Alhamdulillah, I am a finalist for the 2024 PEN Canada New Voices Award.* I tend to not submit my work to contests because the competition feels fierce and I know so many good stories don’t win, because, how to choose what stands out from hundreds of submissions? But I pushed myself this year to submitContinue reading “On being selected as a finalist for the PEN Canada New Voices Award”
Category Archives: The Writing Life
Writing advice you should probably ignore
I’m working on a new course called Ease Into Fiction, which is designed for writers who are new to fiction and writers who want to write fiction but find it intimidating and can’t seem to move past writing about themselves. In prepping for the course, I asked writers in my Instagram stories to share their biggestContinue reading “Writing advice you should probably ignore”
When motivation is hard to come by
When writers tell me their biggest struggle when it comes to their writing is actually finding time to write, I like to probe a little bit, and narrow down what the core issue really is. I’ve shared some thoughts about when your writing needs to take a backseat here, and when your writing is alwaysContinue reading “When motivation is hard to come by”
When your writing is always taking a backseat
When writers tell me their biggest struggle when it comes to their writing is actually finding time to write, I like to probe a little bit, and narrow down what the core issue really is. I talked about the first issue here: when your writing needs to take a backseat. In this post, I’m goingContinue reading “When your writing is always taking a backseat”
When your writing needs to take a backseat
When writers tell me their biggest struggle when it comes to their writing is actually finding time to write, I like to probe a little bit, and narrow down what the core issue really is. Usually it’s one of three things: I want to address the first scenario in this blog post. If you areContinue reading “When your writing needs to take a backseat”
Taking risks as a writer
I’m working on a short story collection and one of the stories that I’m writing is in the epistolary form. One character is writing a letter to another character, and that’s the structure in which the story is told. But the story didn’t start out that way. It started out like a regular story, aContinue reading “Taking risks as a writer”
Your first draft is not awful
First drafts always get such a bad rep — A vomit draft. Bad. Crappy. Terrible. Just google “first draft quotes” and you’ll see so many writers and authors talking about first drafts in this way. I get that a first draft will never be perfect. But is a final draft ever perfect? And more toContinue reading “Your first draft is not awful”
What if you’re already good?
I recently shared this popular quote by Ira Glass with my Grounded Writers group. It’s a quote that I’ve shared on social media more than once and it’s even on the About page on my website where I say it’s my favourite writing quote. Here’s the quote: “Nobody tells this to people who are beginners,Continue reading “What if you’re already good?”
On rejections and negative reviews
Over the last little while I’ve had many conversations with writers about critique and rejections and negative reviews, and I wanted to share some thoughts here in case they’re helpful to other writers. I know a lot has been said already, and perhaps I’m not adding anything new or particularly insightful, but I occupy severalContinue reading “On rejections and negative reviews”
How to overcome ‘writer’s block’ (Part 2)
I’ve been talking about writer’s block in the last few posts. Here is the initial post where I talk about why I don’t believe in writer’s block, and here is how to overcome writer’s block part 1. In this post, I want to talk about how to overcome feeling stuck in the midst of aContinue reading “How to overcome ‘writer’s block’ (Part 2)”