Writerly Bites is Back
Diving into 2025 with eyes open
Happy new year, readers and writers. It’s been too long since I updated you with thoughts on the writing life. I found myself pulled into a kind of maelstrom of child care needs last year, and the podcast and my own writing work went by the wayside for a little while. But it’s a new year, and the kids are cared for, and I find whole hours of the day stretching ahead of me the way they did eons ago. My writing self is still there, eager to grow and blossom, find new challenges and tell new stories. And I’m ready to be that person again.
That means that the Writerly Bites podcast is back! I’ve got new episodes about my favorite reads of 2024, and finding the person in your life who will hold you accountable, and having a character tell a story within your story. There will be more episodes on Tuesdays, with real, concrete ways to get into your writing and make it better that very day. You can listen to the podcast as your pep talk before a writing session, or for a little food for thought as you’re driving around, or as a way to touch the world of writing in some small, meaningful way even when it feels so, so hard to do so.
It’s a hard time. A hard time to be an American and a hard time to be living with any kind of uncertainty in your life, wondering what the year will hold, what your future will hold, wondering whether we need to stand and fight or live to fight another day. Our choices on that score might change from day to day as circumstances change. The only thing I do know for sure is that writers are needed. They’re needed as witnesses and as the tellers of stories; they’re needed to find ways to make us feel. They’re an absolutely critical part of the equation for living. And if you’re a writer, you’re needed. I’m telling myself, this year is no year for me to step back and take it easy. This year needs the best of me, and I’m determined to give it.
So stay tuned.
Your Writing Exercise for the Week
• Think about your character’s voice, and how you can build their personality and context through voice. Have your character write a sternly-worded email to someone who is currently angering them. Let the anger come through gradually, in fits and starts. Let the deeper emotions and history of the relationship creep into that email between the lines.
Some Ideas for Writerly New Year’s Resolutions that are Actually Doable
• Write 3x a week. Check off or put a sticker on your calendar every day you write.
• Finish a short story that’s been languishing in a folder for too long.
• Finish up writing in an old notebook. Look back and marvel at the beautiful, interesting, half-finished stories you have in there.
• Go back to scrapbooking, if you ever did it. Look at the old photos, tickets, menus, programs you’ve saved from past years. Memory is important.