how we finish what we started
a fall đ„łïžplanning partyđ„łïž, featuring the magic of One Thing, on Sunday, September 8th at 2pm eastern
Hello there! Welcome to Write More, Be Less Careful, a newsletter about making space for creative practice in a busy life. Iâm a poet and an essayist, and my most recent books are the poetry collection Pocket Universe and the anthology The Long Devotion: Poets Writing Motherhood, which I edited with the poet Emily PĂ©rez. My next book, The Good Mother Myth, will be out in January 2025, and you can pre-order it now!
This is the monthly intentions email, which goes out [usually!] the last Sunday before a new month starts. Itâs a chance to pause and set some goals for our writing practice in the coming month.
As anyone whoâs read this newsletter for a minute or met me in person knows, I love a plan. I love a list, love a system, love a strategy.
And yet: there comes a time when you have to stop making neat little lists and just commit to getting the thing DONE. (I am all caps-ing at myself, but maybe also at you, if you need the encouragement.)
At last yearâs fall planning party, we had a ton of fun looking at our calendars, setting some big goals, and developing accountability strategies to achieve those dreams. (The round-up from that post is below, if you want to channel some of that magic.) But this year weâre going to try something a little different: instead of making a big PLAN, weâre going to talk about how we GET THINGS DONE. This is a little self serving, because I really need the nudge to actually wrap up (slash start then finishđ€Š) a bunch of small things. But I bet Iâm not the only one whoâs spent time making a really elegant to-do list when I would have been better off just picking one thing off that list and getting down to work. In that spirit, this fall is all about the magic of picking One Thing and settling down to work until itâs done.
If you want to kickstart a fall of GETTING THINGS DONE, join us for this yearâs fall planning party on Sunday, September 8th at 2pm eastern. (Iâll share the recording and some highlights afterward if you canât make that time, but there really is a certain magic to doing the work together.) Register here to join us. (And bring a friend! Planning is always more fun with a buddy!)

At this yearâs planning party weâll talk about . . .
picking what to prioritize (Amy Shearnâs piece, Writing is About Making Choices, in Memoir Land, is a great resource if youâre overwhelmed by what to work on)
figuring out what obstacles are in the way and getting past them
and maybe just giving up on some things that have been hanging over us if they aren't actually the priority (or ways to muscle through things we don't want to write but have to for whatever reason).
Then weâll all commit to one thing that we can FINISH in the next week or two, and weâll make a plan to actually get it done. If youâve got a bunch of little scraps and projects hovering around you and have been feeling overwhelmed, I think this will help you get going. And if youâre in the midst of a big project, weâll talk about how to identify smaller, completable milestones to create a feeling of progress and momentum when the road ahead is long. Whatever creative work youâre doing, youâll leave our hour together energized and inspired to start finishing what youâve started.
so many resources for planning your writing life!
the round-up from last yearâs fall planning party, if youâd like some practical tips for planning your writing life for productivity and joy
highlights from the summer planning party I cohosted with Jenn McClearen of the great newsletter Publish Not Perish
on starting small and getting back to your writing after a break
on using what and how and why to guide your goal-setting
â€ïžïž if Write More has given you helpful tips and encouragement for sustaining your writing life amidst the chaos, click the little red heart at the top or the bottom to help other busy, dedicated writers find us! â€ïžïž
this month in Write More . . .
đ âI feel that my pediatrician-mom-brain and my creative brain have finally blendedâ says neonatologist, writer, and mother of three Susan Landers, of the MomsMatter newsletter
đ writer and Raising Mothers founder Sherisa de Groot encouraged us to âBe open to being born anew each dayâ
đ writer and climate scientist Anna Farro Henderson described how becoming a mother created urgency around the writing sheâd hoped to get to some day: âI became a mother and realized that life was happening now.â
âš we had a great chat about rituals and routines in our writing livesâthe comments are full of great tips about how to get started
Write More, Be Less Careful is a newsletter about why writing is hard & how to do it anyway. You can find my books here and read other recent writing here. (And you can pre-order my next book, The Good Mother Myth, which will be out in January 2025!)
If Write More has helped you in your creative life, Iâd love it if you would share it with a friend.











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