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“Il faut cultiver notre jardin,” —Voltaire
For those of us who don’t do fancy French, this means:
“We must cultivate our garden,” says Pangloss at the end of Voltaire’s Candide.
No sentiment could be truer for women who write. Stop focusing on the whole wide world. Instead, maintain a space that is your own and encourages the fruits of your labors to blossom.
But the process of growing our garden requires the right tools. Reading this blog and learning how to revise your own stories could help you cultivate your garden, obtain peace of mind, and establish your writing legacy. Happy reading and writing!
Looking for a specific writing topic? Search the entire blog below.
Don’t Be the Hero of Your Memoir
Isn’t everyone a hero these days?
Parents. People with chronic illnesses. Women. Most definitely women are all heroines, right?
Now before you jump down my throat for being sarcastic know that I’m all the above.
Yes, life’s been challenging for me, and nearly everyone I know since 2020, but don’t stick me with some hero label. Call me jaded, but I don’t think the title of hero needs to be given to everyone who excels at or overcomes something in life. That doesn’t mean we don’t need the uniqueness of our stories.
On the contrary, we need anti-hero stories now more than ever.
To Outline Or Not To Outline? Maybe That’s NOT the Question
You were forced to do it in high school or college. Maybe you even got a grade for it. Some authors swear by it. Others break out in hives when you mention the word.
The Outline.
Why does this little process provoke so much anxiety?
Brainstorming to Story Building
Got words on a page? You do? Well, that qualifies you as a writer.
But I’ll admit, the writer’s game drives me kind of cuckoo. There’s so much advice out there about overcoming writer’s block and finding inspiration, but little on how to construct a solid story. Even reading the best advice of bestselling authors, you’ll find more on overcoming resistance than a blueprint for how an actual author—actually writes.
Show Me Your Process
Identifying your own process is a major undertaking.
Some writers act like theirs was etched into stone by the gods and is so sacred nobody gets to see it. Others pretend like it doesn’t exist at all. Like writing just happens in furious bursts of unexplainable creativity.
That’s crap! Process can be creative and practical. But it must be developed.
And if a writer isn’t talking about their process, it’s because it scares them.