Year in Review – 2022
Hello everyone! Where we last left off following the adventures of Chelsea Counsell, American Wizard, we found her vomiting and feeling sorry for herself… So what happened in the rest of 2022?
A pause in the constant creation machine: How rest is necessary to create
Writing under capitalism is not a delectable treat. Heck, even existing under capitalism is the opposite of the bee’s knees. American society pushes hustle culture in a way that is non sustainable and actively harmful toward its citizens. I’ve literally seen job listings recommending that their applicants stay on call through what are supposed to […]
How to Find an Agent: Utilizing Meta Tags and Twitter Advanced Search to Kick Querying’s Butt
In November of 2020, I queried twenty-two agents, and was so emotionally smashed by the process that I didn’t query again until November of 2021. For me, querying was disorienting, disheartening, and often felt like yelling into the void of a stranger’s inbox…
How to figure out what you love so that you can write what you love
In a perfect world, writing what you love would be easy. You’d dig deep into your heartsong and out on the page would come, you know, your heartsong—the most passionate, authentic literary expression you could muster. But we don’t live in that perfect world, and when…
Showing vs. telling: When is it appropriate to tell rather than show?
In writing, “show, don’t tell” is a frequently touted maxim, probably because the CIA pushed it into prestigious writing communities like the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and the Paris Review, and they, in turn, spread it as an unbreakable literary law. But unless you only want…
Writing as a form of dialogue with mythological traditions: What is white culture anyway?
This month, I read Roshani Chokshi’s Aru Shah and the End of Time, a middle grade novel about an Indian preteen who has to come into her power as a “soul-daughter” of a Hindu god of the heavens in order to stop an ancient, world-destroying evil that she, herself, accidentally summoned. The book is good. The book is good in a way that makes me screw up my eyes and puff out my cheeks and become a red-faced jealousy goblin. And so…
Lonesome road: How to establish support networks when you’re new to writing
Writing is, in particular, a difficult art form. Unlike physical arts such as drawing, painting, or crochet, you cannot just flash your product (draft or finished) in front of just any bystander’s face and hope for external validation. I know this from experience…
Compelling openings一now with examples!
So I’m currently reading River Quest. It’s a chapter book from the Dinotopia universe and WOW does it jump on the plot horse…
Description is a thing one should know how to do…
Hello gentle readers! Happy 2021! Thank goodness 2020 is over. Maybe now we can get back to being moved by minor ecological destruction like all of Australia burning down. Ha. Ha. 😦 I was having a good think about what I should write my next newsletter about. Boyfriend suggested the connection of how plot drives […]
What I wish I’d known about querying agents: and what I wish agents knew about querying
Hello gentle reader. It is I—Chelsea Counsell. Long time no talk. I, like you, have been trying to survive during corona, which generally means dragging myself out of bed like a rotting mollusk and continuing to labor under the yoke of capitalism even though I feel… like a rotting mollusk. In November, I began actually […]
