Start Small: Moving From Notebook to Story

In the latest Glimmer Train bulletin, Susan Jackson Rogers has written a brief essay on the writing life: “Closing the Gap: Moving from Notebook to Story.” She discusses how stories get their beginnings and gain traction:

Each time, I have to remember: Start small. Why doesn’t “starting small” feel like real writing? Really, there isn’t any other way to start. … It’s embarrassing to admit how long it’s taken me to realize that the whole trick is this: close the gap between notes and draft. At the beginning of a writing session, if I don’t know where to start, I go to the notes, and transfer the useful ones to the proper place in the draft I’m working on. …  I used to think, “but this isn’t real writing” (by which I meant that euphoric seven-longhand-pages-in-one-sitting kind of writing). Now I wonder what that could possibly mean. I am writing. That’s as real as writing gets.

Read the entire essay over at Glimmer Train.

Also in the latest Glimmer Train bulletin:

• Acting on Faith by Aria Beth Sloss
• Your Sanctuary by Steve Adams
• Apocalypse Not by Christopher Marnach

Jane Friedman

Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.

Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.