I'm trying out a different format this week bringing you one thing I listened to that inspired me, one thing I read that made me think, and one writing prompt to jumpstart your creative practice this week.

Listen.

"It feels like I've done everything you can do with words," bestselling author Christina Lynch on her varied writing career and how The Odyssey inspired her most recent novel, Pony Confidential. [Apple Podcasts | Spotify]

She's written for TV, worked as Milan correspondent for W magazine, and now teaches and writes books. I love hearing about authors' careers. For example, after an assignment for W at an inn in Tuscany, Lynch quit her job, moved into the inn, and wrote a novel. One can dream!

"Writing is rewriting. It's revision. And it's painful. It can be really agonizing to take a whole draft of something and start over. But that is the story of my career," Lynch says. "You have to enjoy the process. That's what keeps me going through the many, many revisions that are required of being a novelist."

Takeaway: If (when!) you find yourself in the same situation, know that the process of revision is not only worth it, it's what writers do--and you are in good company with all the other writers out there, past and present, laboring over their stories to make them the very best they can be. ✨

Read.

What do you do when someone else's book has the same title as yours? A similar cover? Publisher Brooke Warner writes about holding your competition lightly.

Write.

Write a short story using the following prompt:

Your character receives a text from an unknown number with a single word: RUN. Start the story with their immediate reaction, then plan a turning point midway where the text's meaning changes entirely. How does the character's choices evolve as they uncover who sent the text and why?

Feel free to reply to this email with your results. I'd love to read them!

Keep writing,