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Award-winning, Nashville-based writer, editor and journalist Katie Lewis talks about the creative community, being a freelancer, setting deadlines and remaining healthy and inspired.
I get the question regularly: How many rejections is too many? When do I stop submitting the story I wrote — or give up on writing entirely?
Let’s talk about why rejections are actually good, how to reframe them, and why you should hold onto any scrap of constructive feedback.
Read moreCreative writing can be about anything! Yay! Huzzah!
This is not a blog post about focusing your plot. This is a blog post about freedom.
Phew. A lofty statement, that one, am I right? But here’s the deal: So many of us (like, sooo many) sit down to write and are stricken by the belief that it must look a certain way. But it doesn’t!
Read moreWherever you are in your path to publication, at some point, you’ll wonder if creating an author website is a necessity.
TL;DR Sure, why not? :) Let’s talk about what to include on a writing website.
Read moreThe truth is that as writers, we cannot see the forest for the trees. Like, cannot. I’ve been writing stories and submitting manuscripts for more than a decade, as well as editing some incredible books myself, and let me tell you: I needed a creative writing editor.
Read moreThe struggle of working off one’s ass (as well as not ending in a preposition) with the sole purpose of more, more, more is, frankly, ugly to me. It didn’t used to be, but now, I’m not impressed by my past self. She seems easily influenced by what she thinks she should be doing instead of what she wants to be doing.
Read moreA fellow writer doing the hard work of slogging away to fill in the blank page emailed me a question that gave me pause: how in the world does one write an entire book?
This one had me scratching my head: How do we fill a novel? How do we sustain a story across hundreds of pages and thousands of words? My goodness, it looks like Mount Everest. But I have some ideas to share.
Read moreFor a variety of reasons, 2018 was not a strong year of writing for me. But I never stopped cooking.
Read morePopping in after nine months away to make two confessions about my writing life.
And P.S., can you still call it a writing life if you haven’t done much writing? Asking for a friend.
Read moreWhat I really, really want this year is admittedly huge and will have the longest-lasting impact on my writing life: I want to define my writing brand and orient my work toward that end.
Before you ick out over the word "brand" when it's applied to a creative craft, let me share how I'm defining this: I want to figure out who I am as a writer, what my voice sounds like, the type of stories I want to tell, the messages I want to impart. Phew, that's a big one. But I think it's time.
Read moreThe end of a year is full of actions you're meant to take, from setting earnest health goals to making amends with friends. December is a grand rush to tie up loose ends and skate into the new year fresh and apple-cheeked.
What we have in common, my friends, is that we want to write well, and we want to do it year-round, not just in January. So let's talk about the self-care work you'll want to do before you even start writing that outline.
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