Hi Reader,

On Monday, Minerva ran away from her new doggy daycare. (Just FYI, if you’re new here, Minerva is the beloved canine Chief Fun Officer here at Olivia Helps Writers.)

What followed was a seven-hour saga of searching for her, crying, searching some more, frantically sending out alerts through her microchip company, and finally, the sweet moment when we were finally reunited with our filthy but uninjured baby girl.

Yes, we are those dog parents; she is our baby, and I won’t apologize for it.

Needless to say, it was a rough Monday, and the rest of the week hasn’t quite caught up, which is why you are receiving this newsletter on Wednesday instead of Tuesday.

A full day removed from Minerva’s grand adventure, I have just enough emotional distance to keep from tearing up while I write this email and I’ve done what I do with all my life experiences and started reflecting on how it relates to the writing process.

I can’t help but think that the three-ish hours I spent aimlessly wandering and looking for her are the perfect metaphor for most writers’ experience of the revision process.

They wander aimlessly in their draft, looking for the thing that needs to be fixed so they can finally bring their vision to life.

They might see surface level issues, but the deeper root causes, the foundational elements that will actually improve their story remain as elusive as a chihuahua on the run.

If they seek help, they bounce between DIY writing courses and conference sessions, and online summits.

All are great and helpful in their own way, but without a clear strategy guiding the revision, all that information just gives the writer more to do.

Another street to search. Another densely wooded area where a dog who loves grass and sniffing might hide.

When that wandering fails to pay off, they get discouraged.

We start asking questions like: Are we not yelling loud enough? Are we looking in the wrong places? How could we have let this happen? Are we horrible dog parents? Does Minerva even love us anymore?

In writer’s terms, that might look more like this:

Why did I think I could write a book?

Why isn’t this book working?

What am I even supposed to be looking for in this draft?

Why didn’t that class work for me?

Maybe I wasn’t meant to write this book…

Ultimately, my wandering didn’t bring Minerva home.

Instead, it was making the incredibly difficult decision to stop walking, leave the neighborhood where she got lost, and sit down at the computer to post on Nextdoor and lost dog Facebook groups that brought her back.

In the moment, it felt awful for both of us to “give up” and go home. But we weren’t really giving up; we were just getting more strategic, more intentional, doing the thing that felt less productive but was really the answer.

The same is often true for writers.

If you’ve been beating your head against the desk, trying and trying and failing to revise your draft through sheer brute force and repeated reads, it may be time to stop wandering and do something different.

Back up and make sure you’re operating strategically before you do anything else. Figure out exactly what you’re trying to create, who it’s for, and what those readers want from you.

Analyze your draft so you know exactly what you’re working with and what you need to do to close the gap between your vision and your book’s current reality.

Then, it’s time to dive back in. But this time you won’t be wandering aimlessly yelling the name of a Roman goddess as people stare at you from passing cars.

You’ll be driving straight to the home of a person who spent 90 minutes getting a lost dog inside to safety (okay, emotional distance shattered and now I’m tearing up again).

Thankfully, Minerva’s story has a happy ending, and I genuinely believe that with the right support and a revision method rooted in finding what works for you and your specific book, your revision process can have a happy ending too.

If you’d like to start your journey with a clear vision of who your story is for, my Ideal Reader Workshop has been postponed to Thursday 8/20 at 4:30pm Eastern - which means there’s still time to register!

We’ll talk about why envisioning your ideal readers matters, what to actually include in an ideal reader profile (hint: we’re not going to try to imagine what their ideal Saturday looks like), and most importantly, we’ll talk about how to use that ideal reader information in your revisions.

And because I’m so grateful that Min made it home safely, I’m offering 50% off the Ideal Reader Workshop with the code MINERVAISHOME. The code will work through tomorrow, and a replay of the workshop is included if you can’t make it live.

Thank you so much for reading this newsletter.

If you’re a pet parent, give your non-human family members an extra squeeze or kiss today (unless they wouldn’t appreciate that, then just look at them lovingly) and have a wonderful day!!

Better Living

Something else I’m reflecting on is that social media, a tool I often look at as a necessary evil for marketing my business, is literally the thing that got us our puppy back. I am now so grateful to this tool that I otherwise look at sideways 99% of the time.

While social media has done harm in our society (as a high school teacher, I saw the effects on teenagers firsthand), it’s also an incredible tool for connecting with people that we would never have the opportunity to connect with IRL.

It’s a tool that allowed complete strangers to connect the dots between our lost puppy posts and another person’s found puppy posts and alert us that Minerva had been found.

Like all tools, social media is only as good or bad as the people using it. And ultimately, our actions in the real world still have the power to change someone’s life for the better.

Right now, it can be easy to get swept up in fear and disillusionment and frustration with society. But there are still good people.

We can still be good people.

And we can use the tools at our disposal to make the world a better place, even when others choose to use them to cause harm.

Better Reading

This week, I want to share a book I’m excited to read by the wonderful Leslye Penelope!! Her newest book, The Inevitable Undoing of Zahara Douglass*, is now available, and I just ordered my copy!

You can listen to Leslye read the first two pages of her book here or learn more about her and her work here!

Thank you for reading, have a wonderful week, and happy writing!

With love,

Olivia

P.S. In case you missed it, the Ideal Reader Workshop is happening tomorrow (Thursday) at 4:30pm Eastern and you can register for 50% off with code MINERVAISHOME! A replay is also included if you can't make it live.

Your story matters. Let's make it great.

Curious to know how I can help? Check out my services here. I can't wait to work with you, so you can write the book your future readers are waiting for!

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