Inspiration comes in strange forms. And often seemingly out of nowhere. While I don’t usually write in any form other than pros, the idea came to me to write a poem. But in a very specific way: using Tarot cards. Because, why not? After all, if I can use them for everything else, why not for a poem?
As soon as the idea hit, so did all possible complication I could think of:
How many cards should I draw?
Should I draw one card per stanza? Per line?
If I need to figure that out, then I need to figure out the form of my poem ahead of time, wouldn’t I?
What if I drew one card as the topic of the stanza, and then a card for each line?
Maybe a card for the beginning of the line and the end of the line?
What if the start of the stanza was the topic card reversed and the stanza was about how to right the card?
Etc.
And of course, how would you decide what that card has to say? After all, you’re not doing a reading. This is a poem. The cards can say so many different things based on the cards around them, the prompt or question, or simply the feel of the reading. Could I read a card in the form of a poem rather than as a reading as a whole?
K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple, Stupid
Then I realized I was making this way too complicated.
Writing, like divination, is about feeling it out. It’s about tapping into that water aspect of ourselves, our creative, intuitive self. It’s about diving deep into our wells and oceans and seeing what we pull from the depths.
In other words, it’s about going with the flow.
So I tried it out, letting the cards tell me how many I was to draw.
I took a deep breath and sank into my body, letting my hands do what they knew to do: shuffle the cards , letting my fingers feel the directions of them. I stopped thinking, and instead simply felt. And when the time was right, I began putting cards down without too much thought.
The Process
I chose one per line, and each angled row of cards was a different stanza.
Here’s what my process looked like:
I breathed in a drew a card at a time, letting the deck dictate where to put each card and when to stop.
I assigned each card on word.
I looked at each stanza, writing down the word per line, then spent time writing the stanza itself, incorporating the essence of the meaning of the word.
I moved on to the next stanza, repeating the process until I was finished.
Add up the cards in each stanza to get a theme for the stanza in the form of the Major Arcana.
While I’m not going to share what I wrote (I am certainly no poet), I wanted to share the essence of what each line revolved around, to give you an example of how you might play around with this method.
Title
Okay, so I didn’t intentionally pull a title. I happened to have a card that popped out when I was moving the deck, and thought I would stick it at the top and see if that card came into play at all.
In my opinion, it did.
It was the 8 of Swords – self-bound.
The 8 of Swords is a reminder that while the situation might seem difficult, you are the one who holds the ends of your ropes. You have the ability to change your perspective. You can untie yourself, remove your blindfold and obstacles, and get yourself out of the situation that feels so impossible. You have this ability.
Spoiler alert, this played nicely, given the last line of the first stanza, which focuses on resistance.
Furthermore, the 8s, in Tarot, correspond to the Major Arcana card, Strength. This is about finding the difficult parts within ourselves and approaching them with compassion. We don’t fight against them, instead confront them with understanding.
And thus, this was what my poem was about.
Stanza 1
I flipped over the first line to get the following cards:
XIII Death – Transformation
9 of Cups – Embodiment
XI Justice – Truth
VI Lovers – Highest Choice
9 of Wands – Redundant
Dreamkeeper’s Tarot: Death, 9 of Cups, Justice, Lovers, 9 of Wands
I wrote these down in my notebook, then then began to write what I thought about death in terms of transformation. For me, it is a moment of stepping into transformation, whether we intend to or not, and not being able to go back. The process has already begun.
So what choice do we have? That of examining our wants, our goals, what would make us happiest and set us on cloud 9. That’s what the 9 of Cups is about, and that is what we have to embody. If we have to transform, why not embody what we want to transform into?
And how do we know how to do that? We must look inward to find our own inner truth, our personal Justice.
When we know this, we will take the higher path, the one that will lead us to our inner growth, our divine evolution. This is the card of the lovers. This is what this line is about.
Except, perhaps, there is resistance. And what is the cause of the resistance other than ourselves? We have fought so hard, and we continue to fight. But perhaps, just maybe, if we see the battle is won, that we no longer need to be on guard, then the energy we seek, that we need for our transformation, can flow freely.
Adding Up the Cards
As I mentioned before, I add the cards to convert them to a corresponding Major Arcana. If you’re not familiar with the Tarot, this might sound very strange and kind of confusing. I’ll walk you through it:
Add up the number of the cards
If the number is higher than 22, add the digits together
The resulting number will be a corresponding Major Arcana
The reason we take an extra step with numbers over 22 is because there are only 21 number Major Arcana cards.
The numbers we’re working with for this stanza are 13, 9, 11, 6, and 9.
13 + 9 + 11 + 6 + 9 = 48
This is a number higher than 22, so we add the two digits together: 4 + 8 = 12.
So the corresponding card is the Hanged Man. However, we can take it a step further and reduce the number down by adding the digits together again:
1 + 2 = 3 the Empress.
This guides me a little more, should I want to. I can start with the message of the Hanged Man and end the stanza with the Empress, or I can aim to elevate the poem from the Empress to the Hanged Man. I won’t go into these card meanings, but it’s just and added something fun to play around with if you’re like me and like complicated things.
Stanza 2
High Priestess – Intuition and Secrets
Ace of Swords – Inspiration
Empress – Nurture
Ace of Cups – Nourishment
3 of Wands – Expansion
Dreamkeeper’s Tarot: High Priestess, Ace of Swords, Empress, Ace of Cups, 3 of Wands
How do we find what we are resisting? What we are fighting for? We call upon the wisdom and energy of the High Priestess, who helps us to navigate our intuition and our inner secrets. Settling with her will show you what you need to know.
Armed with a sword, the Ace of Swords, you can cut away what is no longer needed to make way for inspiration. The new ideas are endless. Like cutting away weeds that have overgrown and smothered what you need so desperately to grow.
The Empress then teaches you to nurture what remains. She tends to your inner strengths, to the new aspects of yourself that will aid your transformation.
What’s most important, with the Empress and High Priestess combined, you’ll learn how to care for yourself, your first true love, teaching you how to find and nurture your self-compassion, to fill your own cup.
From there, you expand. Into the world, into new forms of expression, you expand. You transform.
Adding Up the Cards
For this stanza, the numbers on the cards I’m working with are 2, 1, 3, 1, and 3.
2 + 1 + 3 + 1 +3 = 10
Since it’s below 22, I don’t need to reduce it down. This card is the Wheel of Fortune. Though, it is a two-digit card, which means I can reduce it further to 1, the Magician. Personally, I find both of these cards go superbly with the cards drawn for this stanza.
Stanza 3
The Star – Hopes
10 of Cups – Fulfillment
Kind of Swords – Wisdom
Dreamkeeper’s Tarot: Star, 10 of Cups, King of Swords
The Star provides you wishes, hopes, and a direction to take aim. She promises you success, if only you’ll let her help you aim your bow into the stars.
The 10 of Cups shows your success, your brimming cup so full it fills ten of them. Your heart is content, and there is no further joy. The water flows. There is no more resistance. You have given up your stance. There is no more fighting.
Therein lies the wisdom of the King of Swords, master of his art. Master of his words. Master of his passion that is your expression, dear writer. Therein lies the wisdom.
Adding up the Cards
For this final stanza, we only have three cards to work with, and thus, three numbers: 17, 10, and 4.
17 + 10 + 4 = 41
4 + 1 = 5 the Hierophant.
One could go further and add all the stanzas up to see what the corresponding Major Arcana card would be for the whole poem. However, since I drew a title card, I don’t feel it’s necessary.
The Result
It was shocking how well it turned out. I loved the flow of it, though, again, I won’t share what I wrote. I’m not a poet, after all.
However, I loved the play with it. While I do sometimes write poetry, especially if I’m reading it (which I do get into some poetry kicks from time to time, which you might have noticed if you follow me on Instagram), I generally let it flow. However, some of my favorite poems I’ve written have been somewhat calculated as I tried to fit them into a form. Finding a form like that helped me to get creative with my words and pay attention to the rhythm. I found different an unique ways of expressing myself within the form’s parameter.
This is what I experienced while trying to write a poem this way. It also tapped into a different part of my brain, one that I certainly feel that I should be using while I’m writing. After all, in the Tarot, creativity and intuition both fall into the same element (at least, the way I read the cards they do). So why should I be surprised at how well using my intuitive part of my mind worked when applying it to my creativity?
I truly recommend giving this a go. Even if you don’t read the cards, getting a creative deck that speaks to you, that you find inspiration in, and writing down a key word that floats to mind as you look at the card can be a great way to tap into your creativity.
My Question to You
Would you be interested in a cheat sheet with a keyword for each tarot card, as well as perhaps a few “classic” poetry forms to play around with? Let me know in the comments. Also be sure to let me know if you played around with this method, or any similar method. I would love to hear all about it!
I talk a lot about Tarot. And one of my favorite practices is to tell people to journal. The combination of that often results in telling people to journal on a Tarot card.
What does that mean?
The Importance of Journaling
There are many gurus, teachers, therapists, and writers out there who will tell you that journaling is essential and important to keeping a healthy mind. Yet it’s easy to get hung up on what that means.
For many of us, when we were in school, we would be given writing prompts to get us to think about what we had learned. “What was the significance of living eternally in Tuck Everlasting?” “Would you want to live forever? Why or why not?”
I used to hate them. Truly.
Now I love them. I love the idea of delving into what I think about something. This is essentially what journal prompts serve to do. They invite a person to collect their thoughts and put them onto paper, or into audio.
The Benefits of Journaling
One way that journaling is effective is that it’s like putting your thoughts into a funnel. You have everything floating around in your head, but as soon as you have to put them into words, your brain has to organize them. It’s like untangling a knot into something manageable.
While this is an excellent reason to journal, the best understanding of the importance and therapeutic method of journaling has come from Julia Cameron in her book, The Right to Write.
She writes that journaling is allowing you the space to witness yourself. Often times we need to be witnessed, but so much of what we feel or what we think is shrouded in fear or shame. We’re afraid of what people will think of us if they knew we had x thought, or y belief, or felt a particular way.
When we journal, we are giving ourselves space to express what’s inside of us, and we are bearing our own witness.
I think this is truly beautiful, and essential for everyone to experience.
Journaling on a Tarot Card
So what does it mean to journal on a Tarot card?
This is a great practice when you’re learning to do Tarot or to read an oracle deck, and there are many ways to do this. There is no one right way. However, here are some offerings.
Note: I should mention, these are exercises designed mostly for Rider-Waite-Colman-Smith- and/or Thoth-based decks. While some of these exercises can be used for Tarot de Marseille decks, they don’t translate as easily. Oracle decks can also be used in this manner as well.
1. Describe What You See
Even if you know all the card meanings, describing what you see in a card can help you get to what you need to know about a card. It shows you what’s catching your eye first. Pay attention to that, and examine what that image, color, number, symbol, glyph, etc. might mean to you.
When you write this out, or record it out loud, you’re giving yourself the space to explore a card beyond the keyword meanings you might have memorized.
If you’re new to getting to know the Tarot, this is an opportunity for you to discover more about the picture in front of you.
2. Describe What You Feel
Writing the emotions or thoughts that come up immediately when you look at a card can help you get to the heart and energy behind a card. If you flip over the 3 of Cups and you feel panicked, then there’s a chance that you should pay attention to how you feel about social situations. If you turn over the 10 of Swords and feel relieved, then the chances are you should examine how you can move out of your particular situation and go toward that new dawn on the horizon.
Write out how you feel, and then ask yourself why you feel the way you do. Ask yourself “why?” several times, or “what can I learn from this?” several times before you move on. This is how you get in deep to your psyche.
3. Define the Card
Write out your definition of the card. If you know the card, or even if you don’t know the card, write out what it means to you. What is the image telling you? What story can you get from the picture in front of you?
Now, how does that story or definition relate to the position of the card, and to your life right now? Write it all out. Allow yourself to organize your thoughts in this way, and see what unfolds before you.
Ways to Journal
There is no right way to journal. Whether you’re doing it for a writing project, for school, or to get to know the tarot, there is no one way that is correct. What is correct is what works for you and serves you the best.
There are some things to keep in mind:
Don’t judge yourself for what you express through journaling. You are making space for yourself. You are allowing yourself a safe place to explore and examine ideas, thoughts, and feelings.
Don’t think too hard. Try to let it flow
Have compassion for yourself.
Here are some ways to journal
Longhand
While of course you can type out your journal entries, writing by hand, or by some measure other than pressing buttons, helps you to connect better with your thoughts and with the exercise.
When you write longhand, you can write your journal entry like you’re talking to someone, in pros, in poem form, however you want so long as the pen is moving or the voice keeps speaking, until you’re done.
Audio
Personally, I suffer from a hand injury a few years ago. When I write too much, my wrist and hand ache and it’s useless for a while. This is just one reason why someone might not be able to, or might not want to journal by hand.
Creating an audio recording is a helpful way to get around this. So long as you can find a space to yourself and can access some form of recording perhaps on your phone, on your computer, or into an old Home Alone Voice Recorder, then you’re good.
I do want to note that while yes, you can absolutely dictate your journaling to the computer, I wouldn’t recommend dictation as your writing practice. The reason I say this is that when you dictate, you need to tell the computer or dictation software to put in commas, periods, line breaks, etc. This can interrupt the flow of thought, and might create a barrier to achieve what you’re looking to achieve through your journaling.
Bullet Journaling
Bullet Journaling is a combination of art and journaling. It allows you to think and mull and gnaw on your thoughts while you doodle and color, and then bullet point your key thoughts.
Furthermore, not everyone can express themselves fully through writing. Words aren’t their medium, and there is nothing wrong with that. Using bullet journaling allows for the journaler to use color, lines, and images to give a broader range of expression.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what any of the images mean to anyone else, only the person expressing themselves. The journal is for you and only you.
Combining Tarot & Journaling
It’s no secret that I see the Tarot as an excellent tool for writers. Learning to journal on a Tarot card is a great way to help a writer sink into the scene in a card and use it to help them write their story.
For example, a two-card reading process I like to use is Situation & Problem. The first card acts as the situation I’m starting from, then the card that crosses it is the Problem. From there, I begin writing.
If I turn over the 5 of Wands, then my situation could be competition. If my second card is the Lovers, then the Problem is either a choice that has to be made, or perhaps a competing love interest, depending on where I want to go with this this card.
When I journal on the situation, and what the card looks like, the colors expressed, what the images mean to me, I’m starting my brain along the path of how I could apply this to a story. This is my jumping off point for my story, whether it’s a piece of flash fiction, a novel, or a short story.
Likewise, when I begin to journal on the Lovers and what it means to me or how I might apply it in terms of the first card, then I’m beginning to develop a plot. I’m exploring how what I know, what I feel, what I see in this prompt can be the thing to interrupt the first card.
This is just one way out of hundreds that I can benefit from journaling around or about a Tarot card.
Celtic Cross Spread for Writers Workbook
If you want to take a truly deep dive into your writing practice and discover more about yourself as a writer, I have something just for you:
The Celtic Cross Spread for Writers Workbook
This workbook has over 65 pages of journaling exercises to help you plunge into the depths of what makes you, you, of what your writing habits are, what is supporting you, and what is holding you back.
Through using the classic Celtic Cross Tarot spread, I walk you through
Getting real with your current situation
Begin looking at your writing life through the lens of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water
What’s getting in your way
Uncovering your biases that might be holding you back
Looking at what’s supporting or hindering you internally and externally
How to develop your actionable steps to make necessary changes
And more
The best part about this workbook? It’s completely free.
Fill out the form below to get your workbook and begin learning how Tarot and your journaling practice can serve you as a writer!
Full transparency: I’m terrified. This is a really scary thing for me to be doing! I actually have recorded and re-recorded my intro episode like ten times. Finally, I decided I would just publish it.
And you know what, I STILL found an editing error!
But that is to be expected. I’m learning new editing software (I’m used to editing sound on video editing software that I no longer have access to, nor am I willing to throw down $800 to gain access to), and to top it all off, I was doing it on my phone. Editing anything on your phone can be tricky, in case you haven’t discovered that.
However, my trailer episode is about an imperfect start, and thus, I think that my imperfect trailer outlines that.
If you want to get ready for the real deal, the full-on podcast, I’ll be launching on a Tuesday, and will keep up the every-Tuesday pattern.
I’m using Anchor as my host, which has gained me access to the following podcast platforms:
I am still currently waiting for Apple to get back to me. I will update this when I find out more.
I am very excited for this, and I hope you are too. Be sure to check out my imperfect trailer and subscribe for more imperfect, informative, and hopefully entertaining episodes of the Natural Writer Podcasts.
Don’t forget, we are still open for submissions for the Nightmares When I’m Cold writing competition/anthology.
Are you thinking about working with me, but just aren’t entirely sure? Fill out the form, schedule a call, let’s talk. This is a no-pressure, non-sales-pitch call, where we talk about you and your writing, and whether or not you want to work with me. Let’s chat!
One of the questions I see a lot is writers wondering whether or not their book will get published.
I am in a lot of online writing groups where writers get to vent their quandaries, celebrate their successes, puzzle out plot points, and share inspiration. As I watch these forums, I find there are trends in questions from time to time. And the one that is occurring the most, in various forms, is “will my story be published?”
I am here to address that.
The simple yet complex answer is down to ID: It Depends.
The unfortunate thing is that writing a book and publishing a book are two different things. This is the reason why I harp on so much about knowing your “why,” as in, knowing why it is you want to write a book. When you know this, then you can discover your goal for the book, which determines how you write it, and what you write about.
Reasons to Write a Book
There are many reasons people write a book, and that can range from simply wondering if they can get from beginning to end, all the way to wanting to be an influential literary figure who is discussed in English classes through future generations.
Here are just a few—a few—reasons people write books.
To see if they can
To practice writing their next book
Because they have a story in them they just have to get out
Because it can potentially make money
It will advertise their business
It will make the writer more visible for their other endeavors
The writer wants to be the next [Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Dan Brown, Janet Evanovich, Stephanie Meyer, Anne Rice, Judy Blume, Alice Hoffman, etc.], and reach the level of fame that means everyone knows who they are and there are shows and movies made from their books
The writer wants to be the next [Toni Morrison, Shakespeare, Alan Moore, Charlotte Bronte, Oscar Wilde, etc.] and be influential literary deities studied in universities over the next century—as a bare minimum.
The writer just wants to create something for their family and close friends to enjoy.
All of these mean different avenues and approaches to writing as well as different publishing goals.
If your goal is to make a living first and foremost, then knowing the market is what you need to do and write to that. What that means is keeping your finger to the pulse and either writing so quickly that you can produce and publish enough books that fit in with current trends that people instantly pick them up, or being able to predict the way trends are going and write to that and get ahead of the game. This is just one example of how your “why” can influence what and how you write.
Different Publishing Avenues
To directly address the questions of will a book be published, a writer needs to look at the different publishing avenues that a writer can pursue that fit in with their why.
Here are a few different ways an author can publish:
Traditional Publishing. This means using a publishing house that is already established as a publishing house and does not expect money from you if they accept your novel. Traditional publishing may or may not require an agent for submission, will require you to adhere to their guidelines, and are looking at your book as a marketable product rather than as a piece in and of itself. This is why many writers, when they’re rejected from one publishing house, may get compliments from the publisher along the lines of “This is a great book, but it isn’t what we’re looking for right now.” They are essentially looking at what is trending and selling in the market, and calculating the likelihood that your book will be sold based on that market. If accepted, your manuscript will be invested in by the publishing house, from editors to cover design to marketing.
Self-Publishing. The appeal of self-publishing for many authors can range from the lack of gatekeeping found in traditional publishing, to more control over your finished book, to a difference in royalties. If you are writing books to publish to make a living, self-publishing might be the choice for you, since you get around 75% of royalties when you say publish through Amazon, vs. 5-10% when you publish through a traditional publisher. Likewise, you control how fast or slow your content is published. If you want a book released every two weeks, you can make it happen. The downfall of this method of publishing is that it is a lot of a work. You are your own publishing house, essentially, which means you are the one paying for cover design (and trust me, you want to hire someone for that unless you have a graphic design background), editing, and marketing. The upfront cost can be intense, though there are plenty of writing groups out there whose main objectives are to help writers self-publish.
Vanity Publishing. This form of publishing gets a lot of flack, though unnecessarily, in my opinion. This is a form of publishing that works for some people, but not for all. It is somewhat of a hybrid of traditional and self-publishing. Vanity publishers will extend the invitation for a writer to submit their work to them, and they will read it. I haven’t heard of anyone being rejected from these publishers, though it might happen. they then will offer the writer a publishing package, in which they do all the work of finding the right cover, the right editor, and put forward the marketing, though the writer is expected to cover those costs. At the low range, it can cost a grand to several grand, depending on the package the writer purchases, as well as the publisher. The benefit of this is that the publisher will have talented staff working on the writer’s book, and it takes away from the work the writer would have to do if they were self-publishing. It also removes the gate-keeping element while still producing a professional-looking end-product. The downfall is that there can be a stigma that surrounds publishing this way, usually found among other writers.
Hybrid Publishing. Hybrid publishing is often used synonymously with vanity publishing, though there are differences, though they are slight.I won’t lie, this isn’t something I’m terribly confident in. However, according to Reedsy, “the ideal hybrid publisher will be selective when it comes to the authors they work with, and will truly want to shape the market the books take on.” I highly recommend reading the rest of this post for more information: Hybrid Publishers: What Are They and Should You TRUST Them?
“Will My Book Be Published?”
It depends. It depends on what you want for your book and the method of publishing you go for. Furthermore, it depends on the publishers you submit to, if traditional publishing is your goal.
It gets even more complicated: it depends on how you present your submission.
Earlier I mentioned gatekeeping. What this means is that those who are in a position of power to accept or decline a submission are essentially the gatekeepers of literature for their publishing house, and thus to the public. They decide what is quality enough or marketable enough that it can be invested in. There are many problems with this, including those that bleed into social issues such as a lack of diversity in publishing and literature (specifically looking at BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and disabled voices in the literary world).
While the publishing house might be looking for something specific and your book might meet those qualities, it could depend on who it is that receives your piece and their own personal decision as to whether it is worth investing in. Publishing houses tend to be, or want to be, well-oiled machines, but at the end of the day, dealing with literature is dealing with art, and art is a human aspect. Thus, the human element must be considered, which differs from one human to the next.
Likewise, how you submit your piece can mean the difference between a published piece or not. Your story might be the next great [British, American, Canadian, European, etc.] novel, but if you have no idea how to write a cover letter and sell not only your novel, but yourself on a single side of a sheet of paper, it might not even get read by the publishing house. This is where having an agent can be helpful, though you still need to be able to sell your book to your agent beforehand.
Speaking of formatting, another important thing to consider is having your book as edited and polished as possible before you submit for publication. This should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: this includes self-publishing. Hiring an editor for this task is essential. Not asking your family member to do it, but hiring a non-biased, professional editor. There are readers and publisher who won’t get passed typos and organizational mistakes of a manuscript.
Have I made this seem impossible yet? I’m sorry. It’s not. It is absolutely possible to get published.
What You Can Do
This isn’t a dire impossibility. Writers are getting published every day, or their choosing to self-publish. And there are ways you can hone success for your hard work. Here are a few tips.
Get Professional:
If you are writing a book to be published to the wider world, regardless of what method of publication you choose, it is essential that once your piece is written, you treat it like a professional business product. Get yourself in the mindset that this is what will represent you, and you are going onto Shark Tank, or whatever big-league television program where you only deal with CEO professionals who only see [dollar, pound, euro, etc.] signs.
I know, this might not be the advice you want to hear. After all, writing is an art. You are an artist. I hear you, I understand, and I’m there with you. But after your art piece is created? You’re a businessperson, and the hard-to-swallow Truth pill is that once your art is created, it is a product.
So what does this mean? This means that you need to look at what your publishers want and figure out how to market your book to them.
No matter where you’re at in your writing stage, there are a few things you can start doing now:
Make note of the books that are similar in tone/genre/message/style to yours, and who is publishing them, and when.
Make a list of your ideal publishing companies you’d like to work with
Begin looking at what they are looking for in books, and whether they require agents. Likewise, look at when they are open for submissions. An excellent resource for this is The Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook. This is updated every year with publishers and agents, providing details as to when submissions are accepted as well as what they look for.
Repeat steps 1-3, though instead of looking at publishers, look at representing agents. This isn’t necessary. Not everyone wants an agent, and not all publishers require one.
Start practicing writing cover letters and reach out to those in writing groups for feedback. In many Facebook writing groups there are agents and editors who might be willing to offer critique, as well as other experienced and published writers.
The Most Important Thing
While the submission and publishing process can be daunting, don’t get discouraged. When you submit and get rejected (and you will get rejected at least once by a publisher. All the greats do), do not be discouraged. And if you self-publish a book and it doesn’t sell, do not be discouraged.
When you put yourself out there and don’t get the result you want, it can feel hard to continue on. But the important thing to know is that it’s not necessarily down to your piece, but how your piece was presented or marketed, or even what the general trend in literature is at that moment.
Here are authors who you likely know, and how long it took them to first get published.
Stephen King – Carrie – rejected 30 times
Dr. Seuss – rejected 15 times
Richard Adams – Watership Down – rejected 26 times
James Joyce – Dubliners – rejected 22 times
Frank Herbert – Dune – rejected 23 times
Jack Canfield & Mark Victor Hansen – Chicken Soup for the Soul – rejected 144 times
Herman Melville – Moby Dick – rejected 4 times
George Orwell – Animal Farm – rejected 4 times
Robert Pirsig – Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – rejected 121 times
William Golding – Lord of the Flies – rejected 21 times
Louis L’Amour – 200 rejections before his first piece was published
Kathrin Stockett – The Help – rejected 60 times
Samuel Beckett – Murphy – rejected 40 times
James Patterson – The Thomas Berryman Number – rejected 31 times
John Grisham – A Time to Kill – rejected 28 times
L. M. Montgomery – Anne of Green Gables – rejected 5 times
Jasper Fforde – The Eyre Affair – rejected 76 times
Madeleine L’Engle – A Wrinkle in Time – rejected 26 times
Joseph Heller – Catch 22 – rejected 22 times (seems fitting, right? 22 and 22…I’ll show myself out)
William Golding – Lord of the Flies – rejected 21 times
Anne Frank – The Diary of Anne Frank – rejected 15 times
Just to name a few. There are countless more famous authors not mentioned above, such as Beatrix Potter who was rejected enough that she took it upon herself to self-publish The Tales of Peter Rabbit. Likewise, Sylvia Plath, E. E. Cummings, Agatha Christie, Ursula K. Le Guin, James Baldwin, Jack Kerouac, Richard Bach, and so many more were rejected before they went on to take their places in literary history.
So…Will You get Published?
Maybe.
I’m sorry I can’t give a better answer than that. But at the end of the day, it depends on a lot of factors:
Your goals for your book
The avenue you take
The market
The publisher
The agent
The timing
Your genre
Your presentation of your book
Your persistence
At the end of the day, it depends on the investment you want to put into your book, both monetarily and financially. Writing books to get rich or make a living, unless you’re a ghost writer, is a pretty touch way to go, and the reality of it is that it’s a low likelihood of making a living. It is not impossible, by any means, but it is a lot of work, no matter what avenue to publication you take.
However, if you are writing for the love of writing, and the intrigue of craft and revision and writing, then it’s worth it. You’ll be spending time doing what your soul is calling you to do, and that’s why you do it.
Your Homework
This is a big topic, and there is a lot to think about. In considering publication, you’re making the switch from artist to businessperson. And as a result, it’s going to take a lot of consideration and research. As a result, your homework comes in multiple parts.
Homework Part 1
The first part of your homework involves some introspection. I would recommend a journal for this exercise.
Spend some time thinking about why you are writing
Using your why as a focal point, begin exploring what you want to do with your writing when you’ve finished it. What is your ultimate goal?
Be honest with yourself and ask how much energy you are willing to put into this goal. If it’s everything you’ve got, explore that. Ask yourself what that entails. If it’s not very much, ask what you can do with that “not very much” energy, and see if you’re willing to expand it and how, or what you can accomplish with that energy. There are no wrong answers here. This is an exploration of you, in this moment, in this situation, right now. This can always change if you don’t like your answers.
Begin researching different publishing avenues. If you know for a fact you want to go the traditional publisher route, then look into publishing houses and begin researching what it will take to be represented by them.
Homework Part 2
That’s the first part of your homework. The next part of your homework will be on-going. As you read for the fun and enjoyment of it, begin paying attention to your favorite books and who:
Published them
What agents represent them
Their editors
A lot of this information can be found in the acknowledgements at the beginning or back of the book.
Homework Part 3
This is the least fun part of your homework. I’m sorry, but it will pay off.
Begin practicing writing cover letters. There are actually multiple steps to this (because I love giving you lists).
Refer to your list above of publishers and agents you’d like to work with. Hopefully you have a list of at least five, in any combination. Look at what they require for submissions.
Consider literally anything you’ve written, or are thinking about writing, regardless of what you want to do with it. It could be a poem you wrote in the second grade, a short story you wrote because you were pissed off and ended with you just scribbling across the page, or the novel idea you’ve been kicking around. Anything.
Create a mock submission to each of the publishers/agents on your list for any of your pieces or ideas. Do this multiple times. Get comfortable with it. Get used to collecting and writing and organizing your ideas/stories/poems in the ways they require, and write a cover letter for every one of them.
If you create something you like (regarding your cover letters), then start sharing them in writing groups or with trusted people who know what to look for in this situation. Remember, too, that a cover letter for a piece of literature is not the same as a cover letter for a resume for a job. There are similarities, but they are not the same. So when you pick people to look over it, make sure they are someone who has some experience or authority on the matter.
That last step can be a little scary, but no more scary than handing your work over to a beta reader, in my opinion, and certainly less scary than actually submitting a piece of writing.
Remember, whenever you’re submitting anything, you’re putting a piece of yourself out there. Just like being out in the world as an individual, you or your work might not be to everyone’s tastes. That’s okay. It is not possible to write something that everyone likes.
I was once at a pub talking about my frustration with preparing a piece for submission. I was told by one of the listeners of my plight, in all seriousness, that what I needed to do was write a book that everyone loves.
…
I just stared at him, wondering if he thought that no writer had considered this approach.
There is no such thing as that unicorn of a book. There are haters of Winnie the Pooh out there (I don’t know who these monsters are, but I know they exist). And so I tell you this, dear writer, with all the love and empathy I can muster that you will not write a book that everyone loves. And just because a publisher or agent can’t get behind your work doesn’t mean that your work isn’t worth being out in the world.
Keep writing. You’ve got this.
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Wow. We are nearly through January, and I have been nowhere to be seen for months.
After my move to Greece, I hit a lot of unexpected hiccups that prevented me from a lot of the set-up I had anticipated, including access to internet, being able to get on an actual phone plan that would allow me to have data for web connection, as well as a few other things.
The island I was on was pretty basic. And when the lockdown measures hit a week after we arrived, we found we weren’t able to access many of the services we needed. At one point, I slipped on a rock and smash my phone completely. Because of the lockdown measures, I couldn’t get it fixed or send for a new one, as these things were seen as non-essential. This is just an example.
As a result, I reserved the little connection I had for my wonderful and patient coaching clients. I am grateful to say that I have been able to continue working with them.
And as is the nature of the universe, more change has arrived on my part as I responded to a family emergency, which has landed me back in the US until further notice. While Greece was an adventure, it won’t be one I’ll likely be returning to. The UK, yes, at some point, but not Greece.
The good news from all of this is that I am now connected again. I have electricity. I have internet. I have a phone plan and a working phone. And while the family emergency is now less emergent, though still present, it is under control and everyone involved is optimistic.
I am grateful to be in the Pacific Northwest again. I am grateful to be able to serve you, my wonderful writing friends and community! And I am grateful to be stepping into the public as a coach again.
Thank you all so much for your patience with me and your support!
There is usually a lot of fuss around the Full Moon, and what it can do for people. Especially when you think about Halloween, and the spookiness that accompanies it.
However, a moonless night, a night in which no light outside of the stars, is cast down upon the earth, has a far more ominous feel, doesn’t it?
More often than not, in stories, it is the dark moon, or the New Moon, which assists a character. They use its darkness to shield them when they need, allowing them to escape, to sneak, to go undetected. The Full Moon, however, shines light onto the world, often obscuring what’s there, or creating darker shadows where unseen things may lurk.
This week we are looking at the New Moon, and how it can assist us as creatives.
What is the New Moon?
The New Moon happens when the earth blocks the light from the sun, thus casting a shadow onto the moon, making it look nearly invisible, dark, or not there at all.
From an energetic perspective, the New Moon represent something like a clean slate. After the moon has shrunk from the Full Moon down into nothingness, it begins to grow again (the process called “waxing”), and that is where the real excitement of the moon lays.
How to Use the New Moon
This clean slate is often used as a measure of setting intention. This is a time when you set your goals and make a plan for the upcoming cycle. The idea is that, symbolically, as the moon grows, your goals and intentions grow closer to you.
What does this mean in terms of writing?
It’s a great time to start a book.
For many of you reading this as it’s posted, it’s October, and we’re gearing up for November’s National Novel Writing Month.Thus, this New Moon is an excellent time to plan your novel and set the intention of being prepared for NaNoWriMo so that as soon as Halloween transitions into November, you’re ready to go. You have aplan of action to make sure you follow through to the end of the month and to the end of your book.
This is a time to gather your strength as a writer, to gather your tools, your gumption, your creative drive, your characters and your plot. This is a time to summon that which you need to help you get closer to your goal.
The New Moon is a time for planning, outlining, and getting ready to start your novel.
Your Homework
As I write this, tomorrow is the New Moon. Take this time to make a plan for NaNoWriMo, or make a plan for your novel, and gather your resources in preparation.
Make a list of your writing goals for the rest of the year, or for the rest of the moon cycle. Now make a list of how you can achieve each goal.
What is the plan for your novel? Do you know your plot? Your MC? Your antagonist? The world you’re writing about?
And most importantly, do you have someone who can keep you on track the entire time, who can work with you to help you achieve those goals, and beyond?
Right now, for a limited time, the doors to the Intensive Writing Program are open only to 5 people. These doors close on October 23, 2020, and I don’t know when or if they will open again. This is a program designed to give you 13 hours of 1:1 coaching, unlimited access to support through email, and your novel read as you write it so you can have someone there to work with you through revision, editing, and editing again in December.
Interested? Click here or on the button below to learn about how you can get in on this program and make the writing goals you set this New Moon come to fruition.
Are you thinking about working with me, but just aren’t entirely sure? Fill out the form, schedule a call, let’s talk. This is a no-pressure, non-sales-pitch call, where we talk about you and your writing, and whether or not you want to work with me. Let’s chat!
“Don’t wait for inspiration. It comes while Working.”
Henri Matisse
When we start out writing, and we know that we are writers, we sometimes have the worry that there just aren’t enough ideas out there, or that, you don’t have access to the ideas that are swimming around in the ether.
I hear you. I’ve had that same fear. In fact, every time I’ve started a blog, I’ve had that fear. I’m here to tell you, the more you work on that which you are passionate about, the more inspired you become.
Blogging
I’ve had plenty of blogs—from the early days of Livejournal and OpenDiary (before the term “blog” was around), to personal blogs, to travel blogs, tarot blogs, foraging and sustainability blogs, to spiritual blogs…I could go on. And with every single of one of them, I worried that I wouldn’t have enough to say.
But as soon as I started writing, trying to brainstorm my first ten posts, more ideas would come to me.
When I started my Tarot blog, I had no idea what I wanted to say about the Tarot other than defining the cards—as if there weren’t already a thousand websites out there already doing the same. But as I began to write, I started to gain ideas. I realized that I was putting so much into my posts that they could be divided up. When I divided them up, I found I had enough to say to further divide the posts up, and so on.
It got to the point where I was writing three posts a day—I don’t recommend that, by the way. It’s exhausting. But the point is, when I started to do the work, I gathered more and more ideas.
While my Tarot blog is somewhat neglected these days, I still have much more to say. So much so that I’ve been in the process of creating a tarot podcast with a friend of mine.
Like me, she has struggled to level with the idea that we would have enough to talk about, as neither of us wanted to go into the definitions of the cards, specifically. So, we committed to eight episodes. We decided we would make eight episodes, and if we still had ideas after that, then we would go for another eight, and so on.
As it stands, each season is about eight episodes, or will be, once they’re released, and we have enough content planned for at least three seasons. And the ideas keep on flowing.
Creative Flow
I know, that’s all well and good if you have a topic you know about, but what about for creative writing?
I have a little personal story for that, as well.
Years ago, my story was rejected from an online competition because I didn’t have an author website or any followers on my social media. At the time, the only social media I used was Facebook, and that was just to keep in touch with people. I didn’t know I needed them.
I was told by the editors that they liked my story, but a website and social media presence was essential to be published on their website.
I was annoyed to say the least, but I promised myself that would not be the reason why I didn’t get published again.
So, I invested in an author website. I had no idea what to put on there. I didn’t have anything published yet other than an article in the local newspaper, once. I didn’t want to write about writing because I worried that I wouldn’t have enough to say and the website was about showcasing my creative writing, not my non-fiction.
In the end, I decided that I would write book reviews to get readers to my website and publish flash fiction pieces. I promised myself one of each, every week.
As soon as I announced this commitment on my website, the fear took hold of me. I had no idea what I was going to write about, or even if I could write flash fiction. I’d never done it before. I’ve always been a long-form writer.
I used my Tarot cards for writing prompts, and somehow generated the first few stories. Once I got used to producing a 1200-word story every week, the ideas started to flow. I began to find inspiration everywhere. I watched an It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode where Dee loses her cat in the wall, and from there I developed a horror serial that landed me a columnist position at Carpe Nocturne Magazine. I saw a jogger every day on the way out into Snowdonia, and wrote a horror serial called, The Walker.
That summer, I wrote dozens of flash fiction pieces, some that found homes in publications, and some that were drawn out into novels, or novellas. Many were thrown away, or just left up on my website (the website is no longer up, sorry!), or live in a drawer for inspiration later.
Either way, the more I wrote, and forced myself to write, the more ideas I came up with.
When you turn on the faucet, your words will flow. Your energy flows where your intention goes.
Your Homework
Challenge yourself to write one flash fiction piece a week for the next 12 weeks. It doesn’t matter if they’re any good. It doesn’t matter if you’ll show them to anyone, only that you write them.
Depending on who you ask, a flash fiction piece can be as little as 300 words, or as many as 1500 words. I’m the kind of person who laughs at word-count maximums and overshoots, so I tried to keep my flash fiction pieces around 1000 words. But do whatever speaks to you.
Keep an idea notebook with you so you can write down anything that can be used as a flash fiction base. You’ll be surprised how quickly you fill that notebook up.
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I’m a strong advocate of setting goals and really feeling into those goals. That is, looking into what it will be like to reach those goals, and capturing that experience and holding onto it. However, that’s only part of it.
In When Things Fall Apart, Pema Chödrön takes on Buddhist philosophies and teachings for how to handle difficult situations from a place of compassion and love. One of the things she covers, though not specifically, is looking at the outcome of things.
When we are trained in the art of peace, we are not given any promises that, because of our noble intentions, everything will be okay. In fact, there are no promises of fruition at all. Instead, we are encouraged to simply look deeply at joy and sorrow, at laughing and crying, at hoping to fearing, at all that lives and dies. We learn that what truly heals is gratitude and tenderness.
When Things Fall Apart, p. 129
I wanted to share this quote because I believe it expresses perfectly how we should approach our writing and our writing goals—or any goals for that matter.
Let me break it down.
We Are Not Given Any Promises that Everything Will Be Okay
“When we are trained in the art of peace, we are not given any promises that, because of our noble intentions, everything will be okay.”
Let’s consider the first part of the quote.
Setting the Goal
“When we are trained…” Training implies that there is a goal to be reached. In the context of the quote, the goal is peace. When we set out to write, our goal is to finish the piece that we’re working on. It might even go further than that: our goal is to publish, is to be famous, to earn a living, to have a franchise, to just distribute to family, etc.
Consider every time you’ve set a goal. What have you attached to achieving that goal emotionally? Is it pride? A sense of accomplishment? What does that sense of accomplishment feel like? Is it joy? Happiness?
I won’t tell you not to attach any feeling to your goals because that’s going to be what helps you to achieve them. However, I do want to point out a flaw in doing so.
Attaching a feeling to your goals creates the statement, “I will be/feel _________ when I _______.”
The fundamental problem with that is that it implies that you can’t have that feeling until you achieve this goal. Furthermore, what does that mean if you don’t achieve the goal at all?
If we only work toward something because we want the outcome and won’t feel x until we have that outcome, then we may not aim high enough. We might only go for the safe bets which could rob us of our potential. Consider all the authors who submitted dozens if not hundreds of times to be rejected each time. Imagine if they gave up. We wouldn’t have Stephen King.
“In fact, there are no promises of fruition at all.”
This is why one of the most important things I do when I work with writers is ask them how they can bring the feeling that they associate with the completion of their goal into their every-day writing practice.
This leads me to the second part of the quote.
We Are Encouraged to Simply Look Deeply
“Instead, we are encouraged to simply look deeply at joy and sorrow, at laughing and crying, at hoping to fearing, at all that lives and dies.”
To put it simply, the best way for us to consider the end goal’s feelings and bring it to the present is to look at the journey of writing itself.
There are many writers out there who are writing to make a buck—and it can be done, with a lot of time and energy spent. These authors are committed to the process of producing books quickly. The quicker they produce books, the faster the sell, and the more money they make. Their goal is attached to the money.
However, not all of these authors have a love for what they do. In fact, they’re likely to hire out ghostwriters like me to do the job for them. They don’t love the process. As a result, they might experience burn-out.
You don’t have to be a rapid-release author to experience writer burn-out, either. It all has to do with where you put your intention and where you put your energy.
If you can remember what it is that you love about writing, what you love about your project, then you’ll enjoy the entire process. You’ll be writing for the love it rather than for the outcome. This takes the pressure off of you, and when the pressure is off, you’re more likely to reach your goal.
Gratitude & Tenderness
“We learn that what truly heals is gratitude and tenderness.”
I interpret “healing” in this context to mean the outcome-oriented mind. Not to say that it’s broken so much as it’s only partially complete. It knows what it wants, it knows how it wants to feel, but it’s forgetting the part where it needs to feel that way through the journey.
Grateful to be a Part of the Journey
Being grateful to be a part of the journey and regularly recognizing that is a truly beautiful step to take. I personally practice daily gratitude, writing a page of things I am grateful for every day. I highly recommend it. However, if that’s not your thing (I get it. It took me a long time to get to practicing gratitude in this way), being thankful that you have the ability to spend time on what you love, and recognizing that ability every day is enough.
This gratitude can help you to cherish where you are now and the moments you spend trying to get words to the page, trying to edit and re-work your piece so it makes sense, or even drafting those query letters.
So many people in the world have a dream to do what they love. And so few actually take the time to work toward actually making it happen. I’ve read statistics (though not verified) that say 80% of people say they want to write a book. Only 1% of that 80% actually complete a book. Something like that, anyway. If that statistic is right, that means that only 1 person out of every 125 people who say they want to write a book ever actually finishes one.
Approaching Tenderness
How does one go about approaching tenderness?
There is a dark comedy British show called Uncle. The main character, Andy is quitting smoking and all forms of drugs and alcohol, and when people start to get on his nerves, he yells “I said I’m feeling tender today!”
Being tender is being sensitive, though not in a negative way. It’s being open to what is being revealed internally and externally. It’s acknowledging feelings that arise and sitting with them. It’s noticing bursts of energy. It’s also being aware of the feelings of those around you.
I personally am not a fan of the term “sensitive,” and like I mentioned, when I hear “tender,” all I can think of is Andy telling that he’s feeling tender before launching himself at someone. This doesn’t exactly instill a feeling of tranquility.
However, I choose to approach writing and my projects with curiosity.
Practicing Non-Attachment & Releasing Through Curiosity
The best way that I’ve found to approach goals is by practicing non-attachment through curiosity. You know what you’re working toward. You know what you want to achieve, but you do so through curiosity.
Now, this is complete curiosity. This does start with the aim to answer a question, but with complete openness to what might be discovered. For example, the question might be what would happen if you tried to write a book, or it might be the question you hope to explore in the content of your piece.
When we take the approach of achieving our goal through curiosity, we must ensure that we aren’t driving toward a specific answer.
Releasing Parallels in the Law of Attraction
This is a common practice in the Law of Attraction: you set your intention which is more of a feeling or status rather than a specific number or object (contrary to what the teachings of the Secret might say), and you approach it with openness. You don’t know how you’re going to achieve it, but you open yourself up to the journey that will take you there. If, for example, your goal is financial freedom, you don’t set a ridged path to it and stick to it no matter what. I personally hoped to get to financial freedom through tarot, and instead it was through writing coaching and ghost writing that I found my independence. My flexibility to finding my way to financial independence is what got me to where I am today, not sticking to a rigid schedule and plan that burnt me out after six months (true story).
I kept the goal, I opened myself up to possibility, and through that, I found a tribe of tarot-centered writers who were looking for coaching. The same month, I found people looking for ghost writers for their series. In ten months, I went from barely finding enough work to cover the bills to being completely financially independent by being open to my options, keeping the goal in mind, and following what felt good at the time.
Curiosity in Writing
Keeping your curiosity in your writing practice will keep you interested in what you do. The goal is there, but you don’t know what’s around the corner when it comes to your actual writing because you’re not looking at the next step, you’re looking at what’s happening now, right in front of you.
True curiosity is what leads to discoveries.
Consider science. Consider the contemplation of theories for the sake of knowledge versus the attempt to try and discover a specific thing. When a lab is funded to find out x, then all of their experiments are designed to find x. However, when a lab is set on seeing what possibilities are to be found in the realm of exploring the element y, then they are open to possibilities. It widens the scope, and in the process, they might also find out x.
Okay, I know that’s not quite how science goes, but you get the picture.
Your writing is the same way. Whether you’re setting an outline or pantsing it, keeping yourself open to curiosity will make the process more fun, and you might discover a new path that you hadn’t anticipated.
Setting and Releasing Goals
So what is the take away from all of this? Goals are important, however, they aren’t the end-all and be-all. There is more than just setting the goal and sticking to it. You need to be able to release the goal as well. You know what you’re aiming for, but when you release the goal, you’re releasing your expectation of the outcome. When you do that, then
you enjoy the process more
you open your writing to more creativity
you open yourself up to more enjoyment
and most importantly, you open yourself up to growth.
Your Homework
Your homework has two parts to it: the first part is journaling-related (because inner growth comes from inner exploration!) and the second part is to start a new project. I’ll get to that in a minute though.
Journaling Questions
Spend some time writing about the goals you set and how they make you feel. Danielle LaPorte, in her book, Desire Mapping, which is all about setting and achieving goals, writes about how she absolutely hates goals. She doesn’t do well with them because they feel like pressure to her. I, personally, most of the time, am the opposite. I do well with goals.
The first thing I want you to do is explore your goals and how you feel about them.
Do you have too many?
Are they too intense?
Do they inspire you?
Do they make you feel restricted?
After you’ve spent some time with these questions, consider and journal on the following questions:
What do I expect from my writing?
What do I love about the process of writing?
What do I love about what I’m working on right now?
What emotions do I have attached to my goals?
How can I bring those emotions forward so I can experience them now?
Once you have a good understanding of this, then I want you to move on to the second part of your homework assignment.
A New Project
Develop a new project. It doesn’t have to be big. It can be to write a series of ten poems, to write a piece of flash fiction or a short story. Or it can be your next epic fantasies series of eight books. Whatever you like.
However, I want you to approach it in this order:
What do you want to achieve with this new project? (to finish it? To answer a question? To publish it? Etc.)
Once you have your goal, release it. You know what it is. Don’t spend any more time focusing on it.
Look at your project with complete curiosity. Ask yourself how you can remain curious through the entire process. How can you turn this project into an experiment of discovery?
As you work on this project, notice yourself and how you interact with it. Is it different than usual? Is it the same? How do you feel?
If you start to feel doubt or anxious about the project, sit for a moment and express gratitude that you have the time, energy, and space to work on that which you love.
If you don’t finish the project, that’s okay. This is a project of exploration and discovery. It’s to learn about you, how you interact with goals, how you interact with your writing, and how you best grow within yourself.
Let me know how this experiment goes in the comments.
Happy Writing.
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Are you thinking about working with me, but just aren’t entirely sure? Fill out the form, schedule a call, let’s talk. This is a no-pressure, non-sales-pitch call, where we talk about you and your writing, and whether or not you want to work with me. Let’s chat!
I’m going to start out by getting a little personal with you here.
Yesterday, I suffered the first anxiety attack—full blown at my worst—since I can remember. I know I’ve had one at some point this year, but I literally can’t remember when it was.
The warning signs that it was coming were there. But I ignored them. I felt like I had made a lot of progress and that I didn’t need to heed my warning signs. I was beyond my anxiety attacks. Ha!
Upon reflection, I realized that I did have the power to stop myself from getting as bad as it did. I do want to note that this is for me, that I personally felt that I had this ability. I’m by no means saying anyone else works this way or suggesting the people have the power to handle their anxiety in this way. Everyone is different.
However, when I saw the warning signs, I ignored them. Why did I ignore them? The ridiculous answer was because of fear.
I know my anxious self. I’m familiar with her. I know what she thinks and what she does, and for me, anxious Nicola has a strange freedom to feel things wildly and take no responsibility for what happens when I do feel wildly because it’s out of my control. It’s familiar.
But the work I’ve been doing has been teaching me to take control over myself, as well as take responsibility for my reactions. There is a point of no return for me, when I can’t control what happens, not yet anyway, but I can control if and how I get to that point. Yesterday I let fear take the reins, and relinquished control.
But I learned a lot from that experience. And one of the main things I learned is what I want to share with you:
Sitting with Discomfort and Fear is the Greatest Teacher You Can Have
There are all these really catching coaching acronyms for what FEAR stands for, but I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about what fear is to me, and my understanding of it. Knowing this has helped me through hurtles in my writing, in managing my anxiety, in having difficult conversations, and in starting my business.
To understand fear is to understand the ego. When I’m talking about this, I’m talking about metaphysical teachings. I don’t know enough about psychology to say what the professionals are stating about this. However, this is the information I glean from minds such as Eckhart Tolle.
The Ego
The ego is that which preserves as sense of self. It is “I.” When we make a statement which is followed by the verb form “am,” then we are making a statement about the self, which is the ego. Examples:
I am a writer
I am successful
I am a woman
I am introverted
I am a gardener
etc.
So on and so forth. These are all how we are identifying ourselves. Each time we use “am” statements, we’re affirming our form to the ego. The ego’s job is to preserve that form, and often time it can do so in damaging ways.
For example, I know a guy whose whole identity revolves around how big and tough he is. Thus, whenever he describes anyone other than himself, he’ll do so using negative descriptions, such as “the tubby guy,” or “that little fella,” or “the spotty guy.” By using these negative descriptions, he’s making him look better in comparison.
Likewise, the ego can work against you. You are the one who has created the description of yourself. And whatever that description is, the ego is going to help you to protect. If you don’t think highly of yourself, and your “am” statements are along the lines of being useless, pathetic, selfish—pick your poison, then your ego is going to work to protect that.
And to do so, the ego uses fear.
Fear
Fear is a very handy tool. It’s what we use to protect ourselves. Fear alerts us to threats and tells us that we need to act on it, whether it’s the flight or flight or freeze response. Fear tells us that we are under threat.
Because the ego wants to preserve itself, it will deploy fear when there is something that threatens to change the definition of Self.
A common fear that writers have is to identify themselves as a writer. That’s why I often tell people that they need to spend time looking in the mirror and telling themselves that they are a writer. The next step is to tell other people that they are a writer. Not that they want to be a writer, or that they’re an aspiring writer, but that they are a writer. Fear of ridicule will often deter people from doing this, but once a writer fully embraces that writing is who they are, not what they want to be, then the ridicule doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if they make money writing or not. What matters is that they put pen to paper and conjure their ideas and words. That’s what makes them a writer. Not what other people think.
So, how do we understand and deal with fear? I’ll get to that. First, I’d like to share a story I read.
The Warrior and the Monster
After I had my anxiety attack, I picked up a book that I’d been reading on and off over the last couple of weeks. And lo and behold, I read exactly what I needed to read. Funny how that works out!
The book is When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön. In the 6th chapter, she writes about the concept of Refrain, which I’ll get to in a little bit. Toward the end of the chapter, she shares a wonderful story about a warrior and a monster.
A warrior must go up against a monster. She’s terrified. She’s quaking in her boots. She doesn’t even know what the damn thing looks like (Okay, I might be adding some extra detail here), but she knows that she must face it.
When she finds the monster, it turns and she’s started to see that the monster is in face Fear.
She asks, “Fear, may we engage in battle?”
Fear responds, “Thank you for respecting me enough to ask. Yes, we may engage in battle.”
The warrior feels a little more comfortable now at the nicety. She goes on to ask, “How can I defeat you?”
Fear, feeling more relaxed in knowing that the warrior respects it, responds with, “Well, I’ll tell you my tactic. I speak very loudly and very fast. I get close in your face as I do so. This will rattle you and unnerve you, which will make you to succumb to anything I ask of you. However, that is where my power is. If you do not do as I ask, then I have no power at all. If you can resist me, if you can refrain from doing what I tell you, then I have no power.”
Sitting with Discomfort
Fear is rarely true terror. Fear generally manifests itself as discomfort. Sitting with discomfort is one of the best learning tools you have at your disposal. This is also a practice that I only learned since the most recent Black Lives Matter movement.
One of the things many BIPOC folx were asking white folx to do was to notice their discomfort when it comes to topics of race, and to sit with it. Don’t react to it, don’t do anything other than sit with it. It’s alright to be uncomfortable. There is nothing that’s going to get you from being uncomfortable. When you sit with it, you learn from it and you grow from it.
My very weak example of sitting with my discomfort comes from wanting to publicly support BLM. As my business is very new, I was afraid of upsetting people by involving my political views. My views are very strictly, Black Lives Matter. Indigenous Lives Matter. Brown Lives Matter. Trans Lives Matter.
When I sat with the discomfort, I realized that the people who were likely to ostracize me for these views weren’t my audience. So why was I wanting to impress them? Why was I wanting to try and retain their attention? With this realization, I was able to come out and try to be more vocal and supportive of these matters. Whether or not I went about it in the right way is an entirely different issue, but the point is that this was how I overcame this discomfort.
To learn more about sitting with discomfort in the scope of racial discussions, I highly suggest that you check out Ar-Tic.Org as a starting place.
The Warrior’s Discomfort
Consider the warrior’s discomfort that she had to sit with in order to get the information from her opponent on how to win the battle. First, she had to get through the fear of even staying with Fear enough to talk to it. She had to ramp up the courage to even have respect for Fear in the first place.
She had to be willing to stay still and sit with Fear enough to have a discussion with it to see what it would teach her. Pema Chödrön calls this Refrain.
Refrain
The act of refraining is to notice when the ego is feeling threatened, thus acknowledging the fear, and from there refraining to react to the fear, or do what the fear is demanding of you. Except, Chödrön doesn’t specifically call it fear at first. She talks about discomfort.
Discomfort
What is discomfort? It’s when you’re in a process of transition. It’s the precursor to fear. I’m not talking about physical discomfort, but emotional and mental discomfort. This is when you hear an idea and you don’t know why but it makes you uncomfortable. It can take many different forms from depression to annoyed to general moodiness.
For me, my anxiety attack came essentially from the discomfort of boredom. That was what set it off in a very vague, generalized way.
What happened was I sat down to work yesterday morning with my pint of water, promising myself I would have two of those before I was allowed my next cup of coffee. Then, of course, I knocked the water over, all over my laptop. It soaked it.
I wasn’t really worried because a) it’s a really cheap laptop and I wouldn’t mind the excuse to buy a better one, and b) because it’s a cheap laptop there isn’t enough memory to hold any of my files, so they’re all on an external hard drive (which I recently upgrade to a water-resistant one). However, it meant that I couldn’t work. Not until I let my computer dry out. While I didn’t mind the idea of getting a new one (and secretly hoped I needed to), I couldn’t justify getting a new one if I didn’t actually need to.
So, my only job was to wait out my computer.
Likewise, my partner had a day off. He was busy researching on his own computer (it doesn’t have a working keyboard, he types everything by clicking the on-screen keyboard with his mouse. I cannot write a novel like that, so using that was out of the question). So I sat, the nice day going on outside the house, my partner completely involved in his research, and me just scrolling through Instagram.
I was bored, and through this virus we had been really good about not going out unnecessarily. I had reached my limit.
I started thinking about how both my partner and I had a day off together for once, and we should be using it, and how if I wasn’t then I was just wasting my life away. And oh my god, I’m nearly 34 and I’m not doing anything with my days off. In fact, I’m not married, I’m not settling down and having a kid, and I’m nowhere near owning a home and maybe I should move back to the States and be closer to my parents because they’re getting older and really I should be spending as much time with my one remaining grandparent as I can and—so on and so forth.
I was uncomfortable because I was bored. So my fear kicked in and I became anxious.
Full disclosure: I’m in a time of transition right now. We are moving from our home in North Yorkshire. We were supposed to have left in April, but because of the virus, we weren’t able to. Because we’re moving to another country and we have dogs and thus we’re driving, we’ve been having to wait for borders throughout Europe to open so we can get to our destination. We’ve essentially been in limbo for the past four months. I’ve been fine for the most part because I’ve been avoiding the discomfort and fear through working my ghost writing jobs, coaching, and doing my own inner work.
I have been bypassing my discomfort.
As a result, when I didn’t have anything to do, rather than sitting with my discomfort, I let anxiety take hold.
Had I sat with my discomfort, I would have realized that my issue is that we’re in limbo. We’re neither where we need to be nor are we where we’re supposed to be going. We are in between. And I’m literally not doing anything about it. We could be getting the house ready to move, we could be getting the dogs’ passports ready, I could have been setting up blog posts and newsletters to publish while we move so I don’t have to worry about it, but I haven’t been doing any of it.
My discomfort was guilt at my boredom. If I had sat with my discomfort instead of finding a way not to deal with it, I would have heard that guilt and done something about it. Getting ready to move is a massive change, and it threatens the ego. It’s moving into the unknown. Like I said, we’re moving to a different country. We can research it all we want (which is my partner’s way of dealing with the transition), but we don’t really know what it’s like until we get there. What’s more, this whole year has been one big un-known adventure.
And the unknown threatens the ego. Thus, there is fear.
Refrain and Respecting The Fear
Discomfort is trying to tell you something. Fear is trying to scare you back into the norm. When we refrain from reacting to the discomfort, when we refrain from trying to avoid the discomfort, then there is something that is being taught. We can learn and grow through it.
I have heard advice from gurus and coaches (I’m wanting to say I specifically heard this on Danielle LaPorte’s podcast, though I could be wrong) to treat your different voices as people. Bring them all to the table and listen to them. This means bringing your discomfort to the table as a voice, letting your fear have a seat and have a voice, letting your excitement have a voice, let your analytical self have a voice, and so on. Invite all of these voices to the table and give them attention and respect they deserve as if they were people in a meeting.
In doing so, you’re giving each voice a space to talk and express its opinion. You listen as an outside observer. They do not have the end say in what you decide on. You do. However, you can listen to all the voices, hear the discussion and show respect in order to hear them out. They might all have a valuable opinion. And they all might have advice for how you can grow.
It wasn’t until I began to try to sit with my discomfort that I saw the merit in this advice.
What does this have to do with your writing? That part is in your Home Work.
Your Homework
The next time you find yourself feeling resistance to write, sit with it. Feel it out. Don’t do anything while you sit with it other than make yourself comfortable, and let yourself feel it. Is it a physical sensation? Does it make you feel jittery? What do you do when you’re uncomfortable? Do you pull at your fingers or ears? Do you message your hands? Tap your foot?
Once you notice what you do when you’re uncomfortable, spend some time journaling about the experience. Write about what you feel and do. Then spend some time thinking about what you are learning about yourself and discomfort. I don’t mean what your discomfort is telling you, but rather what you’re learning about the way you react to the discomfort.
The next time you feel discomfort, try to refrain from doing these things you do to avoid feeling it. Try not to message your hands or tap your feet. It will likely feel restrained, but try to breathe out the frustration. Letting out a full breath until there is nothing left in your lungs is a really good way of getting out that urge to move.
From there, sit with your discomfort. Ask it where it’s coming from. Ask what’s being threatened.
Take out your journal again, and try to interact with the discomfort, like it is a friend who is trying to tell you a secret but doesn’t know how. You can create a dialogue, you can just write out what comes, you can record yourself talking if you’d like. But see what you can learn from just sitting with your discomfort.
Finally, the next time you feel the discomfort, you will hopefully know where it’s coming from, and you can address it, which hopefully will allow you to sit down and write. If not, repeat the exercises until you can fully understand and respect your discomfort and fear enough to sooth it.
Happy writing.
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We are writers. We focus on reading and writing. Many of us pay attention to market trends in order to find a published home for our work.
However, sometimes there is a manipulation in those trends. Publishers are the ones who decide what they think will and won’t sell. They, like writers, look at the trends, but they also mediate the trends. Because they are the say in what gets published, they are the gate keepers.
This can prove to be a problem, as so many BIPOC people, disabled people, LGBTQ+ folx, etc., have been saying for years.
The Problem with Gate-Keeping in Publishing
For some, reading is a way of simply escaping. What is escaping if not experiencing another life in order to know a world different from the reader’s? This might mean experiencing a character in the same professional line as the reader but with different strengths which help the reader understand how to develop that state of being, or it might be something completely different like an alien working against the human space army to save their solar system’s sun.
In every piece of fiction we read, we have a curiosity about the plot and the character. We want to experience their world, their reality, in order to escape from our own and maybe learn something along the way. This might not be the conscious aim for the reader, however, when we put ourselves in another person’s shoes, fictional or real, we are extending ourselves into another way of thinking and into another way of living.
“Books are sometimes windows, offering views of worlds that may be real or imagined, familiar or strange. These windows are also sliding glass doors, and readers have only to walk through in imagination to become part of whatever world has been created or recreated by the author. When lighting conditions are just right, however, a window can also be a mirror. Literature transforms human experience and reflects it back to us, and in that reflection we can see our own lives and experiences as part of the larger human experience. Reading, then, becomes a means of self-affirmation, and readers often seek their mirrors in books.”
~Rudine Sims Bishop
When we extend ourselves into another way of thinking and living (and this is the beautiful part), we stretch our empathy muscles, and we understand the world just a little bit differently than we did before.
Lee and Low Books wrote a January 2020 blog post on the importance of diversity in publishing, which fueled their 2019 Diversity in Publishing survey.
“Why does diversity in publishing matter? The book industry has the power to shape culture in big and small ways. The people behind the books serve as gatekeepers, who can make a huge difference in determining which stories are amplified and which are shut out.”
A very long and detailed example of publishers shutting voices out was outlined in a letter from RaceB4Race’s letter. In this outline, they explain a set of proposals were rejected from literary publication on the topic of Medievalists of Color. I’m likely to do a poor job of summarizing this article, as there is a lot to it, though the organization created RaceB4Race in a response to a rejection of
“a set of proposals for sessions on race and antiracism.” They found that “By creating a space to engage with premodern critical race studies, RaceB4Race fulfilled a long unmet need. RaceB4Race proved that premodern critical race studies is not a niche field!”
After trying to publish their findings, they were met with a reject which stated that while the content was interesting and valuable, it lacked opposing perspectives.
“We were disappointed and confused by this rejection, especially by the suggestion that the range of contributors was ‘constrained,’ given that our contributors’ expertise ranges from the history of medieval studies to slavery in early modern England to 17th-century French court ballets. In what sense could our range possibly read as ‘constrained’? Perhaps ‘constrained’ in that we did not include some older, more established white men to validate our calls for antiracist methodologies and pedagogies? But even more troubling was the suggestion that the editors were expecting and imagining ‘opposing perspectives’ to an antiracist collection. What kind of ‘opposing perspectives’ were imagined exactly? The cluster’s intervention pointed towards an entirely new direction for premodern studies, and its push for a radical transformation of the field was dismissed with a one-liner that hinged on ellipses and illogic. This second rejection felt eerily similar to the first by the International Congress of Medieval Studies.”
Examples like these can go on and on and on.
So, what happens when our access to media is formed for us because of gate keeping in the publishing industry? Well, a few things.
Lack of Representation
What results is that there is a lack of representation books, both in characters and in voice. This is massively important. One of the reasons will be gone over in depth in the second part of this post, but the most important point is that it alienates those whose voices are non-able-bodied, non-white, non-cisgendered, or non-straight.
I am writing this from the perspective of a white, able-bodied, bi woman’s perspective. So whereas I have the right to talk about bi representation and the representation of women’s voices, I don’t have the right to talk about perspectives of those with disabilities or from BIPOC folx.
Because I don’t have that right, I want to share words of marginalized authors’ voices.
Seeing people who look, act, and experience life like them in media makes a person feel included in a society, and it reinforces positive views of themselves and what they can achieve in society. Also, members of other groups, especially majority groups, base their ideas of groups on what they see in the media. For example, a hiring manager who watches too many police procedurals might view candidates of minority races as having criminal tendencies. For people who exist outside of these marginalized and underrepresented groups, it can be hard to imagine life with the experiences and hardships that minorities experience. Without those experiences, writing characters of diverse backgrounds can seem daunting.
The importance Dixon is putting forward is that what we see and read in the media can inform and develop biases. As writers, we need to watch out for that and make sure we’re representing people correctly. Likewise, and most importantly, it’s about inclusion and making sure everyone is seen and heard.
In this article, she goes on to talk about what writers can do to make sure they aren’t harming while they’re writing a character from a marginalized group that the writer doesn’t belong to. To learn more and in greater depth, be sure to read her page, Diversity in Literature here, and check out the article as well as her publishing house, Shalamar.
“For readers and viewers, seeing themselves represented on the page or screen can open up to them what’s possible. For some, it’s a lifeline.” […] “Seeing oneself reflected in fiction, even if partially, is important for people from marginalized communities and identities. It’s also important for people who align with the dominant paradigm as well. It allows them to see and understand that people who aren’t like them exist outside of narrow stereotypes and also outside of the confines of their own narrow understanding.”
This article is beautifully in depth with wonderful explanations of the importance of representation in literature as well as how to do it right. I strongly encourage everyone to read it from start to finish.
“Representation is key to good writing. This is true whether you’re a novelist, a playwright, or a screenwriter; whether you work in television, in game development, or new media. All narrative has the power to impact culture and individuals in a positive way or a negative one. It’s up to creators to choose.”
Niche Only
Ask yourself when the last time you read a book where the main character was LGBTQ+, BIPOC, or disabled whether mentally or physically. If you bought it in a bookstore, what section of the bookstore did you get it from?
In most, though not all, these books have their own category in bookstores. There is an LGBTQ+ section where fiction is muddled with non-fiction on anything to do with the LGBTQ+ lifestyle, experience, community, history, etc.
When “normal” is white, cis and straight, then anything else becomes a niche market. And that is a problem.
In publishing, if something is niche, then it means that a writer who has main characters who fall into the “other” category need to find an agent and/or a publisher who specializes in that niche. It narrows the ability to publish quite a bit.
When publishers decide that these stories are niche, then they continue the thought that only people who are specifically interested in reading about characters with disabilities, or only interested in Chinese trans characters will want to read them. However, all that’s doing is further perpetuating the divide.
If these books aren’t filed or considered “normal,” then they will always be seen as niche, which they aren’t. They aren’t their own genre because they have non-white, non-disabled, non-straight, and/or non-cisgendered. They are still stories about people who experience life in their own ways.
What You Can Do About This
Read!
Read lots!
Read writers who are “other” in all genres. Read Afro-science fiction, read a fantasy novel where the MC has cerebral palsy (I really hope that exists because I think that would be awesome), read a western with a cross-dressing cowboy or saloon girl.
If you are white, cis, straight, and an able-bodied person and you read these books, then you are voting with your dollar. You are showing the publishing industry that these books are in demand and they are not niche. You are showing that the main character’s racial background, their sexuality, their gender identity, their disability is a part of the diverse world we live in.
This is called normalizing. The only way to un-niche these voices is to normalize them. And the only way to do that is to buy and read books by these authors.
At the end of this post, I’ve included a list of diverse fiction authors and their books. I know that I, personally, want to read books with LGBTQ+ characters that aren’t romance. They are hard to find.
Check out the books that are from an author who is different from you. If you’re cisgendered, read a book from the perspective of a trans person. If you’re white, read a book by a Native American or Indigenous writer. If you’re able-bodied, read some fiction from someone who is disabled. If you’ve never experienced anxiety or don’t understand it, read fiction about someone who has anxiety.
And if you find it difficult to find these books, write to your favorite publishers and demand that there be more available. Confront them on this point.
A group called the Black Writers Guild has already sent out an open letter to the Big 5 publishers with a call to fix the racial disparities in the publishing industry. A way to support this is to add your voices and your money to this call. By “your money,” I mean investing in books by marginalized voices.
Demand publishers to unlock the damn gate.
Some Publishing Statistics
In a 2019 article put out by Publisher’s Weekly, it relays the publishing data gathered from a Lee and Low diversity survey.
The survey found that in the publishing industry:
76% were white
74% were cis women
81% were straight
89% were non-disabled
Statistics like this suggest that there is likely to be a bias when it comes to manuscripts that cross desks for publication. Thus, there is a call for a more diverse publishing industry.
The British children’s reading charity, BookTrust, found that
Fewer than 5.8% of children’s authors and illustrators in 2017 were POC
1.98% of the 5.6% of the above authors were British people of color
An average of 4 books per white person were published compared to an average of 2 books per person of color from 2007-2017
Overall, between 2007 and 2017, 8.62% of children’s books creators were people of color
Have you been outside in the world…at all? Have you noticed that not everyone looks the same? Have you noticed that not everyone acts the same, or thinks the same? I mean, if you turn on the news and watch the talking heads at all, you’ll see bickering over opinions which shows right here that not everyone thinks the same.
One thing that we accept pretty readily is that there are divisions in thinking. We can wrap our heads around that because almost all of our discussions are communicating with a mind that isn’t our own. You can’t escape that. It’s normal because it is literally all around us.
You know what else is all around us? All the rest of the world which is created of a rich tapestry of individuals. So why isn’t that reflected in our media? What’s more, is that making the general heteronormative population more biased because we don’t experience those who are different through the media we consume?
The answer is yes. Seriously.
Recently, I’ve started watching the Netflix mini-series Hollywood, which is set in the 1940s. There is regular discussion about what will and won’t sell. A particular story which is outlined is Anna May Wong, who was a Chinese American actress. The story depicted in the show is that she tried out for a part in The Son-Daughter (though in the show, the movie was titled something else), a part she was perfect for, but was turned down because no one would accept a Chinese face on screen, despite the character actually being Chinese. The part was then given to white actress Helen Hayes.
The show has countless examples of how Hollywood was gatekeeping diverse media, including a wonderful line from character Archie Coleman who says, “I want to take the story of Hollywood and give it a re-write. So maybe someday soon, you ain’t a half-Asian director who feels he has to hide it. You’ll just be a director. I won’t be a black writer writing about some white lady. I’ll just be a writer.”
While that was 80 years ago, there is still a level of that today. After all, writing Afro-science fiction is seen as niche.
The way to combat this segregation in the media is to normalize it all. Allow more books to be published from marginalized voices and by wider consumption of that media, then we accept it as normal. Because it is.
Who is Reading?
In a 2019 Bustle article by Kerri Jarema, Jarema outline a study which says white people read more books on average than non-white folks. Jarema then makes the claim that it is up to publishers to change this.
I personally would put the responsibility on both reader and publisher. I am in no way defending publishers and gatekeeping. However, an argument I recently saw on Twitter (I know, I should research better) stated that publishing houses are businesses first, that they have to invest where they’ll see a return.
That is true. That also leads to a much bigger problem of capitalism overrunning and drowning out what’s right, which we won’t get into here.
Seeing as capitalism isn’t likely to change any time soon (though we can hope!), then we need to speak the business language to the publishers and show them that disabled, BIPOC, LGBTQ+ main characters sell just as willingly as white, straight, cis, and able-bodied characters.
This being said, I do recognize there are likely other factors that might play into how much different groups of people are reading, from accessibility to time available, which can be down to a variety of factors that I won’t get into here.
Your Homework
Read! Check out some of the books below, or find some other authors who write characters who are not like you. Then, read another. In fact, challenge yourself to read ten books this summer, from now until September 21st along these lines.
Not only do this, but see if you can find these authors on social media and give them a follow. Be sure to also recommend the books you read and liked.
Finally, continue learning. I provided a list of articles and resources below the list of books for you to continue exploring. There was a lot of good content that I didn’t include.
Fiction Books by Marginalized Voices
I struggled with this list. Not so much with finding BIPOC and/or LGBTQ authors writing BIPOC and/or LGBTQ characters, but with finding fiction with disability representation, either learning or physical disabilities by authors with disabilities.
As a result, I admit, because I was really struggling, there are some books listed where I couldn’t find the information about the author or just flat out the authors are not represented by their characters with disabilities.
This just goes to show, there is a gap.
Contemporary
Sherman Alexie, Flight Mia Alvar, In the Country Barrett Rose Baum, Perfectly Flawed Louise Erdrich, LaRose Bernadine Evaristo, Girl, Woman, Other Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues Angela Flournoy, The Turner House Nancy J. Hedin, Bend Helen Hoang, The Kiss Quotient Julie Iromuanya, Mr. and Mrs. Doctor B. L. McGrew, We Are Immeasurable K. A. Moll, Coming to Terms Susan Nussbaum, Good Kings, Bad Kings Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar Yong Takashi, The Escape to Candyland Michelle Tea, Valencia Jennifer Tseng, Mayumi and the Sea of Happiness Hilary Zaid, Paper is White
Fantasy
Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows Sarah Rees Brennan, In Other Lands Octavia Butler, Kindred Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Water Dancer Celeste Harte, Conquest N. K. Jemmisin, The Fifth Season Thomas King, Green Grass, Running Water (note: this book is actually Magical Realism, though for simplicity sake, I put it under fantasy) Malinda Lo, The Huntress Alex London, Black Wings Beating Day Al-Mohamed, The Labyrinth’s Archivist Rebecca Roanhorse, Trail of Lightning River Solomun, The Deep Scott Tracey, Witch Eye Starhawk, The Fifth Sacred Thing
Historic
Marguerite de Angeli, The Door in the Wall Elaine Castillo, America is Not the Heart Kathrine Dunn, Geek Love Fannie Flagg, Fried Green Tomatoes Vet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer Elizabeth McCracken, The Giant’s House Chinelo Okparanta, Under the Udala Trees Leslie Marmon Silko, Gardens in the Dunes Alice Walker, The Color Purple Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad Jacqueline Woods, Red at the Bone Virginia Woolf, Orlando
Science Fiction
Omar El Akkad, American War Storm Constantine, Wraeththu Esi Edugyan, Washington Black J. Fally, Bone Rider Karen Lord, The Best of All Possible Worlds Nnedi Okorafor, Lagoon C. T. Rwizi, Scarlet ODyssey Rivers Solomon, An Unkindness of Ghosts Tade Thompson, Rosewater
