But what if the voice telling you to stop... isn’t your inner critic at all?

In today’s episode, I’m talking about the difference between fear and intuition—and why learning to recognize that difference changed the way I think about freewriting.

We started by talking about freewriting. We ended up talking about trust. Trusting your subconscious, trusting your instincts, and trusting the story when it whispers that something isn’t right.

Freewriting is a fantastic tool for silencing the inner critic, which is why I chose it for this challenge.

But I don’t actually freewrite the traditional way. Somewhere over the years, I realized that when I’m in the zone, I am freewriting. No timer needed. No timer wanted.

That doesn’t mean I never stop. I do. But not because I spotted a typo or wanted a prettier sentence. I stop because something isn’t true.

Maybe a character reacts in a way they wouldn’t. Maybe a line feels manufactured instead of honest. Maybe I’ve wandered off the story’s path, and I need to listen before I take another step.

That’s not my inner critic talking. That’s my storyteller.

Freewriting isn’t about writing without thinking. It’s about getting past the part of ourselves that believes every sentence has to be perfect before we’ve discovered where the story wants to go.

Which brings me back to this week’s challenge. I thought I was teaching freewriting. Instead, we learned how to find the fire...

...and feed it.

Mention “prose” in a Facebook group, and the chorus starts immediately: It doesn’t matter. The market wants “fast.” Readers only care about the plot.

They’ll tell you that prose is just a barrier to the next dopamine hit of a plot twist.

Let’s be real: that’s a fatal flaw in logic. It stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of what prose actually is—and frankly, it’s ridiculous.

The Dictionary (AKA: The Writer’s Bible)

Prose isn’t “flowery language.” It isn’t “Purple Prose.” It isn’t a synonym for “boring” or “slow.”

Prose is the medium. It’s the syntax, the vocabulary, and the rhythm of human thought. To say “prose doesn’t matter” is the equivalent of a painter saying, “The paint doesn’t matter; it’s the image that counts.” Good luck with that. You cannot have the image without the medium.

AI (Inefficient Efficiency)

This misunderstanding is exactly why AI is crawling into our industry like a creepy pasta.

When writers are convinced that prose is just “decoration” cluttering up the plot, they become prime targets for AI “editing.” They think they’re “cleaning up” their work by asking a machine to “make it punchy.”

What they’re actually doing is stripping away the specific, deliberate choices that give their writing its voice. They aren’t removing “imperfections”; they are removing the intentionality. They’re sanding down the texture of their language until the prose is nothing but a smooth, generic surface with nothing left to grip onto. BLECH!

The Cost of “Efficiency”

The pro-AI crowd loves the word “efficiency.”

L’économie des mots has its place. Creative writing is not always it. Less is more—except when it isn’t. And AI doesn’t understand the latter.

So here’s the truth: good prose is the engine of efficiency.

When your sentences are built with intent—strong verbs, purposeful syntax, consistent tone—your reader doesn’t stumble. The friction people complain about is never caused by good writing; it’s caused by sloppy writing.

By outsourcing your prose to a machine, you aren’t becoming “better.” You’re becoming generic. And boring, to be quite frank.

The Reclamation

There is no shame in caring about your prose. It isn’t the dirty word so many writers think it is. And I am still flummoxed by writers who don’t know the definition of their own craft.

Your prose is your lifeblood. It is the only thing that separates your story from the hollow, AI-generated output currently flooding the market.

If anyone tells you prose doesn’t matter, take away their quill. Because it’s the only thing that does.

Your voice. Your prose.
The Writers’ Forge is direct mentorship for writers who want to hone their craft and get expert HUMAN feedback from a book coach and editor. This is where we move from Spark to Story and Draft to Done.

Join The Writers’ Forge today. I’m at the Anvil daily, providing the real-time support you and your craft deserve. Forge ahead, wordsmith!

I’ve been doing a deep dive on why so many of us get stuck on a manuscript we’ve already finished—the “one more pass” trap that isn’t actually making the book better, just different.

I’ve written a full diagnostic on my blog today about how to identify this as maladaptive perfectionism and, more importantly, how to use a forensic, deadline-driven workflow to finally get that book off your desk.

Read “Why Your Manuscript is Still Unpublished” on my website here.

If you’re tired of the loop and want to see how we’re handling this inside The Writers’ Forge, give the post a read and let me know if any of these symptoms sound familiar.

Warmly,
Rebecca
Forgemaster

I always replied with “perfectionism”. Great answer, right? It’s an asset!

Except when it’s not. And if you’re a maladaptive perfectionist (like me!), this is especially for you.

In today’s podcast, I break down why perfectionism keeps your story in the unpublished pile and how to use serialized fiction to push past it.

Serialization isn’t a new challenge that requires yet another convoluted formula or beat sheet. It’s been around for over a century. From Dickens to the penny dreadfuls, writers have been feeding stories to readers in installments for a long time. The format isn’t new; only the delivery method has changed.

But the advice online would have you believe you need an airtight, twelve-part outline and a complex map of plot twists before you ever type the first word.

Don’t buy it. Serialization isn’t structure. It’s a promise.

The Deal You Make

When you release a story in chapters, you’re making a simple deal with the person on the other side of the screen: Stick with me, and I’ll keep making this worth your time.

It’s not about cliffhangers or spreadsheets. It’s about consistently delivering on the tone, the character, and the stakes you set in the first few chapters. Keep your promise, and they’ll stay. Break it by losing the thread or forgetting your own world’s rules, and they’ll move on to something that respects their attention.

How to Tackle It (Without the Over-Planning)

If you’re a pantser, you don’t need a massive, pre-planned blueprint. You just need to keep your eyes on the road.

• Own the Unknown: Writing into the dark is the only way to capture the energy of discovery. As long as you’re curious about what happens next, your readers will be, too.

• The “Why” is Your Compass: You don’t need to know the ending, but you do need to know why your character is moving forward. If you know their goal, you can write the next scene even if the final act is a mystery.

• Respect the World: Your readers will forgive a lot, but they won’t forgive you for changing the rules of your world halfway through just because you got stuck. Keep a simple list of the “physics” of your story—what’s possible, what’s not, and who knows what. That’s all the “structure” you really need.

The Bottom Line

Serialization is just writing a novel, on a schedule, with the safety net removed.

The “difficulty” isn’t structure—it’s the commitment. When you serialize, you lose the luxury of going back to page one to rewrite the beginning once you figure out the ending. You’re locked in, chapter by chapter, committed to the choices you’ve already made. And that? That’s not a hurdle. That’s a massive competitive advantage. That deadline is the only thing standing between you and the endless, paralyzed cycle of “perfecting” a draft that will never exist.

Write the chapter, hit publish, and let the pressure do what it does best: force you to finish.

Be sure to drop your link here when you get started; I would love to see what you’re creating. Forge ahead, wordsmith!

My mother was a quokka. So was my aunt. They both had great smiles. And they both possessed the same instinct for self-preservation, even at the cost of sacrificing their joeys.

My mother left her toddler alone in a fenced-in yard with a giant German shepherd, too afraid to enter the area herself. She once told me all she could do was look through the chain-link and think, “My poor little girl.” My aunt was also terrified of dogs; when one came trotting toward her, she used her toddler’s legs to shoo the animal away.

Me? I may have the quokka smile, but when it comes to instincts, I’m a Mama Bear. Whether it’s my kids or my writers, I don’t sacrifice what I’m here to protect. I’m the one who enters the yard to rescue the dropped joeys.

In my work as a writing coach, I see the “Quokka Instinct” manifest in writers every single day. It’s an ecosystem of self-sabotage that forces you to abandon your manuscript the moment things get “predatory.”

The Three Faces of the Quokka Writer

We all have our reflex. If you recognize yourself in these, you’re currently acting like a Quokka.

• The Safety-Seeker: You drop your manuscript the moment you feel the threat of criticism. You abandon the draft to save your ego from the “predator” of a reader’s judgment. You tell yourself you’re “taking a break,” but you’re actually just running away so you don’t have to get hurt.

• The Decoy Architect: In the wild, the quokka’s instinct is to use its joey as a decoy to distract the predator. In our creative process, we do the same thing, but we use “busy work” as our decoy. You build an elaborate structure of “professional” tasks—endless research, infinite outlining, or obsessively tweaking the format of a chapter you haven’t even finished yet—to distract yourself and others from the truth. You’re intentionally creating a focal point for your energy that isn’t the actual writing, so that when the “predator” of doubt shows up, you can point to your busy work and say, “Look at how much I’m doing!” rather than facing the fact that the draft itself is empty.

• The Smiling Survivor: You keep the “Quokka Smile”—posting about your writing, networking, acting the part of a writer—while your actual manuscript is rotting in the yard, abandoned and unfed. You’re surviving the idea of being a writer, but you aren’t creating the book.

The Cost of the Reflex

The quokka sacrifices its joey because it doesn’t have a choice; it’s hardwired for flight. It doesn’t have Mama Bear instincts.

As a writer, you’re making a choice, even if you’re not aware of it. When you fall into that quokka reflex, the trade-off is the same. You’re sacrificing creation for comfort.

When you “take a break” because the work feels too big, too hard, or too exposed, you aren’t resting—you’re reacting. Your nervous system is triggered. You aren’t stepping away to gain perspective; you’re fleeing the “predator” of fear, doubt, and vulnerability.

You walk away, and you get what you came for: safety, relief, and the end of the tension. But your “joey”—the story you were meant to bring into the world—is left behind in the yard.

You get to keep your Quokka smile, but the manuscript dies. Every time you drop your work in that state of panic, you’re teaching your nervous system that comfort is the priority and the story is the sacrifice.

Entering the Yard

As your coach, my job isn’t to help you hide behind a decoy. It’s to walk into the yard with you and show you how to stand between your story and the predator.

I’m here to teach you how to pick up the joey, face the dog, and get the work done. Inside The Writers’ Forge, we don’t look for exits. We master the “Mirror Test,” the “Clock & Compass,” and the “Dead Man’s Guard” so your story has the structural integrity to survive the real world.

I’m proof you can have the smile of a quokka and the instincts of a Mama bear. You don’t have to drop a decoy to survive. You just need to know how to face your predator.

Which Quokka instinct are you currently acting on? Are you hiding, architecting a distraction, or smiling because your jaw is structured that way? Tell me in the comments—or, if you’re ready to stop dropping your work and start building a story that can withstand the “predators” of the publishing world, join us in The Writers’ Forge.

And if you’re interested in seeing it in action, be sure to join me this Saturday inside The Writing Room. Just hit Subscribe (or Upgrade) for the option, and I’ll see you there!

Warmly,
Rebecca
The Write Author

We’ve all felt that sting—the fear of someone marking up our work, judging our grammar, or “grading” our creativity. But what if that red pen wasn’t an act of judgment, but an act of love?

In this week’s episode, we’re moving from the cafeteria classroom to the Forge. We’re talking about why punctuation isn’t just a set of stuffy rules—it’s the sword you use to demand a pause, a breath, or a moment of clarity from your reader. Plus, why Cormac McCarthy’s style is a “test of endurance” for your audience, and how to use quotation marks without driving your readers crazy.

Listen for: Why “no rules” is a lie when it comes to mechanics.

• The secret to forcing your reader to breathe.

• How to get your hands on my Punctuation Pulse guide.

P.S. I am still the girl with the red pen.

In my work as a Forensic Story Specialist, I don’t look for “mistakes.” I look for leaks.

A leak is a structural failure that drains the reader’s suspension of disbelief. If your reader is focusing on the cracks in your craft rather than the world you’ve built, your story has failed to keep them immersed.

Here are the four biggest leaks I see in manuscripts—and how to plug them.

1. The Punctuation “Speed Bump”

Improper punctuation isn’t just about being a grammar nerd. It’s about pacing. If your reader has to re-read a sentence because the commas are in the wrong place, you’ve broken the narrative flow.

• The Fix: Read your dialogue out loud. If you run out of breath, your punctuation is creating a barrier.

(I created an asset for members of The Writers’ Forge called The Punctuation Pulse: Controlling the Reader’s Breath. If any of my subscribers here would like a copy, just drop a “Pulse” in the comments!)

2. The “Pseudo-Profound” Trap (Figurative Language)

We love a good metaphor, but if your description sounds deep but makes no logical sense, you’ve lost the reader. If you describe a character’s eyes as “piercing daggers that froze the sun,” the reader is going to stop and ask, Wait, what?

• The Fix: Assess the imagery. Consider what you want to convey versus what you’re actually depicting. Are the images related? Do they make sense? Is it intentional? If it doesn’t make sense on a literal level, kill the metaphor and say what’s real.

3. The Continuity “Glitch”

This is the fastest way to kill immersion. If your character’s eye color changes, or they walk through a door they just locked, the “Clock & Compass” of your story is broken.

• The Fix: Track your assets. Keep your physical inventory consistent. When a reader notices a coat appearing or disappearing without a reason, they stop trusting your attention to detail.

4. The Logic Gaps

This is where the “Burst Pipe” happens. This is a structural failure where cause and effect stop talking to each other.

• The Fix: The “So What?” Chain. If a character makes a move that confuses the reader, work backward. If the action isn’t supported by the information the character legitimately possessed, the logic has a leak. We don’t “fix” these with magic smoke; we fix them by tightening the causal link between your character’s knowledge and their choices.

Stop Patching. Start Engineering.

If you’re tired of chasing leaks in your own work, let’s get a professional set of eyes on the friction points.

You don’t need a full manuscript audit to start seeing results. I offer a Focused Narrative Diagnostic—a high-intensity technical pass on any 2,500-word section of your choice. I’ll provide detailed inline comments and a Structural Audit Report to identify the exact leaks draining your story’s momentum. (Plus a follow-up for any specific questions!)

The Investment: $50 (Flat Fee). The Outcome: A clear, concrete plan to fix your structural failures in 3 business days.

Ready to stop the drips? Click here to get your manuscript on my desk!

I’m stepping up to the mic to expand on yesterday’s post about why we shouldn’t sanitize our literary past.

Inside the episode:

• The Internet Magnifier: Why our modern “purity tests” aren’t actually new, but how the internet has turned human hypocrisy into selective outrage.

• Cringe Culture: A look at how my 19-year-old son’s generation intersects with this hyper-filtered world.

• The Map: Why leaving the cringy crap on the page is the only way to prove we are actually evolving as a species.

Hit play above to listen to the full episode!

30-plus years ago, I was witness to a minor turning point. I was in my mid-20s and raised in a time when men openly ogled women and made sexual “jokes.” So, when a female teenager was hired as an apprentice engineer, it was expected she would be the victim of lewd humor. And that she would laugh along with it. Right?

Wrong. As soon as I heard the first “joke” and saw the look in her eyes, I knew she wasn’t “my generation.” I pulled the toolmaker aside and told him, “This is different. I’m used to your jokes. I have heard them my whole life. She’s not like me. You can NOT talk to her that way. It will not be good.” He looked surprised for a moment, nodded, and, believe it or not... that was the end of it. He didn’t need any reminders, and he kept the other guys in line. Did they behave to “do the right thing” or just to keep themselves out of HR and a lawsuit? I don’t know. I don’t care. This girl was brilliant, and she thrived in that environment.

Today, I can’t imagine anyone even thinking to make a joke like that.

Cultural evolution.

So, if I go back and read books from 35 years ago, I’m going to find a lot of cringy crap in them. And that’s okay. I expect to see it there. And honestly, I want to. It reminds me of where we were and how far we've come. And it gives me hope for the future.

Now, when it comes to retroactively taking a red pen to the film industry, it’s a little trickier. Topless teens were a trend in movies during the 70s and 80s (and can we find a movie that didn’t include a “comical” Peeping Tom?).

In 1975, Wim Wenders directed a movie called Wrong Move, which featured a (now controversial) scene with a topless 13-year-old actress named Nastassja Kinski. For the past 15 years, she has tried to get that scene deleted. Wenders has finally decided to pull the movie from public distribution, pending a lengthy discussion within the film industry, including conversations with Kinski, on how to remedy this particular piece. Wenders agrees it would never have been filmed today, but he is also concerned about altering a scene that was culturally acceptable at the time.

I don’t believe in scrubbing history, including art. But when it comes to actors coming of age and demanding edits to works that include their faces and bodies, I can sympathize with their plight. Do they have a right to retroactive safeguards? Yes. I think they do. I’ll be watching closely to see how they achieve protecting actors while preserving art.

But when it comes to literature, no live characters were actually harmed in the writing of the story. Retroactively scrubbing cultural history, and all of its insensitivity, does a great disservice to our evolution by pretending we were always a good species. We weren’t. We still aren’t. But we’re actively making strides. The proof is in the prose.

That’s why I’m currently writing this from a straight-back chair with an ice pack strapped around my hips.

See, I went canoeing with my family and we got caught in a blinding thunderstorm just as we reached the opposite side of the lake. By the time we fought our way back to the boat ramp, we were being battered. My first instinct was to leap out of the canoe and single-handedly hoist my children ashore.

My children... who are fully grown young adults.

Unfortunately, a series of old physical issues renders my back pretty much useless for heavy lifting or—on bad days—merely bending over. Hoisting a heavy canoe loaded with over 350 pounds of humans onto a wet, mucky shore was not the best idea I’ve ever had. When you add slippery mud to the equation, you end up with a high-tension scene loaded with comedy.

With the very first tug, my foot slipped completely out from under me. I tried to use my weak core to stabilize, which didn’t help at all, and landed flat on my butt right in the squishy mud.

So, I gave up then, right?

No, of course not. I’m a Mom. I wear a cape.

I struggled to rise, ignored the mud, and tried to give the canoe another massive pull. The boat didn’t budge—but my back did. The spasms started instantly, and I finally had to admit defeat.

Now, I’m suffering the consequences of my choice. To be fair, it wasn’t even a conscious decision; it was a reflex. Protect the kids.

Writers do the exact same thing. They want to protect their words. They want to shield their drafts from the outside world and do every single bit of the heavy lifting themselves.

But sometimes, we just need help. It is always a better idea to pause for a beat and ask for a hand before jumping out of the canoe on pure instinct.

Being an author is a lot like being a parent. You take care of your children, and sometimes that means handling things on your own, but other times it means relying on the village. It’s okay to have a writing coach. It’s a good idea to get constructive criticism. It’s perfectly reasonable to hire an editor.

Fresh eyes on your manuscript doesn’t mean you love your story any less; it just means someone else is helping you paddle it safely to the shore.

Allowing that help actually is your superpower.

(And trust me, it also keeps you from throwing out your back.)

There had been a horrific fire the night prior, and it was appropriate for us to remember the lost lives of those who perished. Died.

But, expired?

I was a teenager. And a writer. And I knew words.

The word was, by definition, valid. But emotionally? It was cold. Like the milk that had expired in the door of your refrigerator.

As writers, we have choices with our vast vocabulary. And to avoid word redundancy, it’s easy to reach for a thesaurus. But it’s essential not to lose the emotional resonance of the scene when we do it.

Sometimes, the better word is the simple one. The everyday usage that connects us.

A quick challenge for your work-in-progress this week: Go find a high-stakes emotional scene in your draft. Look closely at the verbs and descriptors. Did you pick a word because you were trying to avoid repeating yourself, or did you pick it because it actually carries the emotional weight the scene deserves?

Don’t let a clinical word freeze out your reader. Keep it human.

Want to see what my own spilled paint looks like?

When I was writing Tattered, I didn’t agonize over the perfect entry. I just got the words on the paper:

Original Draft (The Messy Start): Jamie Lynn heard the crunch of gravel underneath her trail shoes. The moon was hidden by clouds and no stars were visible to light the sky. In the gloomy night, she was unable to see the outline of her car, but she knew it was somewhere near the house. Maybe security lights aren’t such a bad idea, she thought to herself.

Is it perfect? No. Is it rubbish? Not at all. It’s the raw ore.

Once the words were safely on the page, I brought out the craft tools: tightened the prose, cut filtering phrases, and flipped those passive structures into active ones:

Revised Draft (The Polished Edit): Gravel crunched underneath Jamie Lynn’s trail shoes as she grappled with the gloomy night. Clouds hid the moon, and no stars were visible to light the sky. The outline of her car was concealed, but she knew it was somewhere near the house. Maybe security lights aren’t such a bad idea.

See the difference? The magic didn’t happen in the first pass; it happened in the refinement. But I never could have carved out that polished edit if I hadn’t allowed myself the grace to be messy first.

Stop expecting your unedited prose to look like a final book. Go spill some paint today.

What does your messy draft look like? Leave a comment below with a raw, unedited paragraph you’re working on; absolute safe space, no judgment allowed!