Over the years I’ve learned a few signs that signal to me that I am probably experiencing some writer's resistance and avoiding the creative work that needs to be done. One tricky sign is that I’m suddenly doing more reading about writing than I am writing.

I tricked myself with this one for years because reading about writing feels so productive, but when it comes down to it those are still hours when I read someone else’s work instead of doing my own.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t read books on writing, obviously. (Right? Read on!) But paying attention to what’s going on when you’re filling what was supposed to be writing time with reading about it instead could help you ID some of the natural writer's resistance that can creep in between you and your creative work.

I suppose there are two bright sides to my having done so much of this in the past--

Bright side #1: I have a personal library of books on writing that could stock an entire...

Writers block once owned me, and then it didn't.

True story: for a couple of months, I didn’t write anything until I’d spent 20 minutes colouring in pretty fairy pictures with my specially-purchased watercolour pencils and glitter crayons.

This was a little while before that whole adult colouring book thing took off – and I have to admit, I felt relieved when that happened because it meant I wasn’t the only 40-year old woman rockin’ her glitter pens.

And why was a grown woman spending valuable time with her pretty fairies 2-3 times a week?

I desperately needed a cure for writers block and they were my amygdala de-activation device.

I know that sounds like something out of a Star Wars movie, but bear with me...

Your Brain and Fear

The brain has several component systems and one of the critical ones for your creative life is the limbic system, which processes your sensory experiences – it takes all the info constantly streaming in to the brain...

Can you spare 10 minutes?

Writing practice always varies from writer to writer. It's not what it looks like that necessarily matters -- the details can vary but the need for a considered writing practice never goes away, even for published writers.

There was a time, about a decade ago now, when I could not bring myself to write. I had been seriously working on my writing for a number of years, and had published poems and stories in literary journals, and won some prizes. I was at the point where I needed to be pulling together my first book of poetry.

It’s not that I was blocked exactly, I just couldn’t sit down to write. I'd lost all of the delight I used to have in my writing practice.

I kept telling myself I was just too busy, with family and with work, and that I would get to it “soon.”  But the longer I went without writing, the harder it was to write. Weeks and months went by without my being able to really put pen to paper.

But the problem...

Sometimes I forget that writing takes time.

Last week, I had ALL of the meetings. You’d think the world would have run out of meetings by now, but no: apparently, there will be more next week. And I still had that cold that will not leave and has me hacking morning and night. My daughter texted to say that I’d forgot to send her money for university this month, which reminded me OH RIGHT, PAY THE BILLS. I had multiple events in the evenings and on top of that, I discovered Transparent on Amazon. (No judgement, ok?)

It seemed I would never get any writing done ever again. Which felt fine, because I wasn’t convinced that my current work was all that great anyway

In other words: just another normal writing week.

And this is me now that I’m not parenting on a daily basis. For a long time, I was also single parenting while working and going to school at the same time – and yet, in those years it seemed like I got even more writing done. What is up with...

For writers working in narrative, there’s nothing quite as anxiety-provoking as the question of whether or not we have the structure right.

We work for months on our messy first draft, some of us for YEARS even, hoping with our fingers crossed that when we get to the end, we’ll have a story that basically works and won’t have to be completely rewritten from scratch because we didn’t get the fundamentals right.

The trick is in how to do that exactly…

There are many options for structuring a story – and likely some that have yet to be invented – but in this blog post, I’m going to clarify the classic 3 act structure and hopefully demonstrate how you can use it as a tool to help you shape your messy first draft so that you end up with a book that works at its most basic level.

This structure is classic like a Chanel suit because it’s that well-constructed and can take you anywhere, and it’s also classic as in Seen on TV,...

Are you writing to FINISH?

Nearly every writer has days when the voices in her head get snarky and loud.

>> Why even bother?

>> Is this even worth it?

>> Who do you think you are to write a memoir?

>> You’ll never get this published.

>> Why don’t you stop wasting your time and do something useful for a change?

Honestly -- that voice is such a b*tch! And she always shows up uninvited and at the worst possible time.

If you hear that voice often, then you will at some point wonder if you should even bother finishing and if your book is worth it.

So let’s take that question at face value and try to answer it:

Should you even bother finishing your book?

Deciding to finish: know your WHY

Simon Sinek has a great book called Start with Why and it’s lead me to thinking about the importance of WHY we write in the first place.

Because depending on why you write and why it matters to you, the answer about finishing your book will be...

Read Like a Writer: Building A Writer's Reading List

From time to time in any given writing project, you’ll hit a wall. It would be great if this wall was painted with the perfect novel outline, but that doesn’t seem to be in the repertoire of most graffiti artists.

The Writer’s Reading List is the tool to use when you’re moving along in your work in progress at a great clip and then suddenly trip over yourself and can’t go any further. You’re stuck. What you need next is some inspiration to help you solve your technical craft questions related to…

• Dialogue – how to ensure each scene is infused with tension?
• Backstory – how much is too much, and how to shape it?
• Time – how to make it clear to your reader that your protagonist is living in the present day but recalling an incident from two decades back?
• Structure – how to take these three plotlines and have them intersect?

It’s the technical craft wall and...

Georgina Beaty is the author of THE PARTY IS HERE, now out with Freehand Books.

Busy Women on Writing Books

This is the 15th instalment in an interview series on writing, profiling women writers who’ve written and published books while also working, parenting, volunteering, caring for family, attending school, and ALL OF THE THINGS.

This week, I'm pleased to introduce Stegner Fellow, Georgina Beaty. 

Georgina is the author of the short story collection The Party is Here (Freehand Books, 2021). Her fiction has appeared in New England Review, The Walrus, The New Quarterly, The Fiddlehead, PRISM and elsewhere. As an actor and playwright, she’s worked with theatres across Canada and internationally. She holds an MFA from the University of British Columbia and has been supported by fellowships and writing residencies at MacDowell, the Canadian Film Centre and The Banff Centre. She is a 2020-2022 Stegner...

In Stephen King’s On Writing—a work of creative nonfiction that blends memoir with advice on writing craft—the author talks about keeping track of rejection slips for some of his earliest short stories. 

He hammered a nail into his wall and every time he got a rejection, he slipped it onto the nail and then tried again. 

Soon he had racked up so many rejections that he had to abandon the nail, which was becoming too weighted down with paper, and replaced it with a large spike. He kept writing, kept submitting, and kept accumulating rejections. 

Stephen King did, of course, eventually go on to sell a story; today, he’s one of the most popular American novelists in history. But he, like everyone, had to start somewhere. 

And King got his start the same way many creative writers do: by submitting his work to literary magazines. 

What Are Literary Magazines?

Also called literary journals, or sometimes shortened to “lit mags,”...

DIY Writing Retreats: What are they?

I'm heading into a Page Booster Writing Retreat this weekend, with my #FINISHERS group from First Book Finish.

Whenever I plan a DIY writing retreat like this, my whole body goes "Ahhhhhh."

Writing retreats are hands-down my favourite way to make substantive progress on a manuscript and reconnect to why I write in the first place.

At one point in my life, I was a single mother of a young child, doing a Masters degree part-time and working a full-time management level job in the non-profit sector. People would say to me “I just don’t know how you do it!” and I would secretly think “Gah, I don’t know either!”

But it’s also true that I had discovered a secret weapon.

I would organize writing retreats for myself.

Not the kind where you spend a month or so in the woods with a group of fellow writers, where there’s a lunch buffet every day (Hello Banff Centre!) or someone brings lunch to your studio door...