See You In A Few Weeks!

I am going to take the next few weeks off from writing these emails. It has taken me 45 minutes to write that sentence, because I’m horribly afraid of seeming inconsistent with my intent to write to you daily, and honestly I just don’t want to let you down. However, it’s time for a break.…

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Choose Your Words Carefully

Months ago, during a call with my agent, I scrawled the words Rebel On The Page across the top of my notebook. I thought it might make a good title for the book that was starting to take shape. I wasn’t thinking about the power of words, or what including such a belter as ‘rebel’ in the…

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Little Victories

Going slowly, at anything, is very hard for me. I don’t like working slowly, or running slowly, or learning slowly. I want it all done now now now, at my pace and no one else’s. Of course, the world sometimes has other ideas about this. Resistance, gravity and inertia can worm their way into even…

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Super Secret Writing Questions

I got my first journal when I was about 9. It had flowers and fairies all over the cover, which had a leaf that enclosed the outer edge of the pages and clicked shut into a heart-shaped padlock in the center.I loved it. I felt like I had my very own Secret Garden that I…

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Act As If

On Friday night I took myself off to a hotel for a little spot of lying by the pool, drinking Aperol Spritz and reading like there was nothing else in the world for me to do. But for the first couple of hours, I just thought. It’s hard to think deeply in your normal routine, because…

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Why Writers Should Ignore ‘The Market’

When I worked in publishing we talked a lot about ‘the market’. The market loves literary fiction right now. The market is so hot for Scandi crime this year. The market is just flooded with teen vampire fic. It all felt very cool, like we knew something other people didn’t. But in hindsight, it all…

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How Your Friends Can Unblock Your Writing

“What would I tell her today? How would I make him understand?” Whenever I’m stuck on what to write, I think about one of my friends, and write to them. If I’m working on a ghostwriting project, usually business-related, I’ll write to a friend who runs her own business. I write so that she would…

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Get To The Point

The first few lines (or paragraphs) of any draft are, generally, pretty rubbish. You’ve got a rough sense of what you want to say, but you haven’t yet settled into the rhythm of work yet, and so you stumble around your point rather than getting straight to it. Some writers call this the warm-up. Others…

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What’s The Lesson?

If there’s anything I’ve learned about myself during the pandemic, it’s that I love a timeline. Once I know when something is going to happen — even if it’s ages away — I’m happy. Having a date in mind makes me relax. I can stop fretting about The Thing because I know when Future Laura…

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Art In The Bath

Novelist Willa Cather once said that “art is a matter of enjoyment through the five senses. Unless you can see the beauty all around you everywhere, and enjoy it, you can never comprehend art… aesthetic appreciation begins with the morning bath.” I suspect Cather would have cared not a jot whether I agreed with her,…

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