My Book Writing Adventure | May 2025 | No. 8
The eighth post in my experimental, self-directed, gentle book coaching programme: units of writing | making writing fun | labyrinths.
This email is long and may be cut short by your email provider. Either read it in the Substack app or click, ‘read more’.
In this post, you will find:
A review of my experiments in the past month.
A link to My Book Writing Adventure programme index (this list of what to expect for the next few months is for paid subscribers).
Gentle suggestions and ideas for what you can do on your book project in the next lunar month.
An invitation to the full moon My Book Writing Adventure Support Group on Zoom - Friday 9 May 9.30-10.30am GMT (for paid subscribers).
My Book Writing Adventure is a gentle, experimental, pick ‘n’ mix, self-directed book coaching programme for people with full enough lives who are driven to write a book despite everything.
I am committed to writing a book, creating a series of experiments to help me and inviting people along for the ride. There is a monthly newsletter (free and published each new moon) and a monthly support group on Zoom (for paid subscribers around the full moon).
Click the button below to subscribe or upgrade your subscription. And scroll down for this month’s update.
My book writing experiments
I will begin by reviewing my past month and what I’ve been working on and then offer small, gentle suggestions as to what you could do.
We are in phase three of my 15-month long programme: Write First Draft.
I’ve had a strange month. To begin with, I had a breakthrough with my book writing idea. Then I immediately took a planned week off and I haven’t quite got back to it yet. May is looking busy with events and a freelance book proofreading job, so I’m not yet sure how I’ll fit the writing in.
I’m excited about my breakthrough idea though! And looking forward to getting back to it. I’m not quite ready to share the idea but I thought I’d share how it came to me because it was not out of the blue - even though it felt as if it was, when I reflected, these are the actions I took leading up to it:
I joined the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) as a commitment to my deepening in the direction of supporting people writing books. I signed up for one of their training courses: Non-Fiction Developmental Editing, which I’m looking forward to starting this week.
In preparation for that course, I started reading Scott Norton’s book on developmental editing. This was so interesting in breaking down the differences between the argument in a book, a thesis statement and the narrative. I have always known that although I have small ideas for essays, I didn’t have an overarching story or narrative. I hadn’t even thought about what my argument or question was and this is where my breakthrough moment came from.
I attended a literary festival and a workshop on rest. The ideas behind this really resonated and stayed with me following the event. It was a reminder to me that it is so important to go out and do things!
But perhaps the most important action I took was giving myself time and space to work on my book in advance of my last book writing support group. In my mind, I could see the faces of the people in the group and I really wanted to tell them I had made progress since the last time we spoke one month previously! The accountability drive was really strong for me that week.
So as another new moon comes about, my intention this month is to look for moments to work on my book with this new energy and I’ll be creating myself a new list of tiny actions I can take.
In the meantime, I have a list of links for you - some mine, some from other people.
Breaking down the writing process into smaller units
#practice
Making writing fun
#wellbeing
Book writing is a long process and not always fun, so this is a gentle reminder to do something to inject a little playfulness into your writing this week.
For a short time, I have lifted the paywall on this list of exercises from my most recent series of workshops: NOURISH.
Hopefully, you’ll find something here to spark an idea and to make writing fun for you!
And if this inspires you to join the next season of writing workshops (Tuesdays at 2pm): REWILD, then, you can upgrade your subscription here:
Labyrinths
#magic
All sorts of creative magic happens when you walk a labyrinth. And I have an exercise here for you using a finger labyrinth so you don’t even have to leave your desk!
Other book writing-related posts that have caught my attention recently:
My Book Writing Adventure Online Support Group (Zoom) - next meeting
To join the full moon My Book Writing Adventure support group (Zoom) on Friday 9 May 9.30-10.30am, if you are a paid subscriber, click here for the link. I will also send a reminder nearer the time. If not, upgrade by clicking this button:
What gentle things will you do this month to move your book project forward?
I’d love to hear about it - leave a comment below :)
If you missed earlier posts, click here:
https://awen.substack.com/s/my-book-writing-adventure
Until next time…
Thank you for including my 32 editing tips here Mel! Have a good writing month! 💜