ICYMI Friday, August 21, 2026
Happy Friday, all! I hope everyone’s having a good summer. It’s been a pretty busy week here at SRP! In case you missed it (ICYMI) here’s what we’ve been up to:
ICYMI Friday, August 14, 2026
Happy Friday, all! I hope everyone’s having a good summer. It’s been a pretty busy week here at SRP! In case you missed it (ICYMI) here’s what we’ve been up to:
Stop Introducing Your Characters
Stop introducing your characters. Readers don’t want a list of traits—they want the pleasure of discovering who someone is through action, dialogue, and the little details that make a story feel real. Trust your readers to connect the dots, and your fiction will become stronger, faster, and far more engaging.
I Can’t Believe I Forgot to Tell You About The Summer Garden
Sometimes the stories we’re most excited about are the ones we forget to talk about. For months, I’ve been quietly publishing The Summer Garden every Sunday on Substack—a gentle serial about grief, friendship, second chances, and the unexpected community found in a neighborhood garden. If you haven’t discovered Scotty and the residents of Mill Creek Community Garden yet, now’s the perfect time to step through the gate.
Trust Your Reader
Readers are smarter than many writers give them credit for. When we explain every emotion, clue, or joke, we take away one of reading’s greatest pleasures: discovering the story for themselves. Sometimes the best editing advice is also the simplest—trust your reader.
The Books We Never Actually Finish
Ever noticed how some books sit half-finished for weeks—or even months—not because you stopped enjoying them, but because life simply got in the way? The best stories are patient. They’re always ready to welcome you back.
The Glamorous Life of an Independent Publisher
People often imagine independent publishing as a world of elegant offices, literary conversations, and endless coffee. The reality is rather more chaotic. One moment you’re the publisher, the next you’re fixing EPUBs, answering customer emails, wrestling with accounting reports, or hunting down invisible formatting errors. It’s a juggling act—but somehow, it’s still one of the most rewarding jobs there is.
When the Writer Has Already Explained It
Readers are remarkably good at putting two and two together. Yet many writers, worried that a character’s emotions or motivations might not be obvious enough, add a sentence explaining what the reader has already understood. Those explanations rarely add clarity—they usually weaken the scene. Here’s how to recognize when you’re explaining the obvious, and when an explanation genuinely earns its place.
The Recliner Is Not My Friend
Some writing obstacles aren’t plot problems or lack of inspiration—they’re upholstered. After unexpectedly finishing an entire chapter of Fall From Grace in a single day, I discovered the biggest difference wasn’t my writing. It was where I sat. The recliner I’d always considered a harmless pre-writing stop had quietly become the world’s most comfortable procrastination machine.
The Twelve Stages of Receiving Editorial Feedback
Every writer thinks the manuscript is in pretty good shape—right up until the editorial feedback arrives. From confidence and outrage to revision, gratitude, and complete memory loss, here are the twelve stages writers cycle through when an editor gets involved.