Lit Lessons on Flight School

Hi and welcome into Flight School, where good writers become great:

The cool kiss of fall in the air. Dry leaves dropping from still green trees. Shorter days. It’s back-to-school time and this fall I'm opening the vaults to three free mini-classes pulled from my core teaching, The Bones of Storytelling which is the ten-year labor of love that's transformed the work of over 500 writers and earned the title "game changer" from every single participant.

Whether you're staring at page one or drowning in your fifth draft, these sessions will give you the structural backbone your story has been craving. You'll walk away knowing exactly where you're going—and how to get there.

📆 Monday, September 1 at 10:00 a.m. PST

The What-If Deep Dive

Open up your story instead of closing it down

We crack your project wide open in the best possible way. I'll demonstrate the What-If technique that's rescued countless manuscripts from the graveyard of good intentions. Watch as we blow the walls off your current constraints and reveal the vistas that have been waiting all along. By the end, you'll have a roadmap that makes the impossible feel inevitable.

📆 Monday, September 8 at 10:00 a.m. PST

The Seven Sacred Plots

Which ancient structure is calling your story home?

Every story—memoir or novel—is built on one of seven fundamental plot structures. With detailed handouts and real-world examples from today's bestsellers, I'll show you how to identify the beating heart of your narrative. Stop wandering in the wilderness. Your story's spine is right there, waiting to be discovered and claimed.

📆 Monday, September 15 at 10:00 a.m. PST

The Six Forces of Antagonism

Mapping the resistance that makes readers turn pages

One protagonist, but three dimensions of conflict working against them. Most writers only see the obvious antagonist and wonder why their story feels flat. I'll teach you to spot all six antagonistic forces lurking in your narrative and show you how to tighten that tension until your story hums with electricity.

These sessions are my thank-you to the Flight School community—writers who show up, dig deep, and do the work. Get an insider's look at this Bones teaching.

Just starting? Perfect. Get the foundation right from day one.Deep in revision hell? Even better. Let's give you the clarity to see the way out.

Reserve your spot—completely free & leave inspired, excited, and armed with the structural insights that separate published authors from perpetual revisers.

See you soon, Jennifer

Hi and welcome back to Flight School:

If you missed our live summer conversation, not to worry. I’ve edited it and present it here. Watch and witness writers discovering their true audience and experiencing real-time breakthroughs.

Our central question (thanks to Becky) was deceptively simple: Who do you want to talk to in your own writing? Stories found their direction and writers claimed their heroic journeys. It was pretty impressive to behold.

The Heart of the Conversation

Writers in our intimate group revealed their own specific audiences: an estranged son and fellow military "brats" (00:05:53), people struggling with workplace corruption (00:07:38), those without family creating community from isolation (00:17:16), and future grandchildren not yet born (00:20:13).

One writer shared her family's grace: "May we have eyes that see, ears that hear, hearts that love, and hands that help each other" (00:21:51)—which became the perfect opening scene for her memoir (00:23:33).

We also delved into the challenges of writing difficult topics, the legal realities of using real names (00:33:19), and the fundamental truth that scene writing—not idea writing—being what allows story to emerge in an authentic manner (00:30:26).

Three Key Takeaways

1. The More Specific Your Audience, The More Universal Your Impact

When you write to reach one particular person or group, emotional stakes become clear and you touch the human experience we all share.

2. Trust the Story to Drive Itself

Like a self-driving car (00:16:15), your story will find its way to the heroic destination if you commit to writing in scene—specific moments in time where something happens. Keep your hands off the analytical wheel and trust the process.

3. All Writing is Autobiographical

Whether writing fiction or memoir, you cannot write what you don't know (00:38:52), and you are always the hero of your story. The only question is whether you'll be tragic or transformed. The writing itself will show you.

Watch, listen, and when done, please join in the conversation.

✍🏻Your Turn:

Who do you want to talk to in your own writing?

Share your answer in the comments. Try to be specific, vulnerable, and see if the answer reveals itself through the question itself.

Hi and welcome to Flight School:

Our first paid-subscriber Studio titled Perils & Promise was a hit. Thanks to everyone who showed up live.

REMINDER: The Second Perils and Promise with Becky and me is coming August 14th. If you are a paid-subscriber, you get in free. Look for your code in the footer of the email. ** Remember to add the bird.

Two core teachings arose from this first conversation: Managing time and writing in scene.

⏰ Let’s start with time:

Whether it was Bruce, at seventy-seven, who worried about running out of time, Lori at eighty, wondering if she has the energy to finish her novel, or our younger writers juggling kids and careers, the struggle with time was universal but we learned it isn't about time but about consistency within your capacity.

"I am a full-time believer in writing habits, pedestrian as it all may sound. You may be able to do without them if you have genius, but most of us only have talent, and this is simply something that has to be assisted all the time by physical and mental habits, or it dries up and blows away...I only write two hours every day because that's all the energy I have, but I don't let anything interfere with those two hours, at the same time and the same place."

~ Flannery O’Connor

1. Assess Your Real Capacity

Ask yourself Flannery's question: What energy do I actually have? Not what you think you should have but what you actually have available. For some of us, it’s fifteen-minute bursts, others get an hour in the morning, and still others get three. Bottom line: Find out what you CAN DO and do it.

2. Protect Your Time Fiercely

The magic isn't in the duration—it's in the reliability. Find YOUR time and then protect it like your life depends on it. Because your writing life does.

3. Trust Process Over the Product

This last is the hardest lesson of all: showing up matters more than what you produce.

For the Time-Pressed and Energy-Limited

If you're feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of your project:

Start with lists. Human beings are extraordinary list-makers. Ten moments with your father. Ten defining experiences. Ten scenes that matter.

Write big, then slim down. Give yourself permission to overwrite. Becky's father's story was once 300 pages—now it's 32. But she needed those 300 pages to find the 32 that mattered.

Trust the reader. You need less connective tissue than you think. Those moments in time will speak to each other.

📝Great writing is sensual not mental

Now you have a handle on managing your time, it’s time to discipline your method. Write in scene. Always and evermore. Amen.

Did you know that a reader needs at least three sensual cues to feel as if they are “in” your story? It’s true. If you are telling, you are not writing well. If you are showing (another way to say writing scene), you are on your way becoming a great writer. Scene-writing takes your idea into the material world and “enlivens” it. Learn how to do this NOW. Take Scene vs. Exposition. If you are a paid subscriber, you get 20% off. Do it. Once you get scene writing, watch the quality of your work rise like phoenix.

More tips on scene:

* Manageable scope: One moment in time versus an entire life story

* Natural stopping points: When the scene ends, you can rest

* Cumulative power: Each scene builds your story and your skills

* Revelation through action: As Becky noted, "Scene will corner you and take you to that moment you haven't really been wanting to write about”

REMINDER: The Second Perils and Promise Conversation with Becky and Jennifer is coming August 14th. If you are paid, you get in free. Look for your code in the footer of the email. Remember to add the bird.

✍🏻 Your turn:

What is your writing practice right now? How do you keep going when you want to give up?

Thanks for being here, and I look forward to seeing you all soon,

Jennifer ~ 🐦‍⬛

Welcome into Flight School:

Save the dates: July 31st & Aug. 14th at 9:00 a.m. PST

(🐦‍⬛Free for subscribers. Find your code in the footer of this email)

What: A two-part live conversation with me and my co-teacher, Becky Ellis. We are both memoirists and fiction writers and will share what have we learned about perseverance and success, and discuss how memoir and the novel are the same.

Plus, we want to hear from you. Bring your challenges and concerns about your writing journey to the conversation. We’re here to support you.

Sign up now: Space is limited so get save your spot.

The Agent Who Broke My Heart (and My Confidence)

“You cannot only write memoir,” my big-wig literary agent sneered. “You MUST write a novel. Do it. Do it NOW!”

If you think I’m exaggerating, I’m not. This is how a very high-end, and very well respected agent spoke to me when I was a new writer and experiencing unprecedented success with my first memoir, Blackbird. Tough love worked with all the Bestselling-Iconic-Writers-I-Cannot-Name that she represented and who was I to quibble? I went to work.

A year or so later, I gave her my first novel about dreams and dreaming, saying I knew it wasn’t good but that I was trying. She mocked it, tore it to shreds and laughed me out of our relationship.

While letting her go didn’t help my career, I told myself I’d rather work with people who were helpful vs. helping me over a cliff.

The Second Time Around

Fast-forward twenty-years and I wrote a five POV novel set in WWI Italy. Literary with historic elements. My new agent was on fire for the book and had several editors eager to read based on my past successes with Blackbird.

Out it went in 2021 and here are the rejections.

One editor, only one, wanted to work with me but only if I redrafted the entire book killing nearly all the characters and reshaping the plot based on her vision and tastes. No contract. No advance.

Agent Number Two told me to “do it! It’ll be great.”

Another agent let go. Another bridge burned. Plus, those twenty-seven rejections tormented me. Each one a small death pushing me further from my desk and the possibility of becoming a novelist. That’s it, I told myself. I cannot do it. I am not smart enough. I just don’t get this. I can’t. I tossed the book into a box and shoved it in the back of a closet.

The Wilderness Years

Fast forward another four years and I’ve just completed another draft of that book. Version eight was in 2024 and version nine was just this summer.

I have no agent yet but that’s the least of my worries because I know I’ve nailed it. At last. I abandoned representation but I kept my writer’s soul.

How?

By diving deeper into craft and form. Over these years, I read and taught great literature. I studied and taught structure, voice, point of view. I built classes for others and helped them grow in craft and form, too. And most of all, I learned that all those editorial rejections weren’t a verdict on my worth as a writer but evidence I had further to go down the path of learning. Once down that path, it was time to pull the book out of the dark and start again.

The Resurrection: 90 Days of Revision that Changed Everything

Four hours every morning. Two thousand words every day. Focus, focus, focus. And in this, draft number nine, I’ve created from a place of hard-won craft knowledge and emotional honesty I hadn't possessed before.

The story that emerged, The Home Tree, spans from 1881 to 1917 and follows siblings Maria and Vincenzo Favaro as they flee violent trauma in childhood and rebuild their lives in a new place. Where the original manuscript skated across the surface of their pain, this version plunged deep. I wrote about Maria's sixteen years of sexual captivity. I explored how Vincenzo, born of rape, must confront his violent origins to become the hero his family needs. I anchored everything in the central metaphor of oak trees that survive by being broken open to offer sanctuary—a image that carried the emotional weight the earlier version had lacked.

Craft Revelations that Made All the Difference

One editor who passed on the book wrote: “It has a fairytale-like quality and the writing that I'm finding difficult to fully connect with." I took that to heart and this version is grounded in authentic historical detail and psychological truth.

Where other editors struggled with "five perspectives," I now have complete command of multiple points of view that serve the emotional architecture. And, I've learned the difference between a story and situation. The first manuscript had been a situation—things happened to characters. This new version was a story—characters were transformed by what happened to them, and that transformation drives every page.

This is the book I was meant to write about how families weather trauma across generations, how ordinary people find extraordinary courage when everything familiar crumbles, and how the courage to face painful truths becomes the foundation for healing and renewal.

The Hard-Won Wisdom: What Rejection Really Teaches Us

Rejection is not the opposite of success—it's part of the journey toward it. Every "no" teaches something essential about craft and relationship.

When I seek out my next agent, I have battle scars enough to know who I’ll work with and who will get a big old pass. And I expect many agents will want to represent this book because it’s that good. Watch this space.

The perils of the creative writing journey are real. Rejection stings. Self-doubt is relentless. The marketplace can feel impossible to navigate. But the promises are equally real: each failure makes you stronger, each revision teaches you something new, and persistence—combined with genuine craft development—eventually leads to work that finds its champions.

Whether you're choosing between novel and memoir, struggling with a story that won't come together, or facing your own stack of rejections, know this: the work is teaching you what it needs to become. Your job is to keep learning, keep growing, and keep believing that the story you're meant to tell will find its way to the page when you're finally ready to write it.

🎙️Your Turn: Join the Conversation

Let’s take a deep dive into your own perils and promise as a creative writer. Part One of our conversation is Thursday, July 31st at nine A.M. PST. Part Two is Thursday, August 14th at nine A.M. PST. Don’t miss these talks.

Subscribers come for free, so use the code in the footer of this email and if you have ANY trouble, email me pronto and I’ll get it to you.

We'll dive deep into the craft decisions, emotional breakthroughs, and practical strategies that transform failure into triumph. See you there.

✍️ Until we meet, share your own promises and perils in the comments. Where are you on the journey? What troubles you the most? What is your greatest victory so far?

Welcome to Flight School:

It’s time to take a deep dive on “Everything That Rises Must Converge.” If you haven’t read it, click the link, read, and come on back. If you have, let’s continue.

“Everything” is one of the last stories Flannery O'Connor completed before her death and emerges from a tumultuous period in American history. The Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954 mandated school desegregation, and by the early 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement was gaining powerful, violent momentum.

Closer to home, O'Connor battled lupus, a disease that killed her father and would kill her before her fortieth birthday. A devote Catholic, O’Connor was was drawn to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's concept of the "Omega Point" where the universe evolves toward a point of maximum complexity and consciousness, where everything that rises must converge.

Cut to the quick socially and personally, and armed with this interest in faith meeting science, O’Connor’s pen was a sharp and relentless blade that produced this unforgettable and disturbing story.

Core Teaching: Arc and Symbolic Progression

The story follows Julian's failed attempt at moral and intellectual superiority and culminates in a devastating realization of his own emptiness when faced with his mother's mortality.

O'Connor builds this arc through escalating symbols and encounters—each element transferring energy to the next, creating unstoppable momentum.

The Hat:

“It was a hideous hat. A purple velvet flap came down on one side of it and stood up on the other; the rest of it was green and looked like a cushion with the stuffing out. He decided it was less comical than jaunty and pathetic. Everything that gave her pleasure was small and depressed him.”

* Represents the mother's vanity and outdated values

* Becomes a symbol of connection when the black woman boards wearing the identical hat

* Transforms into an emblem of humiliation for both women

* Becomes irrelevant in the face of mortality

The Bus Passengers and the Challenge to Worldviews:

“She sat forward and looked up and down the bus. It was half filled. Everybody was white. ‘I see we have the bus to ourselves,’ she said. Julian cringed. ‘For a change,’ said the woman across the aisle, the owner of red and white canvas sandals. “I come on the other day and they were thick as fleas—up front and all through.’”

* White passengers (familiar territory)

* The well-dressed black man (challenges mother's paternalistic racism while confirming Julian's superficial progressivism)

* The black woman with the same hat (creates the "convergence" that neither Julian nor his mother can process)

* The black woman's child (catalyst for the final confrontation)

Julian's Self-Awareness:

“‘That was the whole colored race which will no longer take your condescending pennies. That was your black double. She can wear the same hat as you, and to be sure,’ he added gratuitously (because he thought it was funny), ‘it looked better on her than it did on you. What all this means,’ he said, ‘is that the old world is gone. The old manners obsolete and your graciousness not worth a damn.’”

* Begins with smug superiority and condescension toward his mother

* Seeks to teach her a "lesson" by attempting to talk to the well-dressed black man

* Fantasizes about extreme ways to shock her (bringing home a black woman)

* Fails to recognize his own prejudices and limitations

* Experiences a moment of terrible clarity when it's too late

The story's final line,"The tide of darkness seemed to sweep him back to her, postponing from moment to moment his entry into the world of guilt and sorrow," represent Julian's moment of convergence—when his intellectual posturing crumbles in the face of genuine human connection and loss.

This is the quintessential O'Connor end—a moment of grace delivered through shock and loss that shines light on a truth the protagonist was been blind to throughout. Julian's moment of clarity embodies O'Connor's Catholic understanding that grace often come through violence and suffering.

✍🏻Your turn: Prompts

* When have you had a moment of moral superiority so intense, so powerful, so all consuming that you lost track of the deeper call to be kind?

* What certain something cannot be forgiven and fosters deep resentment in you?

* What person, in your life, harbors a powerful grudge against you and just barely tolerates you while also feeling the need to school you?

These prompts carry a certain brutality but if you can write about such things in your own life, you’re on your way to uncovering the deepest truths of the human experience. What you learn is creative-writing rocket fuel and will make your book a classic.

~ Jennifer,🐦‍⬛

Hi, and welcome to Week Four:

This is the mid-point of the challenge—twenty-one days to go.

From the live conversation, here are some major revelations, a bomb breakthrough, and a wrestling match with AI:

Jill's Profound Truth: "If I don't tell my story, somebody else will and they'll get it wrong." The line of the entire challenge—the recognition that avoiding our truth doesn't make it disappear, it just hands the narrative to someone else.

Bridget's Parameter Victory: 1,000 words a day. Not overwhelming, just "puke it out" and check—good enough. Those parameters become liberation, not limitation.

Kristi's Emotional Archaeology: Getting up at 5:30 AM, plugging away through childhood trauma, learning to create chapters in Word documents. The tools matter, but the courage to face "fricking sad" material matters more.

💣 The Internal Family Systems/HeartSync was revolutionary: we are magnificently made to transform suffering into wisdom. Every split that happened preserved your true self. Every fragment that seems broken is part of an intricate system designed for restoration.

💪🏼Judith's conversation with Claude revealed a modern wrestling match: how to use AI without giving away our thinking power. The key insight: demand comparable titles, not just compliments. AI sees patterns we miss, but we're still smarter than our tools. Use them for what they do well—pattern recognition—not for what only humans can do, which is feeling the heat of an authentic story.

Week Four Mission: Embrace the Wrestling

1. Thank Your Guardians: When encountering resistance to writing something, pause. Thank the part of you that's protecting that material. "Thank you for keeping this safe until I was ready." Then ask: "What do you need from me to trust this process?"

2. Write From Dissonance: Notice where you're writing from safety about danger, from wisdom about confusion. This gap isn't a flaw—it's your storytelling superpower. Lean into it.

3. Use Parameters as Liberation: Follow Bridget's lead by setting boundaries that feel manageable. Fifteen minutes when you can't do an hour. 1,000 words when 3,000 feels overwhelming. Parameters aren't limitations—they're launching pads.

The Midpoint Promise

The surge isn't about perfection but staying in the wrestling match until something transforms—your story, your voice, your understanding of what you're writing about.

This week, remember you were made for this work. The suffering, the healing, the integration—all of it. Keep wrestling. The breakthrough is in the struggle.

Enjoy the replay of the live meeting and see you in the comments, Jennifer 🐦‍⬛

Thanks for reading Blackbird's Flight School with Jennifer Lauck! This post is public so feel free to share it.

Welcome to Flight School:

Our first live meeting was packed with early risers ready to talk about process and stay inspired through connection and community.

The Universal Struggles

Time emerged as our collective nemesis and we learned the solution isn't finding more hours—it's claiming the quiet ones. Early mornings from 4:30 to 7:30 are the most fruitful of all. The trick? Set boundaries with technology and resist the midnight Netflix traps.

Perfectionism also was called out as as enemy. Get it good, get it close enough, then keep moving forward.

Relevance: "How do I make something from long ago matter right now?" The answer: memoir isn't about events—it's about the person. Bridge who you were then with who you are now. Bridging that gap equal wisdom.

The Self-Loathing Problem

We also confronted the American writer's tendency toward self-doubt. When the Dalai Lama encountered Western psychologists discussing self-loathing, Tibetan translators needed ten minutes to explain the concept—they had no word for hating oneself.

His response? "This is a huge problem."

If we can't value ourselves, how can we value our work? How can we love our children or neighbors? The antidote isn't false bravado—it's deepening your craft. When we perfect our craft, doubt dissolves because we know our work is good.

This handout was given to shore up your skills:

Look at the teaching on meaning, sense, and clarity—the foundation of all good writing, you’ll grow in mastery. Plus, it’s so hard and requires so much focus, you won’t have time to doubt.

The second way to grow in craft, now, is learn how write a scene. Here on Flight School paid subscribers get 20% off the CORE video class: Scene/Exposition/Progression. It’s a must-take and will boost your confidence.

This Week's Mission:

Get over to the challenge site and check in daily.

Share your progress.

Read and respond to your fellow writers.

Remember: showing up is a complete story with conflict, character development, and resolution.

The surge has begun. Now we keep flying.

Jennifer 🐦‍⬛

Next challenge post: Wednesday at midnight. Next live meeting: June 18th.

Hi Flight Schooler’s:

Welcome to our second annual summer writing challenge: The Summer Surge.

When: The first week of June to the middle of July (June 4th is our launch date, with our first Zoom at 9:00 a.m. PST)

What: A six-week intensive writing challenge with daily accountability and bi-weekly live Zoom sessions

Why: Because summer shouldn't mean your writing takes a vacation

🐦‍⬛ This Summer, Don't Just Dream It — Write It

Summer often brings disruption to our writing routines. Kids are home, vacations beckon, and the longer days tempt us away from our desks. But what if this summer could be different? What if these six weeks became your most productive writing period of the year?

🐦‍⬛ What You'll Gain

* Daily Momentum – Consistent check-ins to keep you accountable

* Community Power – Draw strength and inspiration from fellows

* Expert Guidance – Direct feedback and support from me throughout your journey

* Finish Line Focus – Structure designed to help you complete what you start

🐦‍⬛ Who Should Join?

Writers looking to revitalize a stalled project

Anyone aiming to complete a significant writing goal by mid-July

Previous challenge participants ready for their next breakthrough

New writers seeking structure and accountability

I'll work alongside you, finishing my own novel, The Home Tree. Last year's draft work was transformative—this year, we'll push even further together.

Save the date

June 4th and register for our first meeting below. The challenge page will launch on midnight, PST that day.

This summer, let's turn intention into completion. Let me know, in the comments, who is coming and what you plan to work on in these weeks together. It’s time to surge.

Jennifer, 🐦‍⬛

Thanks for reading Blackbird's Flight School with Jennifer Lauck! This post is public so feel free to share it.

"Well, if it's a symbol, to hell with it," Flannery O'Connor said and silenced a room of NY intellectuals. This Exclusive Writing Lab explores how a sharp-witted Georgian created literature that still unsettles readers sixty years after her death.

Welcome into Flight School:

The first time I read Flannery O’Connor, I did not care for her work. It was too intense, too “in your face,” too raw. Now, I’m older, a revert back to Catholicism after many years away, and a writing teacher, I find she is the most honest writers I’ve had the good fortune to read. It’s not a stretch to say she is also one of the most important writers of our time.

Thomas Merton, author of The Seven Storey Mountain, compared her, not to contemporaries like Hemingway, Porter, or Sartre, but to Sophocles, “…for all the truth and all the craft with which she shows man’s fall and dishonor.”

Elizabeth Bishop wrote: “I’m sure her few books will live on and on in American literature. They are narrow, possibly, but they are clear, hard, vivid and full of bits of description, phases and an odd insight that contains more real poetry than a dozen books of poems.”

For those unfamiliar with her work, O'Connor's prose hits with brute force:

From A Good Man Is Hard to Find, the famous line from the Misfit reflects on the grandmother: "She would of been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."

From Revelation, when Mary Grace attacks Mrs. Turpin: "The girl raised her head and directed her fierce brilliant eyes at Mrs. Turpin. She had a peculiar face, highly colored and unnaturally red, as if its skin had been bound too tight."

From Everything That Rises Must Converge, the moment of Julian's realization at the end: "The tide of darkness seemed to sweep him back to her, postponing from moment to moment his entry into the world of guilt and sorrow."

And it’s not just her stories. If you can get your hands on her letters, do it. My favorite is The Habit of Being. The pure truth, wit and grace of Flannery O’Connor will inspire you to unearth similar qualities that you might stifle in these times of “diagnosis” and exhausting self-editing that started with the political-correctness movement and have only accelerated into madness during this current “misinformation” era. A woman can’t speak a single line without double checking who she’s offended.

I say bring back the honest woman, and perhaps that’s what you’ll find in this excellent writer and thinker taken from us too soon.

“Everywhere I go, I’m asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them.”

~ From a letter O’Connor wrote to her friend “A” (Betty Hester) dated February 8, 1958, The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor, edited by Sally Fitzgerald.

Mary Flannery O’Connor was born in 1925, in Savannah, Georgia. This year, she would have been a hundred years old, and we would have a library of brilliant writing to show for it. Instead, we have a tight, concise, and amazing collection of works created in her short but productive time on earth. O’Connor died of complications from lupus in 1964 at age thirty-nine. Despite her illness that confined her to her family farm in Milledgeville, Georgia for much of her adult life, she produced two novels, almost forty short stories, and numerous essays and letters.

O’Connor as Artist

O’Connor’s artistic vision was singular and uncompromising, her fiction characterized by gothic elements and southern settings, grotesque characters and violent revelations. She wrote sharp, economical prose rife with dark humor and shocking plot twists.

Her dedication to revision was legendary. “I rewrite as much as I write,” she noted, evidence of her commitment to perfecting her craft that continued until her final days. Even as her health failed, she continued working. In the last months of her life, she mailed her publisher Robert Giroux Judgment Day and revised versions of The Geranium and An Exile in the East. She worked until she fell into a coma—a testament to her extraordinary commitment.

O’Connor as Catholic

“I write the way I do because I am Catholic,” O’Connor said about her work. “This is a fact and nothing covers it like the bald statement.”

She grew up surrounded by protestants and battled with bigotry and critics. More so when she entered the intellectual elite of creative writers. One famous incident was when O’Connor attended a literary dinner party in New York, likely in the late 1940s or early 1950s. At this time, O’Connor studied at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and spent time in literary circles in New York. At a gathering hosted by Mary McCarthy, a writer known for her secular humanism and sharp wit, McCarthy spoke of the Eucharist as a “symbol” she found “interesting.”

“Well, if it’s a symbol, to hell with it,” O’Connor said, silencing McCarthy and the room. Silent for much of the evening to that point, O’Connor explained that she believed the Eucharist was truly the body and blood of Christ, not merely a symbol. She would never be accused of watering down her faith for intellectual acceptance.

Her faith also manifested in her works, writing from themes of divine grace operating in the material world, of characters experiencing moments of revelation, often through violence or suffering and always, and ever more, focusing on sin, redemption, and judgment.

O’Connor’s work is never didactic or sentimental. She claws at theological concepts through stark, often disturbing narratives that will shake you to the core.

Going Against the Tide

While much mid-20th century American fiction embraced realism or modernist experimentation, O’Connor created her own distinct style that drew from Southern Gothic traditions but transcended them. She rejected pious, sentimental religious fiction in favor of stories that depicted grace in violent, disturbing ways. Though a Southern writer, she avoided romanticizing the South and instead portrayed its contradictions and failures. As a woman writer in the 1950s, she defied expectations by refusing to write domestic fiction or romances, instead creating dark, theological works populated with complex, often unlikable characters.

One of O’Connor’s most remarkable qualities was her absolute commitment to her vision, even when faced with editorial pressure. A revealing exchange with a publisher regarding the first nine chapters of Wise Blood makes the point:

The editor wrote to her, calling her a “straight shooter” with “an astonishing gift,” but suggested that aspects of the book were “obscured by her habit of rewriting over and over again.” He added that he sensed “a kind of aloneness” in the book, as if she were writing out of her own limited experience, and wished she would “sit down and tell him what was what.”

In response, O’Connor wrote to her friend Miss McKee: “Please tell me what is behind this Sears-Roebuck-Straight-Shooter approach. I presume…either that the publisher will not take the novel as it will be if left to my fiendish care (it will be essentially as it is), or that the publisher would like to rescue it at this point and train it into a conventional novel… the letter is addressed to a slightly dimwitted Campfire Girl and I cannot look forward with composure to a lifetime of others like them.”

To the publisher himself, she wrote: “I can only hope that in the novel the direction will be clearer…I feel that whatever virtues the novel may have are very much connected with the limitations you mentioned. I am not writing a conventional novel, and I think that the quality of the novel I write will derive precisely from the peculiarity, or aloneness, if you will, of the experience I write from…In short, I am amenable to criticism, but only within the sphere of what I’m trying to do; I will not pretend to do otherwise. The finished book, though I hope less angular, will be just as odd if not odder than the nine chapters you now have.”

Lessons for Modern Writers

* Hold all feedback about your work with a light hand: Rather than seeking approval, seek ways to clarify your vision. IE: Get closer to nature. Be quiet. And most of all, re-write.

* Stop suffering fools: Focus on your work, always and evermore. People might not get you right now, even in your own workshop. Your point isn’t be to be“understood” by everyone or even liked. It’s to be a better writer.

* Commitment to craft: Despite her illness, O’Connor maintained a strict writing schedule and never stopped revising. When you are kvetching about time and challenges, remember O’Connor and create a manageable writing plan that plays the long game.

* Embrace the unconventional: O’Connor’s work stands out because she refused to follow literary trends. Take heart. Create what is true and beautiful and the rest will fall into place.

Reading O’Connor Today

Over the next few posts, I’m going to do an analysis of three stories, Everything that Rises Must Converge, Revelation and A Good Man is Hard to Find. I’ll try to supply copies for each conversation but if I cannot, I suggest adding The Complete Stories to your library.

If you’ve not read her work yet, a few things to note:

* She is not easy to read: Her stories make many uncomfortable (including myself when I first encountered her) but will never quite leave your mind. Approach with an extremely open mind and you’ll do well here.

* Set aside knee-jerk and outraged reactions to her language: O’Connor’s Southern vernacular is part of her historical authenticity. Rather than judging it by cancel culture standards, consider it represents the true southern experience of that time and of those people. She was many things, but O’Connor was not a liar.

* Read more than once: The depth and complexity of O’Connor’s stories reveal themselves through our reactions to them, the more intense the reaction, the more revealing of our own hearts and actions. She has defamiliarized language and storytelling in her collection and each rereading offers new insights.

O’Connor reminds us that great art isn’t always comfortable or easily digestible. It’s often challenging, disorienting, and profoundly unsettling—but ultimately transformative.

Your turn ✍️

What was your first connect with Flannery O’Connor? Share in comments. I’m listening.

Thanks for being with me for this terrific conversation, Jennifer 🐦‍⬛

Welcome into Flight School:

“You would make a wonderful teacher,” she said.

She being a spiritual guru in the tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Gray hair slicked back into a bun, deep red robes worked over a white cotton blouse, and black cotton pants. She was in her late fifties, I think. So exotic. So mysterious.

We sat in a meadow, this guru and I, surrounded by tall grasses and wildflowers. Her on a cushion. Me on my knees in the dirt. A true supplicant.

Tiny white butterflies flitted about in that dry, crisp, clean air only found in the Rocky Mountains, but I didn’t notice them or much of anything back then. Rather, I was tangled in terrible angst. What next? I kept asking myself. I had finally left behind an implacable husband and now had a terrifying solo life ahead raising my beautiful but young children.

To this point, writing had paid me but what if I never published another book?

What if I couldn’t go back to journalism?

What if, what if?

I was here with a ridiculous and utopic vision of mediation as solution to my confusion, anxiety, and woes. This woman, well intended I’m sure, had an agenda hidden behind that serene smile and calm demeanor. She needed devoted followers who would help her build and finance her 650 acre retreat center. As part of this underlying need, was now nudging me into the shared-contacts model of business growth and development.

“You’ve published three books. Teach writing,” she continued and then offered her retreat center as my first venue.

Not seeing that she was eager to draw on my successes in publishing to include my wide fanbase, I took her suggestion as genuine guidance even though it confused me. Really? Me? A teacher? I couldn’t see it. I was rather…edgy. Introverted, studious to the point of geeky, exacting, and a writing snob meaning I had extremely high lierary standards.

Fast forward twenty-plus years later, and it turns out that all those qualities make for a great teacher. Once honed.

Today, I run The Blackbird Studio for Writers and Flight School. The former, a boutique idea-to-publication program of carefully curated writers who study with me, often for years. Heroes, hard workers, and talented to the point of heartbreak as you see from the sampling above. (You can find more of this over on my Instagram).

The latter, Flight School, my virtual meadow where you are invited to sit a while, experience my teaching and figure out if you want more. Flight School is a sublime place to start because the “agenda” factor isn’t in play. Sure, I want you to become a student but only if it is a great fit.

Every writer has something life changing to write—for themselves first and then for the reader—and that’s what I help you discover. You don’t have to be the most talented natural writer to get there but you do have to have a certain something. In my years I’ve found it to be a mix of humility, obstinate persistence, and focus. Accountability helps.

Over ten years, I’ve built a program that can help such a writer realize a goal as simple as “just getting it all down for my kids” to “writing a book worthy of big five publishing.” The tools I’ve honed over these years work.

My Method

* Practical, accessible, progressive teachings that make sense

* Practice, practice, practice through workshopping and line editing

* Personal advice based on your unique style and needs

I don’t like teaching. I love it. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Teachers are held to an incredible standard that weighs heavy on my shoulders (like raising kids) but it’s incredible to work through the stages of growth and stagnation together. My job is to hold steady with writers, sometimes pushing, sometimes backing off but always seeking that pearl of lived truth. Memoir. Fiction. It doesn’t matter, I say. We’re always writing about ourselves. And that truth is always there, waiting in the softest, most hidden part of the heart.

A mountain of thanks to that guru who told me to teach all those years ago. Agenda or not, she was right. I am a teacher.

✍️Your Turn: Post in the comments

Share your pivotal moment. What unexpected advice changed your path forever? Or for my students past and present—what's one specific writing breakthrough you've experienced in our work together?

Thanks for being with me, Jennifer 🐦‍⬛

PS: Did you know I wrote and published four books? Blackbird’s nearing it’s 25th Anniversary. Click here or on the image. Check it out!

Flight School with Jennifer Lauck is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.