We Don’t Have to Write Alone

On writerly coaching, accountability, and everything I learned from The Pitt

Heya folks, happy Full Strawberry Moon! The strawberries are ripe, just in time for Father’s Day, coming up this weekend. We just survived our first heat wave over here in the greater NYC Metro Area, which seems to suggest that this summer will be no joke.

This month, I wanted to share an experience that I’ve had over the last month doing a writing coaching swap with a friend and colleague who is also a fantastic published fiction author. (She’s got a glowing NYT review, you guys!) Really, she is coaching me, helping me carve out time to write amid new motherhood and offering encouraging feedback/ tips/ strategies as I encounter obstacles in this novel revision. But the swap part is that she shared her reluctance to query agents and a feeling that her query/pitch letter was not confidently or effectively pitching her book to the industry gatekeepers as it could, so I offered to take a look and coach her on the “selling her writing and brand” side of things.

Here’s how it went:

Well! In a nutshell, it went well! I think, at our core, we are all writing to communicate, and it can be really really helpful to get a little boost from a friend along the way. When we’re not quite ready for critical feedback, sometimes we just need someone to hold us accountable and show up for writing sessions because we know they’re going to ask us how it went. Ever have a gym buddy, or a walking partner, or a book club? Same basic idea, I think.

Here are some tips my friend gave me about carving out the time and giving myself permission to write, overcoming mom guilt or laundry guilt or needing to sweep the floors/declutter guilt:

• Make a schedule of realistic writing times over a 2-3 week period, take a picture, and send them to someone (her), so that I could see them as appointments

• Make a plan for the next writing session at the end of a writing session, which helped keep up momentum

• Turn on voice recorder and just record myself talking about a character or scene or something I need to think about or work through (I haven’t tried this one yet because I feel self conscious about talking without a human being on the other side of the phone but I did do a lot of brainstorming notes, and we’ve had very generative figuring-things-out calls)

• Be careful not to share the manuscript with too many early readers, since truly critical feedback can cause doubt and slow generative writing down (though I did get some helpful observations about the beginning from a very wise friend that I hope I can use to inform the rest of the revision. But I’m not going to send the first 100 pages to the other 5 people I had in mind just yet…)

• Do a structural map/chart of character trajectory as characters relate to plot points: for each moment, where are they now, what are they doing, what are they thinking, how do they feel? So this separates out different levels of existence and experience for them (just got this tip so very eager to try it!!)

With this help, I’ve basically tackled 25%-30% of the novel revision, and am hoping to have a solid 3rd draft by the end of the summer, though we both acknowledge that the hard part is right now. Wish me luck!!!

For my part, which seems like a way less intensive type of coaching, I listened to her discuss her relationship with querying agents, marketing her writing, and selling her work, and it sounds like these are her least favorite parts of the writing process. (Sound familiar, anyone???!) Her first novel was published with an indie press (unagented), so while she is feeling really great about this next novel (and has no trouble sitting down to do the creative work), it’s packaging it up and pitching it that feels icky.

Here were my tips to her, and what we did workshop her query letter (this is a broad summary to protect my friend’s privacy and creative property, but let me know in the comments if you’d like me to do a deep dive with queries next month, since I can share drafts of my Taiwan book query letter and how it evolved):

• First, there was the confidence issue. I really believe that your letter has to express your genuine excitement about the book and its story, otherwise the book summary will fall flat. And it has to be gripping. If you are dreading writing something, the reader can feel it. As a writing teacher of required courses, I’ve read a lot of “I HATE THIS BUT I’M JUST PLOWING THROUGH IT” essays.

• We talked about what my friend could do to gain more confidence, such as putting on a persona, and even dressing up or putting on lipstick to show up as that persona— so it’s less about bragging about yourself and more about taking on the attitude of an avatar who can trumpet your praises. I suggested “Melanie Griffith” as her avatar’s name in the interest of whimsy.

• Then we did a pitch workshop, and here’s where The Pitt comes in: I didn’t want to just go in and edit her letter. First of all, I haven’t read her novel, so only she knows what it’s about—and more importantly, why this story matters. Second, it’s better when writers solve their own problems and/or make their own improvements — and it builds confidence.

  So what did I do? I pretended that I was Noah Wyle (the main attending doctor in the ER) in The Pitt, and coached my friend to edit her pitch while I watched.

  The whole point of a teaching hospital (that the show depicts) is that the junior doctors learn to perform complicated procedures by doing them while their supervisors explain how. Or, the attending doc shows them once and then they do it themselves the next time.

  So for my friend’s query letter, I created a Google Doc for us to play in, and then highlighted each part and suggested ways she might tackle changes. We started easy, with the bio section (make it tight, lead with the impressive stuff), comp titles (what about them makes them good comparisons?), and the one sentence summary (which can be helpful for previewing to agents what kind of book this is).

  Then we worked on the hard part: the one-paragraph book summary. I will note that some folks might say, “oh, but I have a 2-3 paragraph book summary,” to which I say, you are probably in trouble. While you might have to start a second paragraph for some reason, really, a book pitch should get to the main GIST of the conflict/stakes/action/characters/themes in 1 paragraph…. But also, it’s very tough!

  One thing we did that helped was highlighting parts of the summary that really worked, and creating little bridge mad libs to fill in the blanks and pump up the action. And really, the previous draft of my friend’s letter was quite a reasonable pitch — nothing wrong with it, per se. But it had a bit more stasis and focused more on the character’s emotional and internal transformation rather than action. Once my friend framed the summary with a bit more of “In order to ____, Character must ____ which leads to ___,” then the pitch literally crackled with energy. Sometimes, we just need a little support to inject a little extra juice into our work!

Anyway, I share this because this was my first experience both coaching and being coached. And it was a gentler, fuzzier experience than the critiques and feedback I usually get from my fantastic writing group (who are also very loving, though our purpose is to provide constructive feedback) or other writing friends. When we are feeling emotionally vulnerable about some aspect of the work or when the revision is still an early draft, coaching can be a really great bridge to the next step.

I told my friend that I really appreciated having someone proverbially holding my hand, and she shared the other day that her new pitch letter inspired an agent’s instant request for a full manuscript!

This is the season to not write alone, I think.

Also, here are some additional resources for writing with a community:

• Jami Attenberg over at Craft Talk is hosting another beautiful #1000wordsofsummer! Basically, everyone subscribed tries to write 1,000 words a day for two weeks, and offers emotional support and encouragement on social media. We are in our final days, but you can go back and read her inspiring words from earlier this month or pick up her book 1000 Words, which also reads like a good friend cheering you on.

• Michelle Hoover over at 7am Novelist is doing a 7am writers writing together free zoom for the month of July! And she usually invites folks to share wisdom— you can often read or listen to the sessions later if you miss them in real time.

• Some wonderful and friendly writers I know and sometimes teach with over at the Writing Co-Lab are doing a summer writing camp! More details here: https://www.writingco-lab.com/summercamp

• Go find a friend and see if they want to be an accountability buddy! You can send pages that they promise to congratulate you on and not read, or you can talk about your projects and what you’ve done and what you’d like to do next.

And now, here they are, your Moments of Zen:

(Look at that doctorly teaching!)

This month, I’m doing a bonus moment of zen because I didn’t want to have to choose between Noah Wyle and Nicholas Cage:

(Some very good writing advice and coaching!)

Have a great summer! Let’s find that joy in writing!