It is week forty-three of 2026. How’s the writing treating you right now? Here’s a clarifying number: there are ten weeks left in 2026. If you set a writing goal for this year that you haven’t yet hit, you still have time to make a lot of progress—even if you haven’t started. Before you plunge in, make sure that the goal still fits. There’s no shame in walking away from a goal that’s not right for this moment. But if you still want to get moving, use this dwindling number of weeks as motivation. Which piece of your goal could you reasonably accomplish in the next ten weeks? I personally find it easier to start and move forward at this time of year than in early January, when I just want to hibernate.
One way to get a lot of new writing done is to participate in a NaNoWriMo-style challenge in community with others. My friend and fellow editor Andy Hodges is leading a free group again via WhatsApp. You’ll set a manageable goal for drafting or editing a fiction manuscript (all genres welcome), track your progress in a shared spreadsheet, and join the group to celebrate wins, share struggles, and dig into a weekly discussion prompt. Andy is a smart and empathetic editor, so I know his discussion prompts and community-building skills will help you make progress on your draft.
Here at the garret, I’ve been editing a near-future thriller that wrestles with questions that feel especially relevant for our current times: What’s the line between human and artificial intelligence? What are the moral and ethical rules around harvesting and using a person’s memories, personality, knowledge, and intelligence? One thing I love about indie publishing is that this author is going to be able to get their book to readers in months rather than years.
Speaking of publishing, my next task after finishing this newsletter is to start fulfilling the Kickstarter rewards for Novel Study Book 2. This is the exciting part: I’ve been working on this book for close to two years, and I’m eager to get it into the hands of readers—including many of you. But it’s also scary to click the buttons on BookFunnel and BookVault that will send the ebooks to inboxes and fire up the printing presses. Maybe by book ten I will have developed nerves of steel?
It’s been a few weeks since I finished the final, final, final proof, and I had to reassure myself that the files were correct by opening up the book on my iPad one more time. And then I had to sit on my hands to prevent myself from creating and uploading all-new files because I spotted a “that” I wanted to remove! (This is one of the downsides of being an indie author—no one can order you to step away from the manuscript.)
Many of you are reading this newsletter for the first time after signing up via the Kickstarter—welcome! If I managed to click that button, a link to the ebook should be in your BookFunnel account. (If not, maybe I’m curled up in the fetal position on my office floor, please send help.)
Keep reading for a new sentence study and scroll down to the upcoming appearances section if you’re going to be at Author Nation and would like to set up a time to meet. I genuinely enjoy handing out free advice (I’m a Virgo!), so don’t hesitate to grab a spot if you’d like to discuss your current manuscript or even get quick feedback on your opening pages.
◉ Sentence Study
Mother Mary Comes to Me is a memoir by Arundhati Roy, author of The God of Small Things. Anyone who remembers reading that novel when it came out (it was a revelation to me in my twenties) won’t be surprised to hear that this memoir is packed with gorgeous, arresting sentences. I’ve highlighted dozens so far. Here’s one, in bold, with the fuller passage for context.
It has taken me years to come to terms with the fact that I was a middle child, one of three siblings, not two. My older sibling was a boy, and my younger sibling was a school. There was never any doubt about who our mother’s favorite child was. She loved, fought for, and protected her youngest child with everything she had. That kind of focused, ferocious love, regardless of what it may choose as its object, is a blessed love. The challenge for those of us who are not chosen and instead watch love pass us by is to learn from it, marvel at it, and not grow bitter and incapable of love ourselves.
Roy could have said this the ordinary way: “My mother loved her school more than she loved me.” That sentence isn’t just boring; it also carries a hint of grievance and self-pity, which Roy resists throughout the book, as the rest of the passage shows.
Instead, she reaches for a metaphor, and it does two things.
First, it surprises us. The opening sentence of the passage sets up a small mystery: Why did it take her years to understand her place in the birth order? Was there a secret child? Then the answer comes in a sentence that’s simple and concrete, written using a parallel structure that allows the punch of the surprise to land on the very last word: school. Read this passage aloud and you’ll hear and feel it.
Takeaway: If you want to surprise readers, save the surprise for the end of the sentence, and use rhythm, like Roy’s parallel structure, to set it up.
Second, the metaphor gives her distance, which is both useful and hard to come by in memoir. Casting the school as a sibling lets her state a painful fact plainly. And because it asks us to accept that her mother loved the school the way one loves a child, we have to take seriously the argument at the end of the passage: that we are capable of marveling at a great love not focused on ourselves, that we can witness it and call it blessed rather than become bitter.
Takeaway: When you’re writing about something painful or shocking, the right metaphor can give you distance and give your readers perspective.
Want to read more of Roy’s sentences? Buy Mother Mary Comes to Me on Bookshop. (Affiliate link — I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.) And if there’s a sentence you’d love to see me study in a future issue, hit reply and send it my way.
◉ Book Birthdays
Our Liberty Carol by Sheila Sullivan
When beloved firefighter and barber Jerry Moore dies, he’s recruited—with help from Bentley, a wisecracking Cardigan Welsh corgi—to remind his grieving, hardened friend Joe Henry what it means to care, in this ghost story of America that’s A Christmas Carol meets Our Town.
A few favorite things about the book
⭐️ Our omniscient narrator, Bentley, a corgi who reminds me of Dickens as played by Gonzo in The Muppet Christmas Carol
⭐️ The mix of wit and wisdom, grief and humor, which captures the mood of our current political hellscape here in the US
⭐️ Surprise appearances from Harriet Tubman, Lucille Ball, Abraham Lincoln, and more!
Congrats, Sheila! Learn more and buy Our Liberty Carol on Amazon.
◉ Upcoming Appearances
Novel Study Book 2 webinar, October 27, 11 a.m. PT on Zoom: “Beyond the Beat Sheet: How to Use Intensity Graphs for Plotting and Revising.” This is free for all Kickstarter backers! Find the event link in your Kickstarter updates or reply to this email and I’ll send it to you.
Author Nation, November 12, Las Vegas: “Stop Dumping, Start Layering: Adding Backstory and Setting Without Killing Momentum.” Want to meet up at the conference? Find a time here.
San Francisco Writers Conference, February 11–14, 2027: free and paid consults, plus panels TBD
I love speaking to writers and editors—check out my Speaking page and get in touch if you are interested in having me speak to your group.
◉ Thing of Joy
I featured otters a few weeks ago—this time it’s killer whales (Insta reel). These particular whales aren’t busy waging class warfare against billionaire yacht owners, they’re just feeding and basking in the golden glow of an autumn sunset in Monterey Bay, California. But if you need some of that warrior whale energy, check out this Neko Case song, “People Got a Lotta Nerve,” which pulls no punches. 🎶 You know they call them killer whales / But you seem surprised when it pinned you down / To the bottom of the tank… 🎶
Stay well, y’all, and keep fighting the good fights.
Kristen