The Em Dash #14

Apr 2

Hey Friend,

Happy November (aka my birth month 🤩).

I have been thinking A LOT about writing lately.

“But Sabrina, you’re a book coach—aren’t you always thinking about writing?”

Kinda, but lately I’ve been thinking about my own writing. I even went back to my old personal blog and read some of the posts. And I found this (excerpt) from 6 years ago:

I have a need to write. At any given moment, there are hundreds of words bouncing around my brain. Dozens of stories clamor to the front, begging to be told. So whenever I have a spare moment, or when my work gets too boring, I pull out a blank sheet of paper, pick up a pen, and write.

Sometimes what comes out weighs a ton. It’s as if I’ve been hoarding every emotion I’ve ever felt. The words tumble out of my pen, nothing strong enough to slow them down.

Sometimes what comes out is light and airy. The words flutter like butterflies, painting pictures as beautiful as their wings. The ideas seem simple at first, but upon closer examination, the intricacies reveal themselves. If you know me well and you read one of these, you’ll be able to understand what it is I’m really saying.

Occasionally I’ll write a poem, and other times it’s a straightforward life update. Honestly, it doesn’t matter. I’m just happy to be writing. I love that feeling I get when I craft a particularly good sentence. I live for turning my feelings into black and white pictures. I get a jolt of pleasure whenever I start a new journal. Writing is my favorite thing to do—I want to get better at it.

And in case you didn’t know, today marks the start of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). I talked to you about it a few weeks ago, but that was mostly about the ways it doesn’t work for people.

Now I’d like to share how I’m making it work for me, and maybe you can use it as inspiration to make sure it works for you too.

My NaNo Goals:

Write one vignette a day (word count doesn’t matter)
Document my writing process/share my feelings about the experience daily (on my Instagram stories)

That’s it!

Are you participating in NaNo? I’d love to know!