

All that we don’t like about social media and all of its shortcomings—there is that—it’s closer to an immediate feedback that I really appreciate.

Keeping going when life feels hard is really hard. It’s hard to do. It’s hard to keep writing—to keep thinking that writing is something essential in your life.

When life gets hard—and life getting hard could be anything from pandemic stressors to job difficulties, and for me, it was losing a loved one, but—it doesn’t have to be that kind of loss for life to feel hard and for writing to feel expendable.

And so I think if I were to say anything to a writer, I would say: keep writing.

Even if it’s just a little bit.

A couple of sentences in an Instagram post?

That counts as writing.

Jotting notes while you’re waiting for your kids to be picked up in the school pickup line?

That counts as writing.

There are so many things that can count as writing! A really beautiful letter written to a loved one? That counts ...

Louis L’Amour is attributed as saying, “Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.”1

Sounds easy enough, but a lot of times we can’t even find the faucet. Or we find the faucet but fail to turn it on.

Either way, we want to write, but no words flow.

Is that you?

Are you ready to begin writing but you don’t know where to start—you don’t know how to get the words to flow?

I’ve got 10 options for you—ten faucets, if you will. I’ll bet one stands out more than the rest.

Pick one. Try it.

See if it gets those words flowing.

Think back to an event that seems small yet feels packed with emotion. You don’t have to fully understand it. Just remember it. Something changed due to that event. The change may have been subtle or seismic, but you emerged from it a different person. 

The simple prompt “I remember” can get you started. Use it as a journal entry and see where it takes you, or go ahead and start writing something more substantial.

When you remember and recreate these scenes from your past, you’ll learn from them. I experienced this when I wrote a short scene in this style, called One Lone Duck Egg.

Photos can whisk us back to another place and time, whether as recently as last week or as long ago as childhood.

Pull a photo from your collection of family photos, physical or digital. 

Write in response to the scene. Recreate it. Let the memories unfold. 

You could be in the photo, or not. 

You could write the story behind the moment, or elaborate on a particular person in the scene. 

• What do you think was happening? 

Another approach is to combine words with images to create a photo essay. 

Back in 2011, I walked around the farm where I grew up and snapped photos. Each time, a fragment of thought came to mind, a flash of a memory. 

When I got home, I pieced it together to come up with Dancing in the Loft.

Art ignites imagination. Whether you invent a story behind the piece of art you choose, or you document your response to it, you’ll end up with an interesting project. 

One of my creative writing professors in college gave us a similar assignment to write poetry from art. It’s possible she was trying to introduce us to ekphrastic poetry,2 which, according to the Lantern Review Blog,3 is “written in conversation with a work(s) of visual art.” 

But she took a less formal approach, asking us to find some art, study it carefully, and write a poem.

I used a small, framed print of an Andrew Wyeth painting as inspiration.

I studied the boy sitting in the grass and imagined a possible scenario leading up to the moment Wyeth captured. As I was finishing the poem and typing it up, I realized I needed to include information about Wyeth’s work. I turned the frame around and fortunately I found the date and name of the painting. Wyeth named it “Faraway,”4 and I coincidentally called my poem “Runaway.”5

Spend time with the art and see where it leads.

I once wrote about an old, worn knob that topped the post at the bottom of our stairs. 

I loved the worn knob for being worn. All the stain was rubbed off one side of it from the years before we owned the house. Like the previous owners, we swooshed around that newel post, running our palms around the knob every single time we ran up or down the stairs. 

When we decided to replace the railing, I begged our carpenter—who is also a friend of ours—to save the knob.

He did.

And I wrote about it.

Another time I wrote about a precious soapstone vase I played with as a child. The consequences of that day of play lasted a long, long time.

My friend and coauthor Charity Singleton Craig uses objects (and places) to launch a “chain of remembrance.” She explains in her newsletter “The Wonder Report“:

I start with something specific: a year, a place, an object. Then I try to remember just one specific thing about it. After that, I try to remember another thing and another after that, allowing each memory to flow from the one before. Eventually, I have a whole chain of memories, often growing stronger and more specific as I go.6

One story can stand alone or link multiple stories for a more complex chain of connections.

“I begin an essay with a willingness to be changed by what I write,” Scott Russell Sanders says. “I do not set out to deliver something I already know, but to inquire into the unknown, to dive into confusion in search of greater clarity.”7

To inquire into the unknown is to start with curiosity—to start with a question.

Your questions could be personal questions, cultural questions, specific questions, or big questions about the meaning of life. 

To get you thinking, here are some of Scott’s questions, which he shares in his book The Way of Imagination:

• Why did my father drink, and how did his drinking affect me?

Scott writes with the same sense of inquiry as Dani Shapiro, who says, “I write in order to discover what I don’t yet know.”9

What questions rise up in you? 

Use those to launch your next writing project.

Have you read something recently that resonated with you—something you wanted to discuss with someone?

• Maybe you ran across an article you connected with, that put words to your thoughts.

In any of these scenarios, you can start with the writing that stirred something up in you. 

Refer to it.

Respond to it. 

Riff on it. 

The world of online writing has expanded the sphere of discussion and debate so that anyone with a digital device can find a way to publish their point of view.

This could be you.

Start by re-reading an existing piece of writing and type your thoughts as a response. 

Weave a select quote from the original with your thoughts. Add other perspectives. This is how we enter the conversation and add our angle and deepen a discussion. 

I first heard about newsjacking from Teej Mercer, founder—or as she calls herself, “Chief Noisemaker”—of Media Mavericks.10 I’ve since learned it’s a known publicity and marketing technique.

The idea is to monitor breaking news and find a connection with your personal brand.

• If you write about health and wellness, you could respond to any study released with your take on it. 

Monitor the news, find your connection to the event or announcement. Learn what’s being said about the event, and bring your slant, story, perspective, and opinion.

You could argue that a cultural event falls under the broader category of news, but I like separating these. Starting with culture might stimulate creative connections to a talked-about episode of a show or a scene from a film.

On a group coaching call in Your Platform Matters (YPM), my membership program, we discussed this concept. After describing Newsjacking, I coined this: “Culture Lassoing.”

That’s because of Ted Lasso.

That show has so many different threads you could engage with. I’ve seen several Twitter threads about mental illness because of some plot twists in this season.

You could use a pop culture phenomenon like that and lasso it. Fans notice the show they love and enter the comments to weigh in.

When The Good Doctor first came out, authors who write about autism analyzed the accuracy of the portrayal of a surgeon who is on the spectrum.

Look at music and movies, social media shifts and gaming trends. Identify what you’ve discovered, decide what to say about it—and share it with the world.

Because you’ve lassoed something with name recognition, you may interact with a whole new set of people you never would have met otherwise.

When you see two product options or two wildly different opinions on something, take a side. Make a claim. Explore it and support it.

• Write a this versus that piece, like Trello versus Notion, front-loading versus top-loading washers, or Yellowstone versus Yosemite National Park

I was an English major with a creative writing emphasis. When I looked to my future, I saw myself writing.

Over the years I managed to build a writing career, but as an English major, I wasn’t prepared for the business aspects of writing.

Invoices, receipts, taxes? That was all foreign to me. Sharing my writing through speaking and social media? That’s not what I imagined when I launched my writing life.

I thought I’d be…writing.

But I had to understand and embrace the four key roles that lead to a flourishing writing career. 

This is how I think of them:

✅ Decider

✅ Delegator

✅ Doer

✅ Declarer

These four roles in a corporate setting might be something like:

➤ CEO

The Decider is like the CEO, the Chief Executive Officer. That’s the top dog, the visionary, the decision-maker.

➤ COO

The Delegator could be the COO, the Chief Operations Officer, the person who figures out how to run the business at a practical level.

➤ CWO

The Doer could be the CWO, the Chief Writing Officer. This role, the CWO, doesn’t exist in the business world, but we’re inventing and elevating it for this discussion because it’s the reason our business exists. Like me, you launched this whole thing so you could write.

➤ CMO

The Declarer is like the CMO, the Chief Marketing Officer: the person who ensures the message gets out.

At any given moment, a flourishing writer may be completing a task that falls under any one of these areas. Some of the tasks and roles don’t seem like the work of a writer, but they all support that core function.

When all four areas are addressed, a writer will start to build a profession, a career, and a sustainable writing life.

And it starts with the Decider.

The DECIDER—the boss, the CEO—is the person making high-level decisions about your writing career. 

You fill this role. 

You decide your author brand, your audience, your career path.

As the Decider, you determine a trajectory that aligns with your goals and values.

• You decide if you’re in learning mode and need to gain more skills or more knowledge of the profession.

When those decisions are grappled with and made, you get to step into a second, practical role—that Delegator, the COO.

The DELEGATOR-you, this COO, is the administrator, the project manager—the person who figures out who will be responsible for a task or activity. 

When you’re the Delegator, you take those decisions and figure out the best way to pull them off. 

If you decide, as the CEO, you need to learn, then the COO or this Delegator-you will research books, courses, and conferences and figure out which ones are best.

The Delegator looks into social media solutions and determines whether to hire someone to map out a marketing campaign or a designer to create images. Or the Delegator might delegate all this work to herself and take a DIY approach. In this instance, you might set up Canva to create images for all your social media feeds and Stories.

As Delegator, you set up calendars with deadlines. You determine practical matters, like apps to use, editors to hire, and ideal systems to set up, so the work gets done effectively and efficiently. 

You’re in this role when you’re researching laptops and asking other writers if they use Scrivener. If you set up a project management system in Trello, ClickUp, or Notion, you’re in this operational mode.

And as Delegator, you tackle every English major’s nightmare: how to create invoices, save receipts, and report taxes. 

This operations role that pulls off the decisions, usually delegating activities, is a practical, supportive aspect of our writing life and career. It’s devoted to setting the writer—the Doer—up for success.

The DOER is the CWO. As I said, the Chief Writing Officer doesn’t really exist in a business, but for the sake of this discussion, we’re coining this term. After all, it’s why all the other roles exist: so the writing gets done.

The Doer-you? This is what you thought you signed up for all those years ago. It’s why I majored in English. I wanted to write.

It’s why you’re reading this article by a writing coach, I’ll bet. You’ve got ideas to share and stories to tell. 

The Doer commits to the creative work that you love most. 

The Doer is the Writer.

When you’re the Doer, you research topics, outline projects, develop the message, and craft the story. 

In fact, not to complicate this further, but the CWO, as chief writing officer, has tasks that you could almost break down into additional areas of responsibility, additional roles. 

Because at any given moment, the Doer, the writer, the CWO, will: 

• Generate ideas

The creative Doer wrangles words onto the page or the screen and completes the project. 

You’ll probably feel deep satisfaction when you’re operating in this role because that’s the core work. That’s why this business you’re in, exists.

Once a project is complete, the work feels finished. The Doer thinks they’re done. 

But how will people read what you’ve written unless you declare that it’s ready to be read? 

How can they find it unless you point to where it lives online or in print? 

That’s where the DECLARER comes in, the CMO, the Chief Marketing Officer. After you complete a writing project, you share it and get the word out about it. 

As the Declarer, you use marketing and promotion tools to creatively get your message in front of the people who need it most.

Most creatives I work with detest this role. They feel weird, sleazy, awkward, or ineffective and want no part in tooting their own horn or praising their own work. They hate the idea of this role of a CMO.

I kept hearing this from clients. 

They wanted to write, not show up on social media or get people on an email list.

They wanted to write, not pitch themselves as a podcast guest or submit their work to an online publication.

I wanted to be able to recommend something to these frustrated writers, but I couldn’t find a great solution focused on the needs of the writer-CMO, so I formed a membership called Your Platform Matters. It’s dedicated to helping writers build a platform and become visible and findable by the readers they want to reach.

We teach the D.E.E.P. platform method that avoids sleazy or unethical tactics and instead, maps out practical approaches for connecting with people in meaningful ways. They’re thinking now like CMOs, reaching and serving readers by taking time to Declare that the work is available.

I hope it helps you reframe this role of the Declarer, the CMO, when you realize you’re serving the words you’ve written, the project, when you share it with others.

You know what else? You serve the reader when you share it, too. 

If you believe in your message enough to write it down, why wouldn’t you also share it to get it in front of the people you were thinking of when you wrote it? 

A publisher shared this with me years ago. We talked about my becoming a speaker—something I’d never considered or imagined at the time. I didn’t want to get in front of others.

He said, “Could you see speaking as another avenue to share that same message? Your words—your message—spoken?” I got it. I had to agree. Even though I didn’t think of myself as a speaker, I did want to share that message. 

I started speaking and I’ve continued to speak for all these years…declaring, in essence, the messages I feel compelled to share.

As a Declarer myself—as CMO of my own modest writing business—I’m looking for ways to reach readers in meaningful ways with the message that the Doer-me has worked so hard to craft and complete.

And part of how I do that is by helping others reach their readers.

The point in reminding you of these four areas and roles and tasks is that writers aren’t always writing. 

At times, you may take on another role and follow through with another task. And that task may keep you from technically writing.

It feels strange and counterintuitive, but all of these roles—and all the related tasks and responsibilities—they all exist to serve the writer, the writing, and ultimately, the reader.

If you’re an English major, trust me:

• You can make decisions about your writing career that set you up for success. 

Embrace these four key roles. At any moment, your work may require the Decider-you, Delegator-you, Doer-you, or Declarer-you to step up and do something. For your business to succeed, you may need you to step into the CEO, COO, CWO, or CMO position. 

Find freedom in recognizing that you may not have your fingers on the keyb...