Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach

Some days, you wake up and feel like you can finish a novel in a month—and it’s not even November, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)! Or you feel so on fire you could pitch and land an essay in The Paris Review and The New Yorker. Then there are the other days. On those days, you might have gotten a rejection from the magazine you queried. Or your writing group shredded your latest short story. Or your own self-doubt douses the fire and fills your mind with negativity. You feel dragged down and depressed. I touched on those days in Episode 56, when you’re questioning why you ever thought you could write. When you feel like hanging it up ’cause you don’t think you have what it takes. On those days, you have to fight through that and refuse to listen to the voices and instead, create a volume of work. You’ve got to keep writing, even when you’re not on fire. Even when you have nothing more than a glimmer of hope, like a tiny flickering ember buried under the ash heap, about to go out. That’s when you