The Bywater Scissors and the Art of Coming Back

     At the end of 2024, I was cooked. Fully crispy, charred artist-on-a-spit. Four major surgeries in four years, disillusioned, gaslit by the career I thought I loved, ghosted by people I used to admire, and filled with a creeping sense that I was the punchline to a cosmic joke called Show Business. I couldn’t even walk IN to a theatre, I couldn’t watch TV or movies, listen to music, or look at a stage without feeling totally nauseated.

Like I’d let down the ghost of my teenage self 

     and every hope of my long dead father 

          like I was in my own little Euripides play 

I joke now, but months ago? I was all dactylic hexameter and up-at-night, inter-generational questioning. 

My inner monologue had devolved into: “Why are you doing this to yourself?” 

 

I was staring into the void of my creative life and wondering if there was anything left to revive—ready to quit The Showbiz move to a small town and open a candle store called something tragic like Cutting Room Floor or Final Act (or something) and never speak of “the industry” again.

 

So when 2025 began, I made a very quiet, barely-uttered promise to myself: no more striving. No more hustling. No more saying ‘yes’ to things out of panic. Every project I took on needed to meet one simple criterion: it had to be nourishing. Not career-advancing, not résumé-polishing—but quite literally nourishing. Nothing I took on could be to impress anyone, gain me clout, or “advance my brand” (please stab me)— all it had to do was very simply make me feel vaguely human again. 

 

The rule was simple: if it didn’t nourish, it didn’t happen.

 

There comes a time in every working life when the great “why” that once powered you—the burning sense of purpose that made exhaustion seem noble—simply burns out. One day you wake up, and the thing that once filled you with wonder feels hollow. The rituals of your calling turn mechanical; the air goes out of the room. 

I think that’s the part no one warns you about: how meaning doesn’t vanish all at once, but by degrees. You bargain with it. You tell yourself the spark will return when the next job comes, or the next success, or when the world feels less cruel. When meaning leaves a person, it does not leave politely. It takes with it your sense of direction, your appetite for risk, even the reason to get out of bed in the morning. And when it finally does go quiet, the silence inside you is deafening. You start to wonder if you’ve been a fool to love something that can’t love you back.

But here is what I have learned in the slow rebuild: meaning is not an idea; it’s a practice. It returns not through revelation, but through repetition. Just like the art of theatre acting itself: the identical daily exericse. The play is not different, but the world is, and you are. And thus meaning sneaks back in during the work itself: line by line, scene by scene, hour by hour, shoulder to shoulder with other people who are also trying, also hoping, also just showing up. 

 

The doing becomes the proof. 

The companionship becomes the faith. 

 

And one day, almost without noticing, you feel the warmth again—the quiet understanding that purpose isn’t something you find, it’s something you make, together.

 

When Dial M for Murder at Drury Lane came along, I said ‘yes’ because my instincts told me it felt good. Not strategic, not glamorous—just good. I came back to Chicago—and found not only work, but warmth. 

First of all, Chicago is that girl. Warm, funny, affordable-ish, and full of theatre people who will drive you to Trader Joe’s when your loaner car craps out. I forgot how much history I had here. Colleagues. Friends. Kin. People who had called an ambulance, seen me single, sad, on morphine, knew every “bad side” and still answered my texts. I never like working far from home, but Chicago now feels like a second one, with (sorry, New York), superior hot dogs. 

And then there was the unexpected joy of finally sharing a contract with my high school friend of twenty-five years, Adam Immerwhar. Adam led with taste, humor, and (a helluva lot of) grace, and together we filled our utterly preposterous “digs” in the windowless attic of this actual theatre with something I think I remembered called joy. There were martinis. There was the wearing of costumes from the seemingly permanent “Christmas Carol” clothing rack, and as a result of all of this: THERE WERE BITS.

And my God, this cast. Unreal. Every single person was both a phenomenal actor and a functioning adult. One of the best companies of my career. 

We built our own little speakeasy backstage—a ramshackle bar affectionately named “The Bywater Scissors.” It became our gathering place, our late-night lounge, our hub of laughter, Erik-Hellman-prepared cocktails, and gentle mischief. 

 

Joy, shared. 
Exhaustion, witnessed. 
Kindness, on the rocks.

 

There was something sacred about it. 

 

This company has been a miracle of balance—funny, kind, honest, supportive; and all emotionally literate, have been around the block in The Showbiz, and all with a nice grasp on reality.  We managed to stumble into the anti–regional theatre cliché: no drama, no ego, no chaos. Just real grown-ups playing pretend together for a living fully committed to the backstage bar. 

 

Now, as the show closes and 2025 saunters to its end, I can say this: I’m not “fixed”—let’s not start that rumor—but I am better. 
 

It turns out, rehab doesn’t always happen in hospitals or cult-y Malibu retreats. Sometimes it happens at The Bywater Scissors, surrounded by people who remind you that there really IS still magic in the thing you loved when you were fifteen. 

Still here. 

Still showing up. 

Still loving a ridiculous, impossible art form that somehow refuses to let me go.

 

So, to the artists (Amanda, Erik, Ian, Jonathan et al) who maybe unknowingly helped me find my way back to wholeness—thank you.

 

And thank you, ‘The Theatre,’ for taking me back even after I ugly-cried and told everyone we were “on a break.”

 

There really are no people like show people.

Books-by-the-Month: September

September has a smell—the faintest tang of sharpened pencils, apple skins, and air that is juuuuust beginning to cool. After the looseness of summer, September arrives like a Marian the librarian closing the door with a gentle click. Autumn is creeping in, and with it comes the subtle ache of endings: the end of childhood summers, the end of daylight’s abundance, the end of lazy hours spent doing nothing but listening to the hum of cicadas, and something in us stirs toward introspection. 

But where there are endings, there are also beginnings—syllabi, sharpened pencils, freshly cracked spines and all they represent. And for Jews like me, September on the (solar) calendar often means the end of the (lunar) Jewish year and the beginning of the new one; a month when we can come home to ourselves.
 

Below is a collection of books for this in-between month: a time for introspection, transformation, and gathering the harvest—of thought, memory, and imagination.

_______

 

 For the “back-to-school” spirit:

 

1. Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman


There is no better companion for a bookish September than Anne Fadiman herself. Ex Libris is a love letter to reading—to the physical heft of books, the quirks of bookish families, the joyful chaos of merged libraries. My first literary agent (and pal!) Louise first introduced me to the great Anne Fadiman, so-much-more-than-an-essayist upon such great subjects as ice cream, early rising, marrying libraries, re-readings, and many others. 

Fadiman’s essays hum with intelligence and delight; she treats language as both playground and cathedral. Reading this collection feels like returning to class under the kind of professors who grades not on correctness, but on enthusiasm. 

This slim (and pleasingly red) volume is not only perfect for all things commuting, but a delightful collection of essays regarding the nature of, character of, reading of, acquisition of, and visceral love of books. Start with Anne Fadiman, and her incredibly smart but still utterly readable prose will win you over, make you laugh and swoon all in one, (again) pleasingly slim, red companion.

A perfect read to reignite one’s lifelong affair with words. 

 _______

 

 

2. Give Yourself a Gold Star! by Leslie Jonath 

 

Sometimes? Sometimes you just need some gosh darn approval. Sometimes you need a gold star or two to feel like you aren’t slowly dying from a sense of deep-set contemporary-times-related-melancholy. Leslie Jonath’s charming little book reminds us that before we chase new goals, we should honor the triumphs already won! Give Yourself a Gold Star! is a whimsical, illustrated encouragement manual, part pep talk, part gratitude journal. 

If you’re feeling like you miss the scent of freshly sharpened pencils AND you require a little pick-me-up from Mrs Devine and Mrs Zarider (aka: my first-grade teachers) but are a grown-ass adult, then this is the book you’ve be willing to trade your lunch for. 

Did you manage to wake up on time? 
Remember your keys? 
Do something nice for a friend? 
Adulted like a PRO?

Good job, YOU. 

Celebrate your achievements large and small with Give Yourself A Gold Star!

Rather than a DO list, this book encourages you to keep a DID List (to remind yourself of what you accomplished, instead of just worrying about what you need to do), the book helps you to break things into the tiniest steps (so tiny that just writing the list is one of the tasks) and give yourself a GOLD STAR for doing each one. Believe me: when life gets grim, this book helps you put into perspective just how much there is to be grateful for, and how much you do have going on in this once and only life. 

Give Yourself A Gold Star! is the literary equivalent of a crisp new planner paired with your favorite pen: lighthearted yet oddly profound. It reminds us that self-kindness is also an achievement, and perhaps the first lesson we should re-learn every fall.

 _______

 

For the Jewish New Year.


3. This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared: The Days of Awe as a Journey of Transformation by Rabbi Alan Lew
 

Rosh Hashanah—the Jewish New Year—is a glorious and shimmering time of year. Where secular New Year is about fireworks, Rosh Hashanah is all about reflection, self-accounting, and the courage to begin again, renewed. 

There is no greater book on this moment in the Jewish calendar than Rabbi Lew’s modern classic of spiritual reflection, This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared. Rabbi Lew’s book is the essential guide to entering the Jewish High Holy Days with heart and intention, but beyond the Jewish specificity, this book offers a philosopher’s perspective on existence itself, and is relevant to all, regardless of faith or background. 

He traces the emotional arc from Tisha B’Av (mourning) through Rosh Hashanah (renewal) to Yom Kippur (atonement), revealing how the calendar mirrors the human psyche’s rhythms of loss and return. Lew writes with the warmth of a wise teacher and the clarity of a poet:

“The great journey of transformation begins with the acknowledgment that we need to make it. It is not something we are undertaking for amusement, nor even for the sake of convention; rather, it is a spiritual necessity.” 

Rosh Hashanah invites us to reflect not on how much we’ve achieved, but on how much we’ve become — to count our days not by their product, but by their presence. Even if you’ve read it before, it’s worth revisiting each year—like the liturgy itself, it changes as you do.

Sit somewhere quiet, and revisit it. The page, like the year, is waiting for you to turn it.

_______

For Autumn, creeping in…

3. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
 

I have a family friend who recently told me he re-reads To Kill a Mockingbird every couple of years, and does this consistent "return reading" with no other book. Why? I'd wager a perfect mix of school memories, themes of justice, awakening, and childhood coming to an end always ring true, and become truer each day. 

 

One of the best-loved stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and was voted one of the best novels of the twentieth century by librarians across the country. A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable coming-of-age tale in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage iniquities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father—a crusading local lawyer—risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime. 

For me, there is something exquisitely September-like about To Kill a Mockingbird: its slow, sideways sun-dappled afternoons, its moral awakenings, and the ache of innocence giving way to understanding. Through Scout’s eyes, we experience both the wonder and the cruelty of a small Southern town—and the bittersweet passage from childhood simplicity to adult conscience. Plus, Harper Lee’s prose and exquisitely fleshed out characters feel like the turning of leaves: golden, crisp, edged with the inevitability of loss. 
 

I love a re-reading (I myself try to do this with East of Eden every few years) because the exercise displays a level of growth and expansion within ourselves. The book remains steadfast: changing not-at-all, but we do. As a child whose childhood came to an end prematurely, and as a young girl with a lawyer for a father I so revered, To Kill a Mockingbird teaches me new things with every re-examination.  

__________

For September as Self-Improvement Month.

 

5. Rising Strong by Dr. Brené Brown 

 

If September is the season of reevaluation — of checking in with one’s courage, direction, and heart — then Dr. Brené Brown’s Rising Strong is its perfect anthem. The reason I love Brené Brown so much is because she is a researcher above all else—her brilliant writing, story-telling and humanity is all supported by her exhaustive scientific research studying shame and vulnerability. 

 

With her signature mix of research, empathy, phenomenal storytelling ability and razor-sharp wit, Brown explores how we recover after failure: how we reckon with our own stories and transform shame into resilience. It’s the perfect book to accompany the early fall impulse to start again—to turn over a new leaf (literally and figuratively).

 

Dr. Brené Brown is a Texan-born researcher, storyteller, professor, and public thought-leader who has carved out a unique space at the intersection of rigorous qualitative social-work research and deeply personal, widely accessible storytelling. Brown’s academic and applied research focuses on the dynamics of courage, vulnerability, shame, empathy, and human connection. She describes herself as a “researcher-storyteller” who collects qualitative data (interviews, narratives) and uses those stories to uncover patterns of lived experience. Her 2010 TEDx Houston talk “The Power of Vulnerability” quickly became one of the most-watched TED talks in the world, thrusting her research into mainstream conversation:  

She has authored multiple New York Times best-sellers (e.g., The Gifts of Imperfection, Daring Greatly, Rising Strong, Braving the Wilderness, Atlas of the Heart) that have reached massive audiences far beyond academia. But my pick for September's "Self Improvement Month" has to be Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, in which she presents what she calls the "Rising Strong process"—a three-phase journey through struggle, truth-telling, and transformation. 

The phases are:
    1    Reckoning
    2    Rumble
    3    Revolution
 

Brené Brown is a voice bridging research and lived experience—someone who invites us to embrace vulnerability, examine shame, and rebuild toward wholehearted living. Rising Strong offers a grounded, generous, and richly actionable entry into that world. It doesn’t just tell you why courage matters—it shows you how to live it when you’ve already stumbled. 

For anyone seeking renewal (and that’s maybe you), this book offers more than insight: it offers initiation. Read it with a pen in hand, ready to underline every sentence that sounds like it’s been waiting for you.

__________

6. Still Life by Sarah Winman
 

If September is about returning home to oneself, Still Life is a perfect companion. This 2021 novel— really a parade of small stories (my favorite!), is set across decades predominantly in Florence and London. 

 

It is a luminous, big-hearted novel about found family, art, history, and the quiet heroism of living fully. Winman’s character—an art historian, a soldier, a parrot named Claude—linger long after the final page. 

This is a book to read as the nights lengthen and the air smells faintly of crisp leaves and nostalgia. It’s a promise that beauty survives, even as seasons change. Make yourself a “proper cuppa” and enjoy this one for the love of warmth, art, and the beginning of cozy season...

__________

A Season for Turning Pages

September is when reading becomes ritual again—the attentive, nourishing act it was meant to be. It’s the time to trade poolside paperbacks for well-loved hardcovers, iced coffee for tea, and to rediscover the quiet companionship of books that teach as much as they comfort. 

This is the month of beginnings disguised as endings: of new notebooks and second chances, of self-reckoning and self-kindness. In honor of this shift, here is a list of books that suit September’s temperament — nostalgic yet hopeful, warm but clear-eyed, and perfect for curling up beside the first mug of tea of the season.

Whether you’re returning to work, to school, or simply to yourself, may these stories accompany you into the golden hush of early autumn — one page at a time, as the world turns gently inward.

 

“A Vision of Dame Barbara Hepworth Told Me to Dump My Girlfriend” - an AFOOT story

Once again, another AFOOT story. 

As part of the Edinburgh version of Whisper Walk from the "AFOOT" series, I give you one of the monologues/short stories I have composed for this deliciously Scottish incarnation (that we on the creative team refer to a "whispers.") 

From the press release:  

Confessional stories, unuttered truths and personal memories are whispered through headphones in a documentary-style walking tour through Edinburgh. Whisper Walk is partly inspired by the Japanese Kaze no Denwa (“wind phone”) and explores how memories are deeply connected to a seemingly ordinary place. Each audience member, equipped with their smartphone and a pair of headphones, is guided through Edinburgh as voices gently whisper stories and personal memories tied to the locations they pass. As participants become trusted confidants, they are invited to contribute their own place-related memory – whispered into a phone placed at the end of the Whisper Walk – to be archived in the ever-growing Whisper Museum.

Writer Alexandra Silber said, “Whisper Walk is, I think, a really beautiful and unique storytelling theatrical experience, under the notion that places hold memories. It explores the notion that our memories are tied heavily to place, and sort of revels in the idea that a seemingly ordinary, singular, flat park bench, a tree, a series of steps, a street corner, a churchyard, a pub, a very specific cross-section of longitude and latitude, can contain a multitude of stacked memories belonging to countless people—really holding these stories and memories from every human who ever crosses that location. This is very much the way we receive podcasts nowadays, and certainly builds upon the radio drama tradition, but the individual audience member, as a result of this, will end up in a specific geographical place and will hear a story about the place in which they are standing, and thus serves as a confessional, a confidant, a stranger on the road to whom the speaker of the story can speak more candidly than to a regular person in their everyday lives.” 

And so, with that. Enjoy this sneak peak and see you in Edinburgh, this August, afoot! 

 __________________________________________ 

If you ever date a sculptor know this: at some point, they’ll try to sculpt you. Emotionally, I mean. Mine, whose name was Lena had been trying to chisel the sensitivity out of me since March. I thought it was love. It was probably just…scheduling.

We were right here at Doctor’s Pub, and I had made the mistake of having a second Negroni. I remember this because I never order a second Negroni unless I’m trying to impress someone or totally self-destruct.
At some point, I stumbled to the loo—not to be ill, but to be alone without Lena describing “the essence of clay,” and maybe cry a little, the way one sometimes does at the Fringe.

And that’s when I saw her: 
Dame Barbara Hepworth— English sculptor who defined the essence of Modernism and by the way is dead—in the mirror. She wasn’t glowing or floating; malevolent or kind. Just… standing there. Stern. Severe. Iconic headscarf just-so. The kind of woman who looked like she once filed her taxes with a blowtorch.

     “You need to leave her,” the ghost of Barbara Hepworth said, really very composed for someone long-dead. 
I blinked. She raised an eyebrow. Was this low blood sugar? Divine intervention? All I knew is that the ghost of Barbara Hepworth had opinions, and honestly, she wasn’t wrong.
     “But she’s brilliant,” I said, out loud, to no one. “She has a residency in Berlin!”
Barbara Hepworth sighed.      

     “She put a plinth in your kitchen, darling. That’s not a woman, that’s an installation.” 

I returned to the table and stared at Lena, while she returned to describing the sensual nature of rebar. We settled up and left. But in my daze, I’d left my credit card behind and as I turned back— there was Barbara once again, her brilliant, ragged hands banging on the glass from inside the main window, mouthing            “Leave her!!’ 

Then she was gone. Just—poof. Back to the realm of dead British modernists and my own unfortunate subconscious.

 

And I thought: Barbara has a point! I don’t want to be part of someone else’s conceptual vision board— and what will I do for six months in Germany? I’m lactose intolerant. 
 

I broke up with Lena the next day. She said I was mediocre and afraid of commitment.
Which are both true.

But honestly?
Sometimes you just have to listen to the ghost of a modernist sculptor in a pub toilet.
Especially when she’s right.

The prophetic Dame.

Books-by-the-Month: August

August is the month when summer begins to exhale. The days are still golden, but there’s a subtle shift in the light—a slant, a softness—that suggests we are quietly tilting toward autumn. 

It is a month of in-betweens: the last stretch of vacation before the return of structure, the heat that still clings while shadows grow longer. 

Reading in August is tinged with this same gentle melancholy. It is still the season for sprawling, immersive books—but it is also the moment for reflection, for voices that have been overlooked, for stories that stay with you as the season wanes.

In honor of August’s particular beauty—and its lesser-known holidays like Women’s Equality Day, Left Handers Day, and International Cat Day—here is a curated list of books to savor as summer leans toward its close.

1. The Awakening by Kate Chopin

For Women's Equality Day (August 26)

 

There is no better time to revisit—or discover—The Awakening, Kate Chopin’s quietly revolutionary novel about a woman’s search for autonomy in the stifling social climate of late-19th-century Louisiana. Edna Pontellier’s journey toward selfhood, sensuality, and artistic freedom was scandalous upon publication in 1899, but today it remains hauntingly fresh. Chopin’s language is luminous as heat rising off the sea, and her portrayal of a woman determined to live life on her own terms makes this a perfect reflection for Women’s Equality Day. Read it by the water if you can! Let the waves echo Edna’s restless longing.

 

Behold the multitude of covers!

2. Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
For Left Handers Day (August 13)

The sly nod to Left Handers Day is intentional, but The Left Hand of Darkness earns its place here not just by title but by brilliance. Le Guin’s groundbreaking sci-fi classic, set on a planet where gender is fluid and changeable, explores themes of otherness, empathy, and the slipperiness of identity. The cold, strange beauty of her world-building contrasts deliciously with August’s warmth, making it an ideal read for late-summer nights when you find yourself craving big, mind-expanding questions. It’s also a quiet celebration of non-conformity—something every left-hander can appreciate.

 

 

3. The Traveling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa

For International Cat Day (August 8)

 

To honor International Cat Day (which, of course is everyday in the home of Tatiana Angela Lansbury Romanov!!!), there is no better companion than The Traveling Cat Chronicles, a tender Japanese novel that follows a man and his beloved stray cat Nana on a journey across Japan. 

 

Told partly from the cat’s point of view, the story is suffused with gentle humor, emotional depth, and a profound meditation on friendship, memory, and letting go. It’s the kind of book that wraps around you like late-summer twilight—soft, a little sad, but immensely comforting. 

 

Top tip: best read with a real cat nearby. 

 

 

4. The Hours by Michael Cunningham

For the Bittersweetness of August
August is a month that tastes of endings, and The Hours—with its interwoven narratives of Virginia Woolf, a 1940s housewife, and a modern New Yorker—beautifully captures the delicate tension between life’s small domestic moments and its seismic emotional shifts. Cunningham’s language is lyrical without excess; his characters are complex and achingly human. The novel pulses with the weight of time, memory, and the choices that shape us. As summer begins to slip through our fingers, this novel reminds us of the exquisite, painful beauty of impermanence.

 

The Hours was made into a motion picture starring Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore and Nicole Kidman, but my personal favorite subsequent artistic rendering inspired by this novel is the 2022 opera in two acts with music by Kevin Puts and libretto by Greg Pierce. I was fortunate enough to bear witness to its world premiere, and while the three leading female performances were indeed formidable, my favorite aria and performance belonged to Kyle Ketelsen as the poet Richard, dying of both AIDS and, possibly, despair. 

 

Enjoy this snippet of his aria. Beyond masterful.

 

    

 

5. The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

For Sultry, Late- Summer Suspense

For those who like their Augusts with a dose of heat and danger, The Talented Mr. Ripley is the perfect noir-laden choice. Highsmith’s elegant psychological thriller unfolds in the sun-drenched landscapes of Italy, where charm, envy, and amorality blur together in the figure of Tom Ripley. 

 

Oooooo the sweltering days, the lingering sense that something is ending, the slanted golden light, the subtle menace that lurks beneath surface perfection. It’s a brilliant exploration of desire, deception, and the masks we wear.

 ________

 

August is a threshold: still steeped in summer’s sensual pleasures, but with the first whispers of change. The books we choose in this month carry some of that duality—light and dark, freedom and reflection, motion and stillness. 

 

Whether you find yourself drawn to bold women, speculative futures, philosophical felines, or moral ambiguity, may these selections accompany you through the golden hours ahead. 
 

There is time yet for one more story before the season turns.

Mistakes to Avoid When Writing: Part 3

Welcome back to Mistakes to Avoid When Writing Part 3: The Hot Mess Never Ends Edition. This is the post where we will address your descriptions that read like an instruction manual for beige paint, your deeply toxic relationship with “just tweaking this one sentence” for 11 hours, and your insistence on writing in total solitude like some haunted widow scratching poems into the walls of a lighthouse. 

 Let’s dig in.


7. Editing As-You-Go (Like a Masochist)
Every time you stop to “just tweak that one sentence,” a writer fairy dies and your book gets one step closer to never being finished. That’s not a fact, but it FEELS true. You are not building the Eiffel Tower out of toothpicks. 

When in this early stage of a novel, getting words onto the page is the most important thing rather than writing the correct spelling or a sentence. You don’t need to polish Chapter One to perfection before you’re allowed to write Chapter Two. Writing is drafting, then shaping. If you keep going back to fix things mid-process, you’ll be stuck in an endless loop of “almost done” that never actually finishes.
 Just write the damn thing.

So repeat after me: Separate your writing and your editing! Make them two different processes, independent of one another. If you are constantly going back and changing small details, you will never move forward. If you are always second-guessing yourself and everything you put into the story, you will be exhausted and the creativity will dry up. Don’t edit a single thing until the first draft is finished. You’re polishing the hood ornament of a car that doesn’t have wheels. Editing as you go is like trying to vacuum the house while the party is still happening. It’s a waste of time, and it kills the flow.

Try This: 
    •    Set a timer: No editing until you write for 25 minutes straight. Just word-vomit.
    •    Use [BLAH] for anything you can’t figure out right now. Come back later.
    •    Write in Comic Sans or some hideous font so you won’t be tempted to make it “pretty” until Draft Two.
It can be trash. It should be trash. That’s what second drafts are for — and third drafts, and crying. 


8. Fluffy Dialogue
If your characters are saying things like:

    “As you know, Bob, we’ve worked at this company for 10 years,” 

please shut the laptop and take a walk. A long one.  

You know what’s worse than clunky, unnatural dialogue? NOTHING. Nothing is worse. Dialogue can skyrocket your story to success, or sink it to the bottom. The difference between these two can be a matter of a few words. People don’t speak in exposition dumps or perfect grammar. 

 

People don’t talk like that. (Well most don’t; I don’t know the weirdos in your life) The first step is to make sure each character has a distinct voice which emerges naturally from detailed character development (as discussed in Part 1 of this series), and which should always come before you dive into the main bulk of story-writing.

Then? Give your characters mess! Give them the kind of weird, specific, spice that lives in your group chats.

Terrible dialogue should never stop your momentum or workflow (as discussed above, you can always edit it later), but in ht grand scheme remember that unnecessary pieces of dialogue only add bulk, and rarely quality. The good news is that tightening up lame dialogue is usually an easy, if not vaguely embarrassing,  process. 

Next, you want to identify and eliminate words that are unwanted or redundant. For [horrifying] example:

    “Kevin, are you upset with John for some reason?” Sarah asked. 
    “You’re absolutely right, I am mad at John!” Kevin replied. 
    “Why is that, Kevin? You do not have a reason to be mad.” 
    “Oh yes I do, Sarah. I have every reason. Can you not see how mad I am?” 

Sure this exchange has clarity, but I regret to inform you: this dialogue stinks and sounds like two customer service reps on a Zoom call.  It is stilted, repetitive, unrealistic to how human beings genuinely communicate, and above all: many parts aren’t even needed. 

Here is how this exchange looks once tightened and compressed:

    “You’re upset with John?” Sarah asked. 
    “Of course.” Kevin said. 
    “I don’t get it.” 
    Kevin felt the heat gathering in his face as his hands began to shake. 

The exact same information is gleaned within a sleeker format, and action that delivers some nice “showing-not-telling.” This exchange thus reads easier and allows the story to keep moving at a better pace. So. What do you do? 

Try this:
    •    Read your dialogue out loud. If you cringe? Rewrite it. If it sounds stiff, it probably is. 
    •    Cut at least 30% of it. People don’t talk that much, I promise.
    •    Watch an episode of your favorite sitcom and write down the actual lines. Study how short, sharp, and weird they are.
Give your characters personality, rhythm, and, most importantly, purpose. 
I beg you. 

9. Bland Descriptions

    “She walked into the room. It was nice.” 

NO. 

Sorry kid, your descriptions are so dry they could crack a lip. Descriptions demand a balancing act:

• Too much description overwhelms the readers and kills a scene. 
• Too little leaves readers feeling lost. 
• And BLAND descriptions leave readers bored and uninterested.

Achieving the right balance means aiming to immerse your readers fully into your world. It gives life to your story and paints the right image in your readers’ minds without robbing them of their own imaginative experience. 

 

Try this:

    •    Go through your draft and highlight every “nice,” “pretty,” or “beautiful.” Replace them with a specific image, texture, or sound.
    •    Take photos of real places/objects. Write descriptions based only on what you see.
    •    Start the descriptions early, and build on them gradually as you go. 
    •    Avoid describing places your characters haven’t been to yet. Describe them when they first arrive. 
    •    Be specific but selective. Be detailed when showing your readers what they need to know, but include only what is necessary and relevant.
    •    Include all senses in your descriptions. Sight, smell, touch, sound, and taste—if applicable.

All to say: don’t write like you’re filing a police report. Descriptions should evoke a mood, a feeling, a sensory anchor. It’s not enough to say the room was “nice” or the trees were “green.” What did it smell like? What did it remind the character of? The right detail — just one — can bring a whole scene to life. What does it feel like in there? Smell like? What made her want to cry, scream, or order a burrito? Give me something, anything, that doesn’t read like a real estate listing.


10. Writing in a Vacuum / Trying to Do It All Alone Like a Martyr 

You are not a mystical genius who has to write your masterpiece in total isolation while slowly unraveling.  

 

Share your mess with people who get it. 

Take a nap. 

Read something good. 
Get out. See sky. 
Let someone else tell you your pacing is off. 
You’ll survive. 
I promise.

I get it. You’re sensitive. You don’t want feedback because what if they hate it? But here’s the thing: writing in total isolation is how you end up with 300 pages of beautifully arranged nonsense. You need other eyeballs. You need humans who will say, “Babe… what the hell is this?”
Feedback isn’t cruelty. It’s community.

Writing a novel is hard. Doing it alone is harder. Share your work with trusted readers. Take breaks to read other books. Talk to writers. Get feedback — and learn how to separate the helpful from the noise. Community and perspective are your best antidotes to burnout, doubt, and tunnel vision. Be a human being with goals and friends and a bathing schedule. I say this with love, but also urgency: let someone read your stuff. 

Try this:
    •    Join (or start) a low-stakes feedback group: 3-5 people, snacks optional but recommended.
    •    Share one paragraph with a trusted friend. Not the whole novel — just dip a toe.
    •    If you can’t handle feedback yet? Read your work out loud to yourself. Even that will reveal weak spots.

Finally:

You’ve reached the final boss level, and spoiler alert: it’s you, hun. It’s always been you. Your fear, your perfectionism, your refusal to let anyone read your work until it’s been edited 486 times and smells like burnt toast from all the stress. 

 

But here’s the thing—if you want to write a story that hits people in the chest, you gotta stop being so damn precious about it. Let your sentences be ugly. Let your characters make mistakes. Let someone else read your stuff, even if it makes you want to barf. That’s the real magic. 

 

Now go on, you gloriously unstable word-witch—I believe in your messy masterpiece.

 

20 Years on

 

TWENTY years ago at the Palace Theatre in London, this barely 22-year-old made her professional debut in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘The Woman in White’ as Laura Fairlie.

It would be absolutely impossible to explain how much I did NOT know, and how generously those around me lifted me up and escorted me not only in to the professional theatre industry, but in to adulthood itself. Many of those wonderful folks are still close friends and colleagues to this day. 

I look at this itty bitty girl now, and I think “my goodness…”  ...how very much I was still so broken, lost and unmoored; how much I still had to heal, and learn, and mature. I used to be so critical of how—despite flying so high publicly—how frightened, unwell and deeply naive she was… I judged and critiqued and maligned her at the time. I would be more compassionate now.

For now? 20 years in all I want to do is wrap my arms around her and say “well done, little one. This is just the beginning of a lifetime in ART—not *just* ‘show-business.’ There will be such adventures and glorious friendships. Allow this first triumph to be proof that life ebbs and flows, that after such loss and tragedy you can soar again, and(!) that despite this triumph there will be hard times ahead again, and on and on. Such is life…”

I don’t know if she would’ve believed me. For that night, all she believed was her heart.

Happy 20 years to me, to her, and to that lovely company. 

 

The "Drammatical Sabbatical" — 25 Tips for the Burnt-Out Creative

We’ve been taught that real artists never stop.
That if you’re not always producing, you must not be serious. That’s a lie.
 
I welcome you, dear reader, to honor the sacred pause—the breath between acts, the quiet before the curtain rises again.

Look. I love art. I love making it, thinking about it, being dramatic about it. But sometimes? Art is the reason I’m lying face-down on my carpet Googling “how to get out of literally anything.” If you’re reading this, there’s a 92% chance you’ve got a half-finished project whisper-screaming your name from under a pile of laundry, and your muse is somewhere in the backyard hiding under a lawn chair.
Burnout is real. It’s sneaky. One minute you’re like “yay creativity!” and the next you’re hate-watching a toddler paint on TikTok and yelling “WHY IS HE MORE PRODUCTIVE THAN ME?!” 

You don’t need another lecture about discipline. You need a break. A soft, juicy, permission-soaked summer of not trying to win a Pulitzer by Labor Day.

Sometimes we chase productivity because we’re afraid of the quiet. 

But stillness isn’t laziness. It’s rebellion. 

You don’t have to earn your peace. You just have to let yourself feel safe enough to rest. 

Burnout isn’t failure. It’s your body begging for wholeness. 

You’re Not Lazy. You’re just a Toasted Marshmallow in a Human Suit

In a culture that trains us to hustle harder, prove ourselves endlessly, and tie our worth to our output—rest becomes radical. 

For artists especially, rest is not optional. It’s how we refill the well. It’s how we remember we’re not machines. It’s how we hear the quiet voice of inspiration again. When you rest, you are not “falling behind.” You’re reclaiming your time. Your nervous system. Your dignity. Your right to be before you do.
 
So I made this list. A list of 25 nourishing, soul-restoring things a burnt-out artist might do during a “summer break” to recover their creativity. Not of “ways to maximize your output” (ew), but of things that might gently coax your soul back into the room after it peaced-out sometime around mid-April. Some are sweet. Some are weird. Some are borderline unhinged. But all of them are here to help you feel like an artist who still has a pulse, not a productivity robot who ran out of battery.

Do one. Do twenty-five. Do none and just lie on your porch drinking a cherry Coke while thinking about doing one. There’s no wrong way to resurrect your weird, wild magic.

 25 Ways for Burnt-Out Artists to Heal Over a Summer Break

1. Take an intentional creative sabbatical (with no guilt). I call mine the "Dramatical Sabbatical" and it not only always gets a smirk and a "that's funny" but it also REALLY WORKS. 
 
2. Delete your social media apps for a week. Or a month. Or forever. 
 
3. Revisit the art you loved before it paid your bills. Just go as a spectator. Be the little kid losing their mind in the audience that screams “I LOVE MUSICALS!!!” at curtain call like a lunatic. Be a giant nerd. Geek out. Turn on music and don't pick it apart, just enjoy it. Read a book and get swept away, instead of writing a review as you read it. You get it. 
 
4. Start a “No Project Journal.” Start a notebook for ideas that don’t have to become anything. 
5. Go analog. Write by hand. Collage. Touch paper again. 
6. Give yourself a week of “bad art on purpose.” (Messy, silly, rule-breaking—just for joy.) 
7. Unsubscribe. Untether yourself from 10 email lists that flood your nervous system with “shoulds.” (Sending them to junk is acceptable too, if unsubscribing is more trouble than its worth)
8. Read something that has nothing to do with your career. Have you heard of reading for pleasure? It’s excellent. 10/10 would recommend.
9. Make one room in your home a “creative sanctuary.” Not for work, just for wonder.
10. Move your body gently. No performance, no punishment—just movement as medicine.
11. Say “no” to something that drains you. Don’t over-explain, and practice this with grace and kindness.
12. Plan an “mute or unfollow party.” Curate your feed with people who inspire, not exhaust. (You can always look the exhausting people up if you need to know what's going on. Once upon a time people sought out news, not news seeking out people. replicate this as best you can in the 21st century)
13. Do an Artist’s Date every week. (à la The Artist’s Way) Indulge in a solo, joyful, inspiration-forward and deliciously unproductive date with your inner artist who is screaming for a playdate. 
14. Wake up early. For the purpose of "not rushing." Just to exist. To sip. To breathe. 
15. Take a “no content” walk. No phone. No podcasts. Just listen to the world. And if you see a perfect flower or a cute dog? Take this opportunity to resist filming it, and use your five senses to simply commit it to memory like our damn ancestors had to do. 
16. Lie on the floor and stare at the ceiling. Really. Let yourself do nothing.
17. Reclaim a childhood hobby you left behind. Macramé, piano, horses, whatever.
18. Write a “permission slip” to yourself. e.g., “I’m allowed to rest without proving my worth.” 
19. Join a workshop or retreat as a participant, not a performer.
20. Write a love letter to your creativity. Especially if you’re mad at it.
21. Rewatch a movie that made you fall in love with storytelling.
22. Try a “no outcome” art day. Create without documenting, posting, or polishing. Just enjoy the sensations. 
23. Declare one whole day “sacred.” No work, no obligations, no guilt.
24. Ask your body what it needs and actually listen. Rest? Get thee to bed. What I call “beauty secrets?” Break out the nail polish. Silence? Embrace it. Connecting with friends? Call them all or go see them. Crafts? Go nuts. Address your actual human needs. 
25. Remember: your art doesn’t need you to hustle. It needs you to come back to yourself

 
 
If all you do this summer is breathe, nap, pet something soft, and scream into a decorative pillow once a week? That’s still “a healing season.” Burnout doesn’t mean you’re broken — it means you’ve been very alive in a system that doesn’t care if you fry. 

Take your time. 
Fill your well. 
Turn down gigs that feel like punishment. 
Eat a peach in the bathtub. 
Let your inner art goblin resurface when she’s good and ready.

Because she’s coming back!!
And you are, too. 
I promise.

Books-by-the-Month: July

July is the month when time both expands and disappears. The days are thick with heat, the air smells of grass, salt, and sunscreen, and the hours unfold like an old quilt—faded, but beloved, patched with both stillness and motion. 

July is made for reading the way winter is made for soup: the two seem biologically destined for one another. It is the month when reading can happen anywhere: under a striped beach umbrella, in the stifling cocoon of a tent, on a rickety porch swing, or simply sprawled across the cool floorboards.
 

Unlike the frantic lists of “New Year’s reading resolutions,” July’s books ask nothing of you but attention. They don’t care if you finish them. They only ask to be carried along—dog-eared, sun-warmed, cat-chewed, maybe a little sandy? In that spirit of gentle adventure, here are six books that feel particularly right for July’s slow, golden hours.

 

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1. The Aliens by Annie Baker

A play may seem an unusual choice for summer, but The Aliens is the kind of quiet, exquisite work that fits perfectly into the languor of July. Set behind a Vermont coffee shop, it revolves around two aimless but endearing friends who spend their days talking about music, Bukowski, and nothing at all—until a high school student enters their orbit. Baker’s dialogue hums with the rhythms of real life: silences, false starts, digressions. It’s a play about not much, and yet it glows with the ache of being young, lost, and alive in the sticky warmth of early summer. Read it on a porch with a sweating glass of something cold, and let its gentle melancholy wash over you.

 

 

2. Travels With Charley by John Steinbeck

There may be no better companion for a July road trip—real or imaginary—than Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley. In 1960, the great American author set off across the country with his poodle Charley, searching for the soul of a nation on the brink of seismic change. The result is part travelogue, part meditation, part love letter to the vast, strange beauty of America. Steinbeck’s observations are sharp but generous; his affection for people and landscapes alike makes every dusty roadside café, mountain pass, and highway motel glow with literary grace. Even if you’re only traveling as far as your backyard, this book makes you feel like you’re in motion.

 

 

3. John Adams by David McCullough

For those craving something weightier amidst July’s breezy distractions, David McCullough’s magisterial biography of John Adams is a feast. History in McCullough’s hands is not dry; it is alive, intricate, and vividly human. Adams—brilliant, irascible, deeply principled—emerges not just as a Founding Father, but as a fully-fleshed character with passions, flaws, and profound loneliness. The Revolutionary War crackles in the background, but it’s the private letters between Adams and his beloved Abigail that linger. "Sit down, John" and read it in the stillness of a July afternoon, when the echoes of America’s birth feel especially poignant in the summer air.

 

 

4. On the Road by Jack Kerouac

No July reading list would be complete without this fizzy, restless anthem to freedom. On the Road is a book for hot nights, for dusty highways, for the perpetual ache of wanderlust. Kerouac’s prose is alive with speed, jazz, poetry, and desperation—the desire to find something, anything, that makes life burn brighter. Even if you’re not setting off cross-country in a beat-up car, reading this in July stirs up the feeling that you could. The open road is always waiting, just over the next hill.

 

 

5. SWAMPLANDIA! by Karen Russell

If July is for humidity, weirdness, and family legends, then Swamplandia! is the perfect literary match. Set in the swamps of Florida, this novel follows thirteen-year-old Ava Bigtree, whose family runs a run-down alligator-wrestling theme park. After her mother’s death, Ava embarks on a surreal odyssey through mangroves and the underworld, crossing paths with ghosts, birdmen, and con artists. Russell’s language is lush and playful, but the heart of the book is tender: it’s about grief, growing up, and the mythologies we build to survive. Best read on a summer night when the air feels thick with stories.

 

 

6. The Summer Book by Tove Jansson

A jewel of stillness and light, The Summer Book is composed of small vignettes set on a tiny island off the coast of Finland, where a six-year-old girl and her grandmother spend the summer together. Nothing much happens—except, of course, everything. Jansson captures the quiet miracles of the natural world and the tender negotiations of family love in prose so clear it feels like sea glass. This is the kind of book you can read in fragments, setting it aside and picking it back up without losing the thread. It is a perfect July companion: gentle, wise, and suffused with the hush of long, golden evenings.

 

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July is a month made for reading that isn’t hurried, strategic, or guilt-ridden. These are books to be savored in slowness, to accompany you through afternoons when the only plan is to follow your curiosity wherever it wanders. Whether you’re stretched out under a tree, half-awake in a hammock, or traveling across states with a paperback in your bag, let these stories keep you company. July, after all, is one of literature’s favorite months: expansive, sun-drenched, and gloriously unhurried.

Mistakes to Avoid When Writing: Part 2

So you read the first list of novel-writing mistakes and thought,
     “Okay, fine, I won’t let my main character have violet eyes, a tragic violin backstory, and absolutely no flaws.” 

Growth! 

But unfortunately (for both of us), the disasters don’t stop there. You’ve merely arrived at the second layer of the flaming lasagna that is writing a novel.
Because guess what? There are still more ways to mess up your writing—and yes, GUILTY, I’ve made every single one of them (while eating cereal out of a mug and calling it “dinner.”)

If your novel is all “vibes” and no story, if your dialogue sounds like it was composed by Alexa, or if you keep quietly skipping every emotional beat because it makes you feel things? I get it. Feelings are exhausting. But so is reading a book where nothing happens and no one reacts to anything. This is the part where I burst through the drywall holding a red pen and a shot of espresso and yell, “WHERE’S THE PLOT, BRENDA?!”

This list Part 2 is here to make sure your novel survives your worst instincts.  
Let’s get you back on track.

 

* 

4. Failing to Plan / Not Knowing the Plot

There are times when a writer reaches the end of a manuscript, and comes to the terrible realization that they have no idea what the hell is going on. 

 

I love a chaotic vibe and all. But if you’re 40 pages in and your main character still doesn’t know what they want, that’s emotional roulette. (Some structure is sexy, okay?) Even a sticky note that says “[something sad happens here]” is better than nothing. Whether you are a fan of outlining or not, planning is essential to writing any kind of complex story (particularly a novel).  

 

I, too, can be lazy and allergic to commitment. But writing a novel with no plan is like driving cross-country with no GPS and a dead phone. You’ll end up in a ditch, surrounded by cacti and plot holes, sobbing into your giant Slurpee. If nothing else, you must know where the story is going. If not all the details, I suggest (perhaps) the beginning, (maybe some kind of) the middle, and, (if I may) the end. 
Here is a mini step-by-step guidance for building a plot structure—just enough scaffolding to guide the story, never enough to trap it. 

Try This: 
Begin with the “big five beats”: 

1. An opening image or situation that captures your character’s normal
2. An inciting incident that disrupts that normal
3. A midpoint turning point that complicates everything
4. A low point or crisis that forces your character to face what’s truly at stake, and 
5. A resolution where something—externally or internally—changes for good. 

These aren’t shackles—they’re scaffolding. You can fill in more steps later, but even this rough shape will help you spot where tension builds, where transformation happens, and where you’re heading. Keep it messy. Let it evolve. Structure isn’t your enemy—it’s your compass. Just don’t forget you’re allowed to leave the path if the story finds a better one.


5. Leaning on Clichés
 If your opening line sounds like the back of a paperback romance in a grocery store clearance bin, delete it. I’m talking: “she was a feisty spitfire with a past,” or “the night was dark and stormy” garbage. In a world chock-full of novels, readers want something original. Nothing will have someone closing a book for good faster than the use of multiple cliches that make your soul itch. We get it.

Clichés include phrases such as:
    •    A bun in the oven.
    •    A diamond in the rough.
    •    When all is said and done.
    •    When it rains, it pours.

These are just a handful of examples, and of course there are many more and ohmygah. I’m already in hives and I haven’t yet read your virtuosic over-use of “through thick and thin” yet. NO. Stop it. I implore thee. 

Clichés are placeholders for real thought. A writer will insert a cliche that makes sense because they don’t want to spend time thinking of a new way to say it. They sneak in when you're tired or rushing or trying to sound like “a writer.” You are better than this. Instead, try to write the same idea in a different way. (And hot tip: first draft cliché placeholders are fine while you wait for something better to manifest, just be SURE to replace them in the next draft. Your secrets are safe with me).

 Don’t write like a robot who read too many Tumblr posts in 2011. Say it the way your weird little brain sees it.


6. Skipping the Hard Emotional Work
A novel isn’t just stuff happening—it’s how your characters feel about what’s happening. Don’t be afraid to go there. Don’t avoid the challenging scenes that require utterly true, un-choreographed emotionality. Emotional truth is what keeps a reader turning pages. If you the creator flinch away from it, the reader will feel the gap.

 

And here is where I get extra real with you. 

Listen, oh valiant writer, dreamer divine and creator extraordinaire: You cannot write something truly great without letting it cost you something. Not everything. But something.  You can write clever plots, interesting characters, and even very pretty sentences from a distance—but the work that moves people will ask you to walk through the fire yourself. There is no shortcut around sitting right in the center your grief, your rage, your shame, your longing, the ugliest parts of you, the most out-of-control parts of you, the humiliating and human parts—all connected to your deepest ache for belonging. 

 

So if you are—even inadvertently— trying to skip that part? You must take a deep breath, and find your courage. 

 

I know. I know personally how valiant an ask this is, on several artistic levels. But if you are in any way waiting to be less afraid, less messy, or more “ready” or “perfect”—you're not creating art, you're managing your image. 

And hey; that’s okay. Many of us start there. 
But if you want to go further, deeper, fuller, richer— the page or stage or screen or canvas MUST become a place where you are more honest, authentic and unabashed than your are polished. As Brené Brown says, “You can choose courage or you can choose comfort, but you cannot have both.” Art requires the choice of courage.

Try this: 

    •    Write the scene you’re avoiding first. Get it over with. It won’t kill you (probably).
    •    Journal as your character. What are they really thinking but too scared to say?

    •    The next time you find yourself resisting a scene, a character, or a theme—pause and ask: what am I protecting myself from? That’s often exactly where the gold lives. You don’t have to bleed all over the page, nor exclusively suffer to make worthwhile art, but you do have to tell the truth—especially the emotional truth you’re tempted to sidestep.  

 
Write the embarrassing version. The “too-much” version. The version you’d never read aloud at a dinner party. That’s the one with life in it. The only way out is through. And when you come out the other side, you won’t just have a better draft—you’ll be a braver artist. And person. 

 

Finally:

 
You made it through Round Two and didn’t throw your laptop into a ravine—I’m proud of you. The truth is, every writer makes these mistakes. But not every writer is brave enough to admit they’re just out here vibes-ing their way through chapter 12 with no outline, hoping the muse shows up like DoorDash. But you? You showed up, officially one step closer to writing a novel that doesn’t make readers scream “WHY” into the void. 

Keep going. 

© hula seventy